TPACK explained simply (hopefully!)

What is TPACK?

TPACK is a fine example of teacherese. It's an acronym for Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. And it looks like this (click on the image for a larger version):

Before your brain starts to melt, allow me to try and explain it in a different way.


TPACK is the culmination of a teacher's knowledge of content, along with the knowledge of pedagogies,
PLUS the knowledge of technology, and how to use technology to deliver the lesson. This focus on technology, while relatively recent, is just as important as the other two.

Traditionally, the focus has been on the first two: content and pedagogy.

Content is the knowledge. It's very important to know what you're teaching, right? You'd look like a goose if you stood in front of a class and tried to teach something you knew nothing about. You have to know your stuff.

Also, a smart teacher has a good knowledge of how to deliver that content to their class of learners, and understands how the learners learn. It's possible to know a vast amount of knowledge, but if you don't have the right strategies to transfer it to the malleable minds of the students in front of you, that knowledge is useless. This is pedagogy.

I know plenty of musicians who have had a crack at teaching at one point or another in their careers. They got sick of working nights, or needed some extra cash. So they figured that since they knew music really well, teaching would be a doddle. Just get in there, show them some stuff, take their money, and send them on their way. Rinse and repeat for an endless profit machine.

Or at least they thought so.

They didn't last very long, because they implicitly expected their students to be on the same level as them. They had no concept that their students may learn differently to them. They also had no strategies for breaking down the big ideas and concepts into smaller ideas, starting simple, and building on these smaller ideas to create bigger, more complex ideas (educators like to call this "scaffolding"). They either lost all their students, whose brains were going numb, or they got frustrated with their students' "inability to keep up," and threw in the towel.

The third aspect of TPACK, which is regarded as being just as essential these days, is knowledge of how to use available Technology, and how to incorporate it into the lessons. Technology can be things as simple as whiteboard and marker (referred to as "transparent" technology) or it can be the latest computer modelling software.
A good teacher's knowledge of technology allows them to evaluate each form of technology available, and select the form that will most effectively help to deliver the content of the lesson. Technology also assists in providing better context for the material, which will result in more students engaging with the material, and learning more as a result.
Technology can enhance the content, through new ways of visualizing, or through animated clips rather than static movement. Technology can also enhance the pedagogy as well, by changing the way that teaching occurs. It may be able to help to address learning imbalances within the class. Technology also opens up opportunities for new ways of assessing the learners, and reporting on the findings.

TPACK itself, though, is the combination of all three aspects. It recognizes that all three of the components are intertwined and relate to each other. When one aspect changes, the others musct change and adapt to compensate. For example if a computer crashes, the technology (and probably the pedagogy) must change in order to deliver the content effectively.

TPACK is a dynamic and complex paradigm. There are many considerations that come into play when this framework is implemented, but it also seems to be a step in the right direction.