Week 6: Cooking with TPACK

This week, we were asked to have a family member pick a utensil, plate, and bowl from our kitchen at random and a number from a jar that would tell us what “cooking” activity we needed to complete using our random kitchenware. My husband selected a small plate, small bowl, and a spoon that I was to use to cut hard cheese that I would arrange on a cheese platter. This task did not prove to be easy. The spoon failed to do its job of slicing the cheese well enough for a cheese platter. I was able to break off chunks, but nothing appealing enough for a platter. Although my tool didn’t prove to be successful, it got me thinking about taking the knowledge, tools, and teaching methods that teachers already have and recreating them to enhance learning.

The whole idea for this project was to cook using TPACK or Technology Pedagogy and Content Knowledge (Mishra &Koehler, 2006). The idea behind TPACK is that these three things should not be used or taught in isolation, but together. Learning becomes meaningful when we use technology as a tool to allow students to reach a depth of knowledge and interest that they would not have without all three elements working together.

The idea of repurposing the tools stood out to me. Just because one technological tool was designed for a specific purpose does not mean that it can’t be just as meaningful used in another way. While cooking with TPACK, I had to figure out how I was going to repurpose a spoon to be a knife and it forced me to see the spoon in a different way. That is what we have to do with the technology that we are given to help our students obtain meaningful learning.  

References:

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. doi:10.18411/a-2017-023