For
my article reviews I was assigned to review “Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on
clinical Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments” and
“Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Learning Activity:
Curriculum-Based Technology Integration Reframed”.
In “Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on clinical
Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments” they discuss the
common themes and differences between blogs and final papers. The common themes
being reflection as a deliberate cognitive process that is used for the purpose
of analyzing connections and relationships. The study compared blogging
students to students who wrote end of the course reflective papers.
This study is favorable because of the similarities
between blogging and reflection papers. Such as the opportunity to habitually
reflect on the experiences and what they have learned. Also peers will have the
opportunity to read and respond to one-another’s reflections (like we do in
this class.).
During this study are they looked at 9 sections of 3
different courses. They were invited to be a part of the study. All of the
courses in this study included a clinical, classroom experience and were taken
by middle or secondary teachers. Two types of writing were collected:
reflections written in end of the course formal papers and reflections written
in blog posts. They wrote the reflections based on 4 different levels. The
first level was nonreflection (descriptive), then Understanding, reflection,
and then critical reflection.
The result of the study was that blogging allows students
to reflect systematically and publically among their peers increase their depth
of reflection.
The second article being “Technological Pedagogical
Content Knowledge: A Framework for
Teacher Knowledge” This article discusses TPACK. TPACK is a based learning
activity that successfully integrate technology into their lessons. TPACK
emphasizes the connections among technologies, and curriculum content. In this
article we are introduced to the idea of Technological Pedagogical Content
Knowledge (TPCK). The idea of TPCK is
brought to us by building on Shulman’s formulation of “pedagogical content
knowledge” and extends to the idea of teachers integrating technology into
their pedagogy. With TPCK teachers are guaranteed to cover three main
components of learning environments:
content, pedagogy, and technology.
Teachers today face many problems including only looking at technology
and now how it is used. The research
done in this article shows that, given opportunities to thoughtfully engage in
the design of educational technology, teachers showed tremendous growth in
their sensitivity to the complex interactions among content, pedagogy, and
technology.
Overall, TPCK is a great
framework for teacher knowledge. It will
especially help struggling teachers that are afraid to bring to much technology
into the classroom. TPCK may also
educate teachers to know as much information about technology to effectively
teach students. Like the article states,
TPCK may not be the best theory out there but it is better than no theory at
all.
Khan Academy
I watched a Khan academy
video on nouns. The video was very informative, however I feel it would be good
for junior high or high-school students. I feel that the information provided
is just a bit too advanced for elementary students.
Incorporations
for classroom
I feel that blogs are
good for junior high students and up. I do not feel that it would be a good
idea to have elementary students use blogs. Maybe a mock blog? However TPACK
would be useful in all classrooms of all ages.
Teacher education programs are trying to teach today’s preservice teachers how to use the wide range of technologies – from old-school software and tools such as PowerPoint, videos and laptops to those ubiquitous tablets and smartphones – as classroom tools, not just as social devices for communicating with friends or playing games.
ReplyDeleteBut because of rapid technological change, the need to fit more class requirements into a curriculum already filled with state-mandated courses, and the hiring practices of schools recruiting new teachers, many teachers colleges are finding it difficult to integrate technology education into their teacher preparation programs.
The result is a “to each its own” approach to teacher education, as the teaching colleges strive to work technology in without taking content and pedagogy out. Presently schools of education develop their own technology-based curricula that build on best practices in the field, in compliance with the recognized standards in the profession.
I did the research regarding TPACK in WVU and am applying and experimenting the Technology curriculum based on my research and the vision from our program. I hope all of you can implement what you have learn from TPACK as you become the teacher from my ongoing experiments in our class!