Developing Prospective Mathematics Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is the basis of effective teaching with technology. In order to find an effective approach for developing prospective teachers’ TPACK, the researcher conducted a Teacher Development Experiment (TDE) and investigated the following two research questions:(1) what are the changes for prospective mathematics teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge by a teacher development experiment?(2) How to develop prospective mathematics teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge?Thirteen (2males,11females) prospective mathematics teachers participated in this experiment. These prospective teachers and the researcher made up a Teaching Research Group (TRG):TPACK Research Group. The researcher offered a mathematics education course for the participants, which integrated Technology (Fathom dynamic data software), Pedagogy, and Content (statistical distribution) Knowledge. All participants experienced two rounds of simulation teaching at the beginning of, and in the middle of the experiment. At the end of the experiment, the researcher chose three "excellent" prospective teachers T1(female), T2(male) and T3(male), and arranged the third round of simulation teaching for them. Then, a "Same Content Different Lesson Constructs"(SCDLC or TongKeYiGou in Chinese)activity was held among these three prospective teachers and two practicing teachers. They taught the same topic "normal distribution" in a senior high school.A lot of data (teaching videotapes, interview videotapes, lesson plans, courseware, teaching reflection reports and TPACK summary reports) were collected by in-depth interview, classroom observation and videotaping, and document collection. Computer assisted qualitative data analysis software, NVivo, was used to analyze the data. Three case reports showed the changes of TPACK of prospective teachers T1, T2and T3during the experiment.The result shows that:(la) three prospective teachers’overarching conceptions about the purposes of integrating information technology into mathematics teaching changed significantly. T1changed from focusing on interest to understanding. T2changed from focusing on teachers to both teachers and students. T3changed from vaguely paying attention to interest and understanding to clearly focusing on interest and understanding.(lb) three prospective teachers’knowledge of curriculum resources and organization for integrating information technology into mathematics teaching changed significantly. T1, T2and T3all changed from mainly using general information technology (for example. PowerPoint) to subject-specific information technology (for example, Fathom dynamic data software). T1and T2can organize the curriculum content effectively by using real-world situations,(1c) three prospective teachers’ knowledge of instructional strategies and representations for integrating information technology into mathematics teaching changed significantly. T1, T2and T3all can adopt some instructional strategies which are much more in accord with students’ recognition rules. They all can use pictures and real-world situations more effectively to represent.(1d) three prospective teachers’ knowledge of students’ understandings and misconceptions for integrating information technology into mathematics teaching changed a little. T1, T2and T3can recognize the importance of understanding students’ thinking. But they have little knowledge about students’ typical understandings and misconceptions.(2) The approach for developing prospective teachers’TPACK is learning TPACK course and participating in "Same Content Different Lesson Constructs" activities, which combines theory promotion and practice exploration.