Contextual considerations in TPACK: Collaborative processes in initial teacher education

Abstract

The importance of educational technologies continues to be revealed in contemporary classrooms and has consequently resulted in calls for those in initial teacher education programs to engage with contexts in which they can develop and demonstrate their technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK). Despite TPACK being one of the world's most frequently used frameworks for understanding teachers’ technology integration (Hew et al., 2019; Niederhauser & Lindström, 2018), conceptualisations of the contexts in which pre-service teachers develop and demonstrate their TPACK are often confined to physical locations (Phillips et al., 2016; Phillips, 2016b; Rosenberg & Koehler, 2015). This research takes a broader consideration of ‘context’ through explorations of empirical data from a study of Australian pre-service teachers (PSTs) collaboratively planning, delivering and reflecting on team-taught, online, high school STEM classes in an attempt to answer the research question driving this research: What contextually situated learning process shape pre-service teachers’ TPACK development? Data from a series of semi-structured interviews revealed changes in the ways in which pre-service teachers conceptualised their TPACK. More importantly, this study found that the situated learning processes of induction, transferability, positive interdependence, synchronicity, and negotiability (Johnson and Johnson, 1994; Dillenbourg, 1999) were particularly important in explaining how participants understood and explained their TPACK acquisition and enactment. This research also highlights the importance of intentional design decisions by teacher educators to consider broader conceptualisations of ‘contexts’ which illustrate the importance of situated and collaborative learning opportunities to shape pre-service teachers TPACK. Importantly, these designs in this setting also empowered pre-service teachers to take risks with their praxis as they reported a feeling of emotional safety when teaching with a liminal peer. Consequently, the power of collaborative processes and interactions were revealed as new contextual considerations in the TPACK framework.