Introducing the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) Framework to the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery

Abstract

Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines Technological developments affect both teaching and learning. The inclusion of educational technologies provides a tremendous boost and motivation in knowledge acquisition of the millennial, tech-savvy students much like our University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery (USTFMS) medical students. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge or TPACK is the buzzword for this novel approach. Its goal is to create an effective learning environment for students and more importantly, TPACK is essential in the preparation of the outcomes-based curriculum of the doctor of medicine (MD) program. The TPACK framework demonstrates the relationship between three knowledge areas namely: technology, content, and pedagogy. In Lee S. Shulman’s 1986 work “Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching”, he discussed that teachers possess specifi c knowledge about the subject matter they are teaching or content knowledge (CK) and a set of knowledge about how to teach the subject matter or pedagogical knowledge (PK). Schulman mentioned that effective teachers overlap these two knowledge sets and thus coined the term pedagogical content knowledge (PCK).[1] Mishra and Koehler in 2006 noted that the biggest change happening in education is the use of technology in the classroom (TK). However, they observed that TK was treated “outside of and unconnected to PCK”.[2] Thus in 2011, they created a new framework, TPACK, which “adds technology to pedagogical content knowledge and emphasizes the connections, interactions, and constraints that teachers work with in all three of these knowledge areas”.[3] The TPACK framework is represented by a Venn diagram. The circles represent CK, PK, and TK. The areas where the circles’ overlap are: