Having successfully defended my dissertation and submitted all of the required paperwork, I am now ready to share my dissertation with everyone. The format is a bit unusual because I used a set of techniques, known as conceptual analysis, which have not been widely used in education, much less educational technology research. The project was extremely enlightening and I look forward to feedback from everyone who reads it. I am also working on writing several articles describing the results of my dissertation that will be submitted for publication in a few weeks.
You can access the full text of my dissertation at my personal website or on the TPACK wiki.
Suzy
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
So, it's done. I've submitted the final draft of my dissertation to my committee and will defend on July 1st. I reworked it a bit more after the last draft, moving my process into the methods chapter and making chapter 4 all about the preliminary results. Then chapter 5 is my new elaborated TPACK model and chapter 6 is the conclusion. I think it's pretty cool, but we'll see in about a week!
I am now most nervous about the questions my committee might ask me in the defense. I have no idea what to prepare for. I finished my coursework several years ago, so while I understand the concepts from the courses I couldn't necessarily give any specific details about my courses. I also don't know how thoroughly I need to review the literature from my chapter 2 or whether they'll mostly focus on chapter 5. I've asked my chair if he can provide some guidance, so we'll see what he says.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Putting it all together
I just finished putting everything together in one document for the first time. Kind of invigorating, but there's still a lot of work to do. I especially need to go through and clean up my APA styling. I also need to make sure all of my references are there and cited correctly. My biggest question is how to handle the tenses. I wrote the first three chapters in future tense because I hadn't done the study yet when I wrote them. Do I revise that to past tense now? I'm waiting to hear back from my chair on that. Maybe I'll ask my editor, too.
I'm also waiting to hear back from my chair on whether I can send out my results chapter to some of the people I interviewed for review. That chapter has the new model as well as three case studies that illustrate the constructs and their boundaries. One thing I said I would do in my prospectus was send those cases out for review by others in the field. So I need to get that done. I was supposed to do it a week ago, but with the major changes we made to the results section and the new model, I just wasn't ready. But I really need to send those out today and get quick feedback on them, so I hope I hear from my chair soon.
I also had the rug pulled out from under me a bit yesterday when one of my committee members suddenly announced that he will be out of the country June 20-30, which is exactly when I was planning to defend. Now I have to hope that my dean at UVU will allow me to defend on July 1st as my contract said I would have defende BY July 1st. Needless to say, I'm a bit anxious right now.
I'm really proud of and excited about what I've done here and hope everyone else will be, too. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is nice but also scary. To get my mind off of it, I'm going to go give a conference presentation about effective blogging in higher education. Fun for me!
I'm also waiting to hear back from my chair on whether I can send out my results chapter to some of the people I interviewed for review. That chapter has the new model as well as three case studies that illustrate the constructs and their boundaries. One thing I said I would do in my prospectus was send those cases out for review by others in the field. So I need to get that done. I was supposed to do it a week ago, but with the major changes we made to the results section and the new model, I just wasn't ready. But I really need to send those out today and get quick feedback on them, so I hope I hear from my chair soon.
I also had the rug pulled out from under me a bit yesterday when one of my committee members suddenly announced that he will be out of the country June 20-30, which is exactly when I was planning to defend. Now I have to hope that my dean at UVU will allow me to defend on July 1st as my contract said I would have defende BY July 1st. Needless to say, I'm a bit anxious right now.
I'm really proud of and excited about what I've done here and hope everyone else will be, too. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is nice but also scary. To get my mind off of it, I'm going to go give a conference presentation about effective blogging in higher education. Fun for me!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A total overhaul
After I got everything written last week, my chair challenged me to find a better way to organize everything. I began by sorting the TCK examples into examples of how technology can represent content, how technology can generate new content, and how content can transform technology. This proved somewhat difficult as there really aren't examples of teachers' knowledge of how content transforms technology and there were very few examples of teachers' knowledge of how technology generates new content.
I also sorted the TPK section into different different pedagogical strategies, namely motivation, communication, visualization, and classroom management.
My chair suggested that I use the chapter by Magnusson, Krajcik, and Borko in Gess-Newsome and Lederman's "Examining Pedagogical Content Knowledge" to organize the TPACK section. In this chapter, they talk about subject- and topic-specific pedagogical strategies. So I sorted everything according to that.
We wanted to further illuminate the distinctions between the constructs, though, so as I looked closer at their definition of topic-specific strategies, I noticed that they listed two things: activities and representations. Those two things seemed to really explain what we were trying to define as the distinctions between the constructs. This resulted in a major shakeup of my dissertation. I rewrote Chapter 4 (I'm actually still working on it) as an explanation of the process I've gone through. Chapter 5 is now the clean results section that defines this new model using activities and representations, provides the graphics, and shows some model cases as support. Then Chapter 6 is the conclusion. So I'm in the midst of finishing up all of the writing on all of these.
