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SUSE-Dissertation Support Grant (DSG) Application 2009-20010Cover Sheet
Name: Karin Forssell
Application Date: Month/Year November, 2009
Phone number: (650) 274-1054 Email: [email protected]
Program: PSE / LSTD
Title of Study: Learning to Teach with Technology: An examination of the conditions under which teachers develop Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Amount Requesting: $5,990
Re-applicant: Yes X No (Note: if you applied for an RTG grant you are a reapplicant)
Primary Advisor: Brigid Barron Email: [email protected]
Dissertation Committee Members: Shelley Goldman
Hilda Borko
Dissertation Proposal Approved: Date: September 14, 2009 Outcome: Revisions
Expected Quarter/Year of dissertation defense: Spring, 2010
I have had my primary advisor or one of my committee members read and approve of this grant proposal for SUSE-DSG funds:
Your Signature (electronic): Karin Forssell
Faculty Support (must be by email attachment to [email protected]): The faculty email (attachment) should indicate that they have read and approve of this proposal for SUSE-DSG funds (see faculty support guidelines in instructions).
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Billions of dollars have been spent to bring digital technologies to classrooms in the
United States, yet technology's potential to support student learning is largely untapped. We
know that using technology with students is complex; it requires understanding how to use
technology, in a specific context, to teach a particular concept or topic. This study sets out to
understand the conditions under which teachers learn this special technological knowledge.
Recognizing that teachers play a critical role in bringing technologies to students, many
researchers have sought to describe the resources available to teachers who use technology to
support classroom instruction. High-use teachers typically have more access to equipment, more
experience, and more support than their low-use colleagues (e.g. Becker, 2000). The focus of
those studies, however, is on teacher use rather than teacher learning. In this study I explore how
teachers learn to use new technologies with students. Furthermore, not all teachers with access
to equipment and resources choose to use new technologies (Cuban, 2001). I seek to understand
why they make their decisions when it comes to learning new technologies for teaching.
My focus in this study is on technologies that directly support student learning of content
in the school context. Teaching with such technologies is a complex endeavor; it is different
from “simply” knowing how to use a given tool. Teachers must learn to evaluate and implement
the technology as it applies to their own teaching context and content area. This special
knowledge that teachers rely on when they use technology to support student learning has been
dubbed technological pedagogical content knowledge, or TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006).
TPACK is the understanding of how technology, pedagogy and content interact to support
student learning (Figure 1).
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Figure 1. The TPACK Framework
Recent work in the field of developing technological expertise in adolescents highlights
the critical role of a social network (often parents) in supporting learning (Barron, Martin,
Takeuchi, & Fithian, 2009). I use the TPACK framework to focus my attention on the teachers’
network across their “learning ecologies” (Barron, 2006), the physical and virtual settings in
which they learn, across contexts related to pedagogy (school/district and professional
organizations), content (disciplinary work environments), and technology (home and online).
The nature of the TPACK suggests, and pilot studies support (Forssell, 2009), that teachers will
benefit greatly from the support of their colleagues, who have grappled with the issues related to
using a new technology in a particular subject and grade level, with a specific group of students
in a unique school context.
I also build on the premise that teachers make choices about what to learn. As Larry
Cuban writes in Oversold and Underused, “The beliefs and values that teachers hold drive many
of the choices they make in the classroom” (2001, p. 169). Many prior studies have documented
relationships between teachers’ pedagogical content beliefs and classroom practices and student
learning outcomes (e.g. Peterson, Fennema, Carpenter, & Loef, 1989). The relationship between
teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and technology use have also been documented, showing a
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relationship between constructivist teaching orientations and higher levels of technology use in
the classroom (e.g. Becker, 2000). Having established that pedagogical content beliefs relate to
classroom practice, and that pedagogical beliefs relate to technology use, there is a need to
explore how beliefs about pedagogy, content, and technology relate to the effective use of
technology to support student learning. The TPACK framework is unique in its emphasis on the
content-relevant use of technology in teaching, and provides a framework for targeting specific
beliefs about technology use in schools.
Figure 2. TPACK development in a Learning Ecologies Framework
My interest in understanding the relationship of experience, material and social resources,
and beliefs to TPACK development leads to the following research questions.
1. Experience. What is the nature of the relationship between teachers’ prior experience
with technologies, their classroom teaching experience, and their TPACK ratings? Hypothesis:
Teachers with both higher levels of classroom experience and more prior experience with
technology will have the highest TPACK ratings.
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2. Resources. How do teachers with different profiles vary in their learning ecologies
(the material and social resources they access, across physical and virtual settings related to
technology, pedagogy, and content)? Hypothesis: Teachers with higher levels of TPACK will
report more resources overall and more types of support.
3. Beliefs. What is the nature of the relationship between teachers’ TPACK and their
beliefs about technology? Hypothesis: Teachers’ TPACK will be related to the beliefs they
mention when deliberating about learning a new technology for teaching.
