Yi Fen Yeh

Applying TPACK-P to a Teacher Education Program

We propose a teacher community called the learning module design team (LMDT) in which preservice teachers, in-service teachers, and science education researchers work together to enhance each other’s TPACK-Practical (TPACK-P). Within the teacher community, in-service teachers designed physics learning applications (APPs) and learning modules with their TPACK-P; preservice teachers then tested the APPs and implemented them into their microteaching. Designing these APPs and learning modules allow in-service teachers in the community to refine their TPACK-P, while implementing these artifacts develops preservice teachers’ TPACK-P. A professor who was also a physics teacher educator and science education researcher played the role of a facilitator, ensuring within- and between-group communication. Besides elaborating upon each other’s TPACK-P, the LMDT developed a total of 12 android APPs on multitouch tablets to help students better understand physics concepts such as spring resonance, slingshot physics, and friction. This chapter presents the design principles, functions, and features of the 12 APPs; it also describes how these teachers collaborated with each other within the community.

The TPACK-P Framework for Science Teachers in a Practical Teaching Context

TPACK refers to the knowledge construct that teachers rely on to facilitate their instruction with technology. In order to decompose what constitutes this knowledge construct, researchers have proposed and validated frameworks from different perspectives or for different purposes. However, no one has tried to develop a working model of TPACK within an actual teaching context such as science. Therefore, we recruited experts and experienced science teachers to participate in panels and used the Delphi survey technique to collect their ideas and develop consensus for the framework of TPACK-Practical (TPACK-P) that reflects how teachers applied TPACK while teaching science in their classrooms. A total of eight knowledge dimensions were identified as critical contributions to science teachers’ TPACK-P; 17 indicators were generated to further define the specifics of these knowledge dimensions. This framework of TPACK-P will give novice science teachers ideas about expert science teachers’ technology-infused instructional practices and inform science teacher educators about critical technological aspects that should be facilitated in science teacher education programs.

What Makes Teacher Students Become Official Teachers -- A Preliminary Exploration of Critical Predictors Based on Data Mining Techniques

This study tries to help answer some questions encountered by the decision makers of teacher training program: which factors are more critical to lead the teacher students to success, i, e, to become official teachers. A total of 2010 student records were collected and thousands of courses taken by the students are categorized into six knowledge types. A decision tree learned from these data with 23 attributes was able to inform which learning paths would lead to better chance of success.

Rubrics of TPACK-P for Teaching Science with ICTs

Advances in information communication technologies (ICTs) have diversified teacher instruction. The appropriateness of representation selections and learning activity designs involving ICTs is determined by teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge-practical (TPACK-P), a knowledge construct transformed and reinforced through different tasks in teaching. This study developed rubrics for evaluating preservice teachers’ TPACK-P, according to the proficiency levels and features identified by in-service teachers. We collected lesson plans and microteaching video clips of seven preservice teachers in order to verify the rubrics and explore how their TPACK-P was demonstrated in lesson plans and microteaching. Results revealed that the preservice teachers’ performances on lesson planning and microteaching were similar, with discrepancies of +/− 1 level on the rubrics. Their performances on teaching with ICTs were comparatively better in curriculum design and enactment than on assessment. It may not be difficult for preservice teachers to implement ICTs, but the real challenges are to use ICTs with considerations of students, content, and pedagogy. Teacher education programs are advised to pay attention to how meaningfully ICTs are used to support instruction, rather than simply counting the number of times ICTs are used.