I'm behind as I was supposed to have parts of the dissertation to my committee members a week or more ago for their review, but we changed it so much that doing that doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore. So I'm taking a bit of a risk turning in the whole thing for a first glance hopefully the middle of this week. We'll have to see if I still send out borderline cases to my interviewees for their review. With this new approach, I'm not sure that's going to be necessary anymore. But I said I would in my prospectus, so I may have to.
Anyway, I'm a bit stressed. I don't like being behind. My deadline is fast approaching and I HAVE to be done, but on the other hand I want to make sure that my work is really good and that my committee is on board. I don't like not having control over things, so hoping for approval from others is hard for me, but I'm not a great researcher so this is a good experience.
Anyway, I'd better get back to writing what I'm supposed to be writing. I just hope that I'm doing what needs to be done in this field, that my work will make a contribution. We'll see soon enough!
I also sorted the TPK section into different different pedagogical strategies, namely motivation, communication, visualization, and classroom management.
My chair suggested that I use the chapter by Magnusson, Krajcik, and Borko in Gess-Newsome and Lederman's "Examining Pedagogical Content Knowledge" to organize the TPACK section. In this chapter, they talk about subject- and topic-specific pedagogical strategies. So I sorted everything according to that.
We wanted to further illuminate the distinctions between the constructs, though, so as I looked closer at their definition of topic-specific strategies, I noticed that they listed two things: activities and representations. Those two things seemed to really explain what we were trying to define as the distinctions between the constructs. This resulted in a major shakeup of my dissertation. I rewrote Chapter 4 (I'm actually still working on it) as an explanation of the process I've gone through. Chapter 5 is now the clean results section that defines this new model using activities and representations, provides the graphics, and shows some model cases as support. Then Chapter 6 is the conclusion. So I'm in the midst of finishing up all of the writing on all of these.
I'm behind as I was supposed to have parts of the dissertation to my committee members a week or more ago for their review, but we changed it so much that doing that doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore. So I'm taking a bit of a risk turning in the whole thing for a first glance hopefully the middle of this week. We'll have to see if I still send out borderline cases to my interviewees for their review. With this new approach, I'm not sure that's going to be necessary anymore. But I said I would in my prospectus, so I may have to.
Anyway, I'm a bit stressed. I don't like being behind. My deadline is fast approaching and I HAVE to be done, but on the other hand I want to make sure that my work is really good and that my committee is on board. I don't like not having control over things, so hoping for approval from others is hard for me, but I'm not a great researcher so this is a good experience.
Anyway, I'd better get back to writing what I'm supposed to be writing. I just hope that I'm doing what needs to be done in this field, that my work will make a contribution. We'll see soon enough!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Writing, writing, writing...
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the interviews! Our discussions yielded some very valuable insights and changes to the definitions and essential features that I had come up with in the technical use analysis. I was able to craft answers for all of the remaining questions that I had for each construct and come up with some future directions for research as follows:
1. investigate the connection between grade level and TCK/TPK. The hypothesis is that elementary teachers have more TPK/less TCK while secondary and especially post-secondary teachers have more TCK.
2. conduct case study research to get rich examples of practicing teachers' knowledge in each of these constructs. In my experience, I found that this worked particularly well with a subject who knew nothing about the constructs but a lot about teaching her content!
This past weekend, I was able to write the section on model cases. Thanks to the interviewees, particularly Dr. Rupper, for those. I also found several at Edutopia.org - a great resource for teachers who are interested in technology integration.
I also wrote the section on contrary and related cases where I compared the model cases across constructs. I'm waiting to hear back from my chair on that.
I also discovered what I hope are the borderline cases so that I can get those sent out to the other reviewers and get some consensus on those.
And I also came up with some of the invented cases. It was a busy weekend!
My next steps are to get the borderline cases finalized and sent out to everyone and finish the invented cases section. Then I've got to create the graphic organizer which I'm really struggling with because my brain just doesn't work that way. I may have to find a graphic artist to help me. One of the hardest parts is deciding how much to include - do I go all the way back to TK, CK, and PK - or do I just cover the constructs that I've been doing all my work on - TCK, TPK, and TPACK. Obviously, I'm inclined to do the latter because that's where I have the most to say. But how to organize it????
Anyway, then I need to write Chapter 5 - the conclusion. Haven't really thought about what to say on that yet. I know I need to put in those future directions for research. I should probably look at a few other people's to see what should go in that. I hate writing conclusions... I should probably write a Chapter 6 with at least one article for future publication, too. We'll see how the schedule is looking. I may have to do the articles after the defense. I'll have time then.
