The TPACK Framework and Adaptive Learning (Thing 35)

The TPACK Framework

In order to understand the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, I had to first understand Lee Shulman's "pedagogical content knowledge" idea. This article is about science teachers, but it explains the nature of Shulman's work generally before going into specifics about the science curriculum. He believed that teachers needed to be well-versed in both pedagogy and their content area, which is a balance that seems logical and necessary to me, but perhaps it was not always that way. This quotation from the article sums it up well:

"Pedagogical content knowledge is a type of knowledge that is unique to teachers, and is based on the manner in which teachers relate their pedagogical knowledge (what they know about teaching) to their subject matter knowledge (what they know about what they teach). It is the integration or the synthesis of teachers' pedagogical knowledge and their subject matter knowledge that comprises pedagogical content knowledge."  

So, it's not enough to to know how to teach, and it's not enough to know about your content area: teachers have to know both of those things. For example, authors know how to read and write, but they might not know how to teach people about how to do them - they are missing the pedagogy. Conversely, someone might be an expert on John Dewey or Carleton Washburne, but they might not have the information about a subject to teach - they are missing the content knowledge. This blog has a great visual to explain:

TPACK takes that idea one step further by including technology: it's an update to Shulman's idea. Not only should teachers have pedagogical and content knowledge, they should also have technological knowledge. That technological knowledge should include pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge as well: WHY should we include technology, and HOW are we going to do that? We need to know how to use technology, how to teach it to the students, and why it makes sense to include the technology in our lessons and habits. Below is an image that explains this from http://www.tpack.org/:

Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org

Honestly, I'm sure I've heard of Lee Shulman before (my undergraduate program was very focused on pedagogy), and I absolutely agree with his idea, but I didn't remember that it was him who coined the phrase until I started researching the TPACK framework. And I had never heard of the TPACK framework until I saw it on the list of hot topics in education provided for us, but it makes total sense to me. This is a belief I have held since the push for technology incorporation started in earnest about five years ago: there is nothing wrong with updating our teaching methods to incorporate new technology as long as it is not a distraction and actually improves our methods and students' understanding. 

The part that I like the most about this TPACK method is that it includes both pedagogical and content knowledge for the technology aspect. It is so important for us to keep in mind why we are incorporating technology and what it can bring it our students, NOT to do it just for the sake of including something new and shiny in our lessons. This article does a great job of linking the technology to the five areas of language arts instruction; it's from this website that shows how the TPACK model applies to several different subject areas.

Here is a video by Common Sense Media that explains TPACK in the classroom. There are also a few more below; not all of them are flashy, but they all do a good job of showing examples of the framework or defining the problem. They all also include the fact that the dotted circle around the framework that is labeled "context" needs to be taken seriously: this looks different based on different situations.

Adaptive Learning

I had no idea what adaptive learning was before I saw the definition; this is one of the phrases that comes up a lot in ed tech conversations, but it didn't meaning anything to me because I didn't have any examples of it in real life. EdSurge.com defines "adaptive learning" like this:

"Adaptive learning is an education technology that can respond to a student's interactions in real-time by automatically providing the student with individual support."

I think that some of the assessments we give or used to (maybe the STAR?) are adaptive. I know that the website FreeRice.com is adaptive because it gives you easier or more difficult questions based on how many questions you answer correctly or incorrectly in a row. I use FreeRice in my classroom occasionally, and the kids like it - I think part of it is that it responds to their current level of vocabulary and challenges them appropriately based on that.

So, I am familiar with the concept of adaptive learning even though I didn't know the phrase. I think this happens a lot in education, especially today, because there seem to be a lot of "buzzwords" that people glom on to when discussing education, particularly when it comes to the integration of technology. For example, I didn't know the TPACK model, but it was exactly what I have been exploring in the class and in my own teaching.

Adaptive learning, just like TPACK, is not just about including more technology in your lesson for the sake of including technology. This article details the roadblocks and misconceptions around adaptive learning as well as how we can overcome them. One of the most important points about understanding adaptive learning is that it isn't just about giving different questions if a student gets an answer right or wrong, so my earlier comment about FreeRice might have only been half right. Mary Cullinane, quoted in the article linked earlier in this paragraph, explains it like this:

"True adaptivity isn't just about understanding that the kid got the question wrong, but why the kid got the question wrong." 

Again, this seems intuitive. It doesn't help if you know that a student missed questions 1,4, and 7; it only helps if you know what skills were assessed in those questions and why the student is struggling with those skills. So adaptive learning is not just about a program that changes the difficulty of questions based on what a student gets right or wrong. It is about understanding what students are getting right and wrong and about how technology can help us address those skills that the students are not quite getting. It is about giving feedback to both students and teachers in real time so both parties can understand what is not understood and why, so it necessarily informs our teaching and learning.

Here's a video from Pearson (they make money off of educational technology, so consider the source) that explains it in a slightly creepy way but makes a good point about data.

Here's Donald Clark explaining how adaptive learning algorithms are already affecting our life experiences. It's clear and concise, and ever since my year at the University of Edinburgh, I've been a sucker for a Scottish accent teaching me something! :)

 

Here's a "Knewton Knerd" explaining the differences between personalized, differentiated, and adaptive. Again, they're a company selling products, so consider the source.

There are lots more videos about both TPACK and adaptive learning available online, and I trust your Googling skills, so you can find them on your own. :)

The future of K-12 education is definitely going to be affected by both the TPACK framework and adaptive learning. Already, both of them are playing bigger roles every year in classrooms across the country. I love the TPACK framework because it makes me think about what technology I'm including in the classroom and why, and I like adaptive learning because it pushes me to think about what each individual student needs and how I can address those needs. It seems like these two ideas are essential to teaching in the 21st century.