STAR TASK 2

 Hello! I am Elena Belver Morales and this week I performed the role of Star. Therefore, I will be presenting task 2, in which we were required to gather information about TPACK and ACAD Framework and recreate their features in a diagram.

What is TPACK and what is ACAD exactly? 

We will start by explaining that TPACK is a theory that represents the relationship between 3 basic concepts that are: Content, Pedagogy and Knowledge, and how they have to interact among them to achieve an efficient teaching.

The other main concept that we addressed in this task is ACAD. It is a framework centered in the activity of the classroom where we can set conditions that are likely to lead to the types of activities that we find valuable and the learning outcomes that we aim for.

Which are the essential TPACK elements and how do they interact with each other?

Now we will proceed to explain the essential TPACK elements. 

• Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) covers the core business of teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment and reporting. An awareness of common misconceptions and ways of looking at them, the importance of forging connections among different content-based ideas, students’ prior knowledge, alternative teaching strategies, and the flexibility that comes from exploring alternative ways of looking at the same idea or problem are all essential for effective teaching.

• Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) is an understanding of how teaching and learning can change when particular technologies are used in particular ways. This includes knowing the pedagogical affordances and constraints of a range of technological tools as they relate to disciplinarily and developmentally appropriate pedagogical designs and strategies.

• Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) is an understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence and constrain one another. They both have a deep historical relationship. Progress in fields as diverse as medicine, history, archeology, and physics have coincided with the development of new technologies that afford the representation and manipulation of data in new and fruitful ways.

Which are the essential ACAD elements and how do they interact with each other?

Regarding ACAD we must say it is activity-centered and it aims to support analysis and design of learning environments. 

The essential elements to achieve this are: set design, which refers to how we arrange the physical or virtual learning environment; epistemic design, which means proposing tasks for students; and social design, which involves making decisions on how people work together.

These three dimensions come together in support of learning and, as a result, emerging activity appears —the final structural element, which deals with acts of co-creation and co-configuration when learners are required to decide what to do. 

Emerging activity is the mediator that links the other elements to learning outcomes. Without this mechanism, that relationship could not happen.

How would TPACK be useful for you?

As teachers, the TPACK framework can be a very useful tool. Since technology is developing really fast and is being implemented in every field, it is very important to take this in mind in the field of education. In this century, education has suffered a great change, and in this year in particular we have lived this on the front line. However, we should consider that the concept of technology can be applied for analog and digital technology, the old one and the new one. We consider that a pencil and a software are both technologies. 

Therefore, it is principal for teachers to use the TPACK framework, especially nowadays because of the demand of using the new technology in class. This framework provides an understanding of how content, pedagogy and technology interact with each other. Teachers should understand the base of their discipline in order to be effective. If not, students can misunderstand the information and create an incorrect framework of the concept. Moreover, teachers must know methodologies and techniques of teaching and learning, that is, they must have pedagogical knowledge. And related to that, they should have pedagogical content knowledge, which consists of the transformation of the subject matter for teaching, this transformation is different for everyone depending on their interpretations. Finally, they should have technological knowledge, this content is always changing and the definitions of it can be outdated incredibly fast.

Having all this in mind, it is evident that teachers should know the connections between the components and how they interact with each other. Here it is where the TPACK framework takes part. It provides a great range of options of how technology can be applied in education considering the other elements too. It gives the opportunities for teachers to have another point of view of how technology can be applied in education, not just like an “add-on”. In order to be an effective teacher and achieve an effective teaching, it is crucial to understand the TPACK framework.

How is TPACK related to ACAD?

In the first place, it is important to know that TPACK is how the three domains; the knowledge of content, pedagogy and technology work together in a very difficult way to support effective teaching.  

In addition, it's also relevant to know that ACAD is an emergent activity, that includes the set, epistemic and social design, that it is what happens at the time of learning when tools, tasks and people come together in support of learning. 

Once we know what are TPACK and ACAD, we can conclude that TPACK is close to ACAD because TPACK is produced when you, as a teacher have a technological knowledge, try to transmit to your students your knowledge and knows how to teach, at the same time you have developed these abilities, it's also important and necessary to have into account the environment in which you develop your courses, the tools, artifacts and resources you introduce to support learning. You also propose some suggestions about good things for students to do, besides deciding if people are going to work together or individually.

• Conclusion:

To sum up, both concepts are related between them, since if you want to be understood by your students and also to provide an effective learning you have to represent technological knowledge, you also have to know what and how you are going to transmit this knowledge to your students, that´s TPACK. At the same time you have to consider where, what interesting tasks and who you are going to teach, thus everything is included in the context of how to teach in an effective way in the context of school.

Is there any important part of the Teacher’s action which hasn’t been included in the TPACKACAD model yet? Is TPACK-ACAD sufficient to understand a teacher’s job? 

After having acknowledged all these concepts we were required to consider whether the TPACKACAD model lacks any part of the Teacher’s action. 

Personally, we believe that it is necessary to take into account that a large part of the quality of education depends on the quality of the teacher and them having the personality needed for motivating students and responding to their needs, dealing with parents and other colleagues, as well as continue working on their professional career and keep improving their teaching skills.  Therefore, it is not enough as there are other important factors the Framework is not including.

We hope you have enjoyed it! Thanks for paying attention to our presentation.