So, the schedule from here: finish up Chapter 4 this week and through the weekend. Write and review the first full draft next week, write the second full draft over the weekend, review with committee and editor the following week, then turn it in on June 16th! I'm getting giddy with excitement!!!!
1. investigate the connection between grade level and TCK/TPK. The hypothesis is that elementary teachers have more TPK/less TCK while secondary and especially post-secondary teachers have more TCK.
2. conduct case study research to get rich examples of practicing teachers' knowledge in each of these constructs. In my experience, I found that this worked particularly well with a subject who knew nothing about the constructs but a lot about teaching her content!
This past weekend, I was able to write the section on model cases. Thanks to the interviewees, particularly Dr. Rupper, for those. I also found several at Edutopia.org - a great resource for teachers who are interested in technology integration.
I also wrote the section on contrary and related cases where I compared the model cases across constructs. I'm waiting to hear back from my chair on that.
I also discovered what I hope are the borderline cases so that I can get those sent out to the other reviewers and get some consensus on those.
And I also came up with some of the invented cases. It was a busy weekend!
My next steps are to get the borderline cases finalized and sent out to everyone and finish the invented cases section. Then I've got to create the graphic organizer which I'm really struggling with because my brain just doesn't work that way. I may have to find a graphic artist to help me. One of the hardest parts is deciding how much to include - do I go all the way back to TK, CK, and PK - or do I just cover the constructs that I've been doing all my work on - TCK, TPK, and TPACK. Obviously, I'm inclined to do the latter because that's where I have the most to say. But how to organize it????
Anyway, then I need to write Chapter 5 - the conclusion. Haven't really thought about what to say on that yet. I know I need to put in those future directions for research. I should probably look at a few other people's to see what should go in that. I hate writing conclusions... I should probably write a Chapter 6 with at least one article for future publication, too. We'll see how the schedule is looking. I may have to do the articles after the defense. I'll have time then.
So, the schedule from here: finish up Chapter 4 this week and through the weekend. Write and review the first full draft next week, write the second full draft over the weekend, review with committee and editor the following week, then turn it in on June 16th! I'm getting giddy with excitement!!!!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Completed interviews
I completed and transcribed eight interviews over the last few weeks and am now in the process of synthesizing those to answer some of the remaining questions I had about the framework and each of the constructs. Some of the answers for the questions I had about the overall framework are:
1. this is a framework of teacher knowledge, so teachers should be able to possess each type of knowledge.
2. the framework is currently needed separately from PCK to bring focus to the issue of the interconnectedness of technology, content, and pedagogy.
3. this is a framework for knowledge so the examples I find are evidence of that knowledge
4. we need to consider all forms of technology, not just computer technologies.
Some problems I've discovered are:
1. most examples don't provide sufficient detail to determine the teacher's knowledge.
2. no one can ever possess TPACK because it is so complex and dynamic.
3. people with different perspectives think about TPACK in different ways.
4. the current diagram may be contributing to some of the points of confusion.
So, my next steps are to
1. go through the definitions, essential features, and remaining questions for each of the constructs (TCK, TPK, and TPACK) and revise/answer them based on the interviews.
2. describe the model cases provided by the interviewees and compare them within each construct to further refine the essential features for each construct.
3. compare the model cases across constructs to illuminate the borders between constructs.
4. find borderline examples, classify them, and have others classify them to see if we all agree.
5. invent some really strong examples for each construct.
6. write, write, write.
I have scheduled an editor for the second week in June and have to have the full thing turned in June 16th prior to my June 30th defense, so it's approaching more rapidly than I care to acknowledge, but I'm getting there!
1. this is a framework of teacher knowledge, so teachers should be able to possess each type of knowledge.
2. the framework is currently needed separately from PCK to bring focus to the issue of the interconnectedness of technology, content, and pedagogy.
3. this is a framework for knowledge so the examples I find are evidence of that knowledge
4. we need to consider all forms of technology, not just computer technologies.
Some problems I've discovered are:
1. most examples don't provide sufficient detail to determine the teacher's knowledge.
2. no one can ever possess TPACK because it is so complex and dynamic.
3. people with different perspectives think about TPACK in different ways.
4. the current diagram may be contributing to some of the points of confusion.
So, my next steps are to
1. go through the definitions, essential features, and remaining questions for each of the constructs (TCK, TPK, and TPACK) and revise/answer them based on the interviews.
2. describe the model cases provided by the interviewees and compare them within each construct to further refine the essential features for each construct.
3. compare the model cases across constructs to illuminate the borders between constructs.
4. find borderline examples, classify them, and have others classify them to see if we all agree.
5. invent some really strong examples for each construct.
6. write, write, write.
I have scheduled an editor for the second week in June and have to have the full thing turned in June 16th prior to my June 30th defense, so it's approaching more rapidly than I care to acknowledge, but I'm getting there!
