Informing the Design of Teacher Education Programs: The Need for Developing Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Abstract

This paper challenges the assumptions that have informed the design of teacher education programs which have focused on the development of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. It remains elusive to convince some teacher educators and teacher education authorities that teacher education programs designed using pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is no longer adequate in the 21st Century. The authors argue that the conceptualisation of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) and now referred to as TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, 2008: AACTE, 2008) is both appropriate and essential to inform teacher education. Through a summary of a 2009 TPACK audit of final year teacher education students, this paper demonstrates the need for a stronger emphasis in programs to develop the TPACK confidence of future teachers.