Methods
The point of this survey… what am I going after? This study has a two-stage phase
mixed-method design. Phase 1. Because TPACK builds on pedagogical content knowledge, an
invitation to participate in an online survey will be sent to over 2,000 National Board Certified
Teachers throughout California. Larger scale survey data from accomplished teachers will map
out ??? the differing characteristics of the teachers we seek to teach: their beliefs, the nature of
their prior experiences with technology and teaching, and the ways they access existing learning
resources inside and outside of school. First person accounts, obtained through interviews, will
provide an emic perspective on teachers’ belief systems, workplace experiences, and their
perspectives on professional learning.
Phase 2. Because TPACK builds on pedagogical content knowledge, an invitation to
participate in an online survey will be sent to over 2,000 National Board Certified Teachers
throughout California. This is expected to recruit teachers who have all been certified as being
accomplished teachers, but with a range of teaching and technology experience. Depending on
survey respondents, I will choose level and subject area for interview focus.
Figure 3. Study Design
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Low TPACK High TPACK
More experiencedLess experienced
ExperienceLearning ResourcesBeliefs
Based on survey responses, targeted teachers in each of four profile groups (defined with
respect to teaching experience and TPACK) will be invited to participate in an interview (Figure
3). Interviews, conducted in the participant’s classroom, are expected to take approximately one
hour, and will be audio-taped. Interactions with computer-based scenarios will be captured with
screen capture software. With permission, I will take photographs of the classroom environment
and the teacher.
Measures and Planned Analyses
1. Experience. What is the nature of the relationship between teachers’ prior experience
with technologies, their classroom teaching experience, and their TPACK ratings? Teacher
expertise will be defined with respect to the number of years of classroom teaching experience.
Teachers’ histories of experience with technology will be examined through a self-report
measures of prior production activity (Barron, 2004). Interviews will include a historical
retrospective of teachers’ experience with technology. TPACK will be assessed using a
self-report measure adapted from one created for pre-service teachers (Schmidt, et al, 2009).
Open-ended questions relating to past technology use will be coded for references to pedagogy
and content, providing an alternative insight into teacher TPACK.
The initial analysis will examine correlations between TPACK, teaching experience, and
technology experience variables derived from survey responses. Four profiles will then be
created using median splits on TPACK and classroom experience variables. Analyses of
variance will be performed to examine the differences between the four groups in relation to the
measures of technology experience. Interviews with teachers in the four target profiles will be
used to generate learning histories to illuminate patterns of access and experience across time
and settings for the four profiles.
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2. Resources. How do teachers with different profiles vary in their learning ecologies?
Participants in the survey will list the people who are important to their learning to use
technologies for teaching, with the nature of the support and their relationship to the participant.
Participants in the interviews will be asked to identify social and material resources that support
their learning, and to reflect on the nature of that support on their learning. They will be
prompted to consider different types of support and relationships, generated in pilot work in this
area (Forssell, 2009).
The number of resources, number of roles filled, and relationships from survey responses
will be tallied and compared between the four profile groups using statistical tests such as
ANOVAs. These data will provide a backdrop against which to paint in-depth portraits of
individual teachers’ networks. Interviews with teachers will provide deeper understanding of
members of their learning network across physical and virtual settings.
3. Beliefs. What is the nature of the relationship between teachers’ TPACK and their
beliefs about technology? Using the TPACK model as a framework, I have created measures of
beliefs related to technology’s intersection with pedagogy and content. Four scales ask teachers
to indicate their degree of agreement with statements about technology (T), its relationship to
students (TP), to content (TC), and to student learning of content (TPC). Survey participants will
also be asked to describe implementations of new technologies in the past—both successful and
unsuccessful—and to reflect on why they chose to learn them. In interviews, teachers will be
asked to explain, “Given that time is a limited resource, and technology takes time to learn, how
do you make decisions about when to learn to use a new technology?” Interview participants
will also respond to a scenario in which they are prompted to reason about whether and how they
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would consider using a particular tool. All these questions are expected to elicit statements about
beliefs relevant to technology.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis will be applied to the items developed to measure
technology-relevant beliefs for teaching to test their applicability to the TPACK constructs. The
resulting factors will be used as the basis for scale variables. T-tests will examine the differences
in beliefs between High- and Low-TPACK teachers. In addition, responses to the all open-ended
questions about decisions to learn new technologies for teaching (survey and interview) will be
coded for the presence of statements about positive and negative beliefs related to technology
and its relationship to pedagogy and content. Chi-square analyses will examine the relationship
between the dichotomous High-/Low-TPACK variable and the types of beliefs mentioned in the
open-ended questions.