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Interviews and Model Cases
I have completed the technical use analysis and three interviews this week. The interviews were with Keith Leatham, a math ed professor at BYU; Summer Rupper, a geology professor at BYU; and Punya Mishra and Matt Koehler, the creators of the TPACK framework. All three were very enlightening conversations.
Keith Leatham: reminded me that each of these constructs represents knowledge and that the examples I'm finding are simply evidence of that knowledge.
Summer Rupper: knew nothing about TPACK before I interviewed her, but gave me model cases of all three constructs during our discussion. She talked about how she uses technology when she is doing field and lab work and how that technology has changed what she can do and how it represents her work (TCK). She talked about how she uses PowerPoint to organize her lectures, emphasize main points, and represent concepts visually (TPK). And she talked about how her students struggle to understand certain concepts and how she uses technology to help them understand those concepts better (TPCK). I think these examples may have a place as a central feature of the model cases section because they are all REAL and very pure.
Mishra & Koehler: emphasized that this framework is supposed to be a representation of teacher knowledge, so all of these constructs do have a place in education. They also gave me some advice for improving my definitions to make sure I emphasize the interactive nature of the relationship between the types of knowledge within each construct. The difficult part of that is that I am trying to use the essential features as criteria for classifying examples of technology use that I find in the classroom and the literature. With TCK, for example, Mishra and Koehler emphasized that it is both how the technology represents or changes the content AND how the content directs the use of technology. I don't think most examples that I find will demonstrate both sides of this, so I'll have to find a way to represent that interaction in the definition without limiting the possible examples to those that demonstrate both.
I have a few more interviews scheduled for next week - I would like to get even a couple more. I have invitations out but haven't heard back from everyone. For now, I will have six. I would like to have eight. Then I have also considered interviewing an elementary teacher to get a little bit different view on this. One of the things I've been thinking about this week, after a conversation with Maggie Niess, is that the TCK and TPCK that college professors develop will be different from that of secondary teachers and even more different from that of elementary teachers. College professors, and to a large degree secondary teachers, have the opportunity to focus in on one subject area, so they will be able to develop a more in depth understanding of their content and the technologies that go with it. Meanwhile, elementary teachers have to be generalists, learning as much as they can about a lot of different subjects. This means that their TCK may be more broad as they will most likely not have the time to fully explore the technologies available for each subject but will rather generalize their TPK. Dr. Leatham and I had an interesting discussion about this as well. So that would be interesting to explore with an elementary teacher, but I'm not sure that it is an area that I should explore with this study.
Keith Leatham: reminded me that each of these constructs represents knowledge and that the examples I'm finding are simply evidence of that knowledge.
Summer Rupper: knew nothing about TPACK before I interviewed her, but gave me model cases of all three constructs during our discussion. She talked about how she uses technology when she is doing field and lab work and how that technology has changed what she can do and how it represents her work (TCK). She talked about how she uses PowerPoint to organize her lectures, emphasize main points, and represent concepts visually (TPK). And she talked about how her students struggle to understand certain concepts and how she uses technology to help them understand those concepts better (TPCK). I think these examples may have a place as a central feature of the model cases section because they are all REAL and very pure.
Mishra & Koehler: emphasized that this framework is supposed to be a representation of teacher knowledge, so all of these constructs do have a place in education. They also gave me some advice for improving my definitions to make sure I emphasize the interactive nature of the relationship between the types of knowledge within each construct. The difficult part of that is that I am trying to use the essential features as criteria for classifying examples of technology use that I find in the classroom and the literature. With TCK, for example, Mishra and Koehler emphasized that it is both how the technology represents or changes the content AND how the content directs the use of technology. I don't think most examples that I find will demonstrate both sides of this, so I'll have to find a way to represent that interaction in the definition without limiting the possible examples to those that demonstrate both.
I have a few more interviews scheduled for next week - I would like to get even a couple more. I have invitations out but haven't heard back from everyone. For now, I will have six. I would like to have eight. Then I have also considered interviewing an elementary teacher to get a little bit different view on this. One of the things I've been thinking about this week, after a conversation with Maggie Niess, is that the TCK and TPCK that college professors develop will be different from that of secondary teachers and even more different from that of elementary teachers. College professors, and to a large degree secondary teachers, have the opportunity to focus in on one subject area, so they will be able to develop a more in depth understanding of their content and the technologies that go with it. Meanwhile, elementary teachers have to be generalists, learning as much as they can about a lot of different subjects. This means that their TCK may be more broad as they will most likely not have the time to fully explore the technologies available for each subject but will rather generalize their TPK. Dr. Leatham and I had an interesting discussion about this as well. So that would be interesting to explore with an elementary teacher, but I'm not sure that it is an area that I should explore with this study.
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