Implications for the teachers (Lesson design with TPACK - part 4)

Teachers are the receivers of our lesson plan. --- But that does by no means say that they have a passive role. It is not as if they get a read-made lesson plan which they solely have to enact.

Educational designers have the problem that they are not acquainted with the context. For a specific design they can collaboratively design the lesson with the teachers. If a design is however meant to be more general, the designers can formulate a preliminary lesson plan which the teachers have to adjust before using it in practice. Teachers adapt the lesson according to context factors such as prior knowledge, interest of the students, the school culture or other learner or school characteristics.

So the teachers are in any case actively engaged in the design process, either from the beginning or only at the end of the process.

Another implication for the teachers is, when a lesson is designed with the TPACK model, that they have to acquire new knowledge. As it was already discussed in the third post of this series, teachers will in most cases don’t have enough technology and TPACK knowledge at their disposal. It is therefore important that teacher make sufficiently use of the possibilities for support.