Significance
Findings from this study will help us understand the conditions under which teachers
develop the technological pedagogical content knowledge needed to support student learning
with new technologies, which contributes to scholarship in at least three ways. 1) With this
understanding, teacher educators will be better able to differentiate their instruction, as well as
develop models of professional development opportunities that intentionally build social capital,
belief systems, and learning resources that can sustain learning and help all teachers to harness
the power of new technologies in thoughtful, effective ways to support student learning. 2)
Designers of educational technologies often focus on the student as the user, without attention to
the role of the teacher in orchestrating the students’ learning experience. Recognizing teachers
as users and learners, and describing the complexity of environments in which these learning
technologies are used, will inform better designs of technologies designed for use by students in
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classroom. 3) Finally, TPACK is only one of many ever-evolving knowledge bases relevant to
teachers. Indeed, quite a few different specializations can be layered on the PCK framework,
such as for example literacy or assessment. Each might reasonably require unique
understandings of interactions with pedagogy and content. By examining one interesting
instance of teacher learning, in the fast-changing field of new technologies, this study will
contribute to a larger understanding of the factors that influence teachers’ decisions to learn.
References
Barron, B. (2004). Learning ecologies for technological fluency: Gender and experience differences. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 31(1), 1-36.
Barron, B. (2006) Interest and Self-Sustained Learning as Catalysts of Development: A Learning Ecology Perspective. Human Development, 49, 193-224.
Barron, B., Martin, C.K., Takeuchi, L., & Fithian, R. (2009). Parents as Learning Partners in the Development of Technological Fluency. International Journal of Learning and Media, 1(2), 55-77.
Becker, H. J. (2000). Findings from the teaching, learning, and computing survey: Is Larry Cuban right? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8, n51. Retrieved on December 15, 2007 from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n51.
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in classrooms, 1980-2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Forssell, K.S. (2009, July). More roles and resources: Learning to teach with technology. Presented at the NSF site visit to the LIFE Science of Learning Center, Seattle, WA.
Mishra, P. & Koehler, M.J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.
Peterson, P., Fennema, E., Carpenter, T.P. & Loef, M. (1989) Teachers' pedagogical content beliefs in mathematics. Cognition and Instruction, 6(1), 1-40.
Schmidt, D., Baran, E., Thompson, A., Koehler, M., Mishra, P. & Shin, T. (2009). Examining Preservice Teachers' Development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge in an Introductory Instructional Technology Course. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2009 (pp. 4145-4151). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/31308.
Research timeline
November 2009 Finalize survey items. Launch survey online. Write chapter on pilot studies.December Begin survey analysis, identify target interviewees, modify IRB. Write up
survey findings. Meet with committee to finalize interviews.January 2010 Prepare for interviews. Continue to write.February Conduct interviews. Have interviews transcribed. Begin coding interviews.
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Continue to write.March - May Analyse, write, repeat. Defend.June 2010 Revise.
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Budget
Item Notes Source Anticipated Cost
Survey Qualtrics online survey tool
SUSE site license
$ -
Interviews Travel to participants (16)
Approx $250 / day, for airfare/milage, hotel, per diem. Interviewees will be selected based on survey responses, and are expected to come from all over California. Ideally I can combine several on the same day or at least in the same trip.
DSG $2,000
Thank-you gifts 16@Stanford Mug + $50 DSG $760 PZM microphone For high quality audio,
which lowers transcription costs.
DSG $70
Digital voice recorder Better than a bunch of tapes. DSG $60 Digital camera Photos of classroom. personal $250 Screen capture
softwareFor capturing interaction with new software (scenario)
personal $80
Analysis Transcription 16 interviews @ $100/60 min. A few interviews may go over.
DSG $2,400
SPSS Statistical package YouthLAB $ - NVivo Transcript coding software YouthLAB $ - Hard drive For all audio and analysis
files.DSG $200
Computer personal $2,000Other Presentation at
conferencesAERA, ICLS, SITE DSG $500
Hard work and dedication
personal priceless!
TOTAL DSG:
$5,990
TOTAL ALL:
$8,320
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Qualifications
Relevant coursework
EDUC 160 Introduction To Statistical Methods In EducationEDUC 350A, B, C Research Practicum In Psychological Studies In Education EDUC 401A Mini Courses In Methodology: Statistical Packages For The Social Sciences EDUC 250A Statistical Analysis In Educational ResearchEDUC 251C Statistical Analysis In Educational Research: Applied Multivariate Analysis EDUC 316 Social Network Analysis
Relevant experience
Research Assistant. Dr. Brigid Barron’s youthLAB project, 2006-2009Participated in data gathering, analysis and writing up findings of studies of adolescents’ technological fluency. Methods include statistical analyses, interview coding, and linguistic analyses (word counts).
Research Assistant. Dr. Brigid Barron’s Bermuda Project, 2005-2006Gathered information on assessments of technological fluency.
Research Collaborator. Dr. Brigid Barron’s Learning Ecologies Surveys 2003-2005Classroom teacher working with Dr. Brigid Barron on surveys of students’ technological fluency experiences and attitudes.
Technology Coordinator. Palo Alto Unified School District, 2001 to presentAs site technology mentor and leader of technology professional development, designed and conducted surveys and interviews of middle school teachers.
Teacher. Palo Alto Unified School District, 1992 to 1997 and 1999 to 2005
National Board Certified Teacher, Career and Technical Education (2003)
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