TPCK in preservice teachers

In finishing Chapter 11 of the Handbook for TPCK for Educators, and after the meeting with technology leaders at the higher education institutions around Maine my brain is really puzzling through some concepts. As I think through these ideas I am thinking in two different ways. The first has to do with preservice teacher education, which I do think is a different beast than in-service teacher education/professional development. Even the book articulates the fact that there will be fundamental differences in how people understand and move towards the TPCK model based on their own experiences and prior knowledge.

In thinking about my work with preservice teachers, the following list is a list of big ideas to keep in mind as I plan for future course work. I hope to help students

• develop an integrated knowledge base
• think strategically
• unleash creativity
• think critically
• "rethink, unlearn and relearn, change, revise, adapt" (p.225)
• Understand research as part of the profession of education
• Understand affordances and constraints about technology
• Plan for the details needed when working with technology - seeing the forest and the trees in planning
  
• Critical reflection
  

In order to accomplish these big goals I think I need to blend in more of these experiences and events to help students better develop in these areas.

• Using case studies
• Matrix planning - (p. 232) declarative, procedural, schematic, strategic vs. Content, Teaching and Student learning, Technology
• Have students articulate pedagogical choices
• Have them do more small group practice teaching and writing of that content

I feel like I have done a good job of bringing the students toward the center of the TPCK model, but a lot of that work has been done without the student realizing this. I realize I need to help students articulate the intersection, their ideas and their beliefs about the WHY it might work or works. By engaging in this discussion and reflection, and then articulation I would hope to help students build their advocacy skills that I think are so crucial for them as they enter the world of practicing educators.

New Literacies Are Deictic

In Chapter 4 of the TPCK Handbook for Educators Hughes and Scharber present two cases studies of English teachers and examine these against the TPCK model. They also suggest that the TPCK model can be further understood through the multiliteracies framework proposed by the New London Group. In this work they support the claim from Leu et al that new literacies are deictic, meaning they have context that is important in understanding.

Additionally in this chapter Hughes and Scarber argue that preservice teachers need to exposed to teaching within the TPCK model in school so that they will be able to apply this mode to their future classroom. An example given reminds me of the project that we did this fall with EDU 302 and EDU 388 students in developing the HeartBeat units. However I can now see that the way we approached this project was in using technology as a vehicle to present learning and not as a way to approach learning. In the future better application of the TPCK model could help to strengthen these preservice teachers conceptions of teaching with technology. I am excited to share these ideas with my colleagues.

Context, through all this reading seems to be rising to the surface as an important consideration for learning and using technology - social contexts and the context of the schools where learning is happening. I plan on continuing to follow this idea to see how others interpret the importance of context.

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deixis

Linguistic definition http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDeixis.htm