TPACK Professional Development; Reflection

This reflection is based on the assignment ‘design a TPACK professional development’, which a have made with Simone van der Donk, Linda Duteweerd and Mariette Hetjes.

Brainstorm

In the first brainstorm session with the group we thought of the target group teachers, but after a few discussions, we changed this target group a little to student teachers.

We taught that the best way of changing a attitude towards technology, is to start at the beginning, namely the teacher training college. But we didn’t want to stress out the student teachers more, by making a professional development for them. Perhaps it even didn’t count as a professional development. We found it more effective to aim at the teachers on the teacher training college. They are the first examples of the student teachers and are teaching them. When the target group was decided, we quickly were agreed that the lesson plan form is THE way of changing the thinking of teachers in general. After the four years of education on the teacher training college, (student) teachers are automatically applying the lesson steps learned on the lesson plan form. But also are applying the organizational, pedagogical en content matter steps, like materials, time, pedagogical approach and goals.

If this lesson plan form is being enriched by TPACK, the future teachers will automatically think more of integrating technology and perhaps even stimulate the other teachers on the school, where they get a job. When aiming at the student teachers, the target group (and eventually the outcomes) is larger and the spreading of TPACK is larger, because they all do their internships on different schools and finally are working on different schools. I think the effect is much larger than having teachers on one school as your target group. On the other hand I also believe that the visible changes in education can be seen on a longer term, because you are only developing the student teachers differently.

But with only one simple change, integrating TPACK in the lesson plan form, student teachers will take technology more into account.

Process of designing

When our argumentation of the chosen target group and content of the professional development was very close, we started with a general framework for our professional development. During the first part of the real part of designing, I first thought about the Colour Theory. This theory categorizes different types of people by colours. In short:

Yellow: power

Blue: Thinking/planning

Red: Passion

Green: Together and growing

White: Openness, freedom

The reason why this was popping in my mind, was the obvious differences in our group. First, we were a group with different backgrounds (like teachers, educational designer etc.), which emerged in the way of thinking (theoretical and practical). Second, we were a group of different people, there weren’t two of the same colour. This was a real strength of our group, also because no one of our group was afraid to show this role and the collaboration went flexible and automatically. This last point arose from the fact that three of the four group members already worked around two years together (because in general, it was the group of ‘’the working people’’). So, I felt the collaboration went fine and fast.

The high effectiveness of the group was also a result of a practical assignment. We all could ‘lose our egg’ (if this is an expression in English) in this assignment, three of us in practical sense and one in creative sense. This resulted in theoretical tight professional development.

I also was very pleased of my choice in the final assignment, the professional development, because I daily think about lesson plans and now I could highlight a different view in education. Not in the classroom, but behind the scenes of education. An advantage was my experience as a teacher, especially when we made the concrete plan for the training and the rest of the professional development. Teachers are doers, are not motivated by text and small talk, don’t have a lot of time to spend and are critical about innovations, because they are made daily. That’s why our plan of starting directly form the teacher training college doesn’t make the life of the teacher even heavier. I still have all the steps of a lesson memorized in my head and I will assume that I’m not an exception.

Taken all this into account, we thought about a very practical professional development. No long lectures, no ready information and no fixed ending. The teachers are responsible for in concrete content of the professional development and we, as educational designers, are responsible for the framework and pedagogical approaches to stimulate these teachers in their process. And an advantage was, that we could ask ourselves (during every phase of the professional development) ‘how would I experience this?’. Very instructive!

Experience with TPACK

Almost every day, and with almost every course I’m thinking, am I working TPACK based. As a teacher ánd a ICT coordinator, I hope I can figure as an example to my fellow teachers on my school (and on every school related to our upper school management). Especially on the pedagogical technological knowledge. I experience this part of the TPACK model as the most challenging. I also experience this as a core part of integrating technology in education. Which pedagogical approaches are easy suitable for technology, so I can show other how easy it can be. This is also an important part of integrating technology in education. Having experience in using technology, seeing how easy it can be. A real eye-opener can be a collegial consultation. Just by watching other teachers, others see how easy it can be. A first step in integrating technology is breaking the barrier of how hard it is. Another barrier is knowledge, which can be broken by training/professional development, like this assignment is presenting. Another requirement is vision. The school (leader) needs a vision on integrating technology (TPACK), so a teacher is not on his own, but there’s a obvious line within the school. Also the pupils will benefit, when it has a permanent place in the teaching of teachers. Education is more attractive, more interactive, reaches more pupils, is more surprising and is more effective, but education should always be pupils-centered. Using technology can not by a goal on itself. This can only be an advantage for a school in a time where schools suffer from too few new pupils. They need to be more attractive for parents. TPACK can help schools to survive these hard times of cuts and drop of children.