Academic teaching is a highly complex activity. It draws on many kinds of knowledge, embracing the latest developments in the subject area, appropriate knowledge about the students preunderstanding derived both from the societal context and individual skills and preconditions and last but not least technology competence. Subject education and pedagogical knowledge are areas that have been increasingly problematized and developed.
Especially how the interaction between the two knowledge fields content and pedagogy has been described, a new pedagogical field has been theoretical developed where general pedagogical knowledge has been dimmed and subject-specific pedagogical knowledge is highlighted by introducing the term “Pedagogical Content Knowledge”, shortened PCK. The term is derived from a seminal article from 1987 by Lee S. Schulman, “Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform”, even though the term is not used there. (Schulman 1987) Especially in my subject area, modern history, there has been increasingly development processes around PCK within the term “Historiedidaktik” where pedagogical and content related development around students learning is under development by researchers, some educators and some with his postgraduate education in history. (Schüllerqvist 2005; Karlsson 2008). But the theoretical perspective on PCK within history does not include digital competence to any greater extent.
In the article “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge.” the authors integrate technology knowledge into the framework derived from Schulman. The theoretical perspective expands the discussion from, what you could call, a two-field area to a three-field. (Mishra & Koehler 2006 figure 3 and 4) The authors discusses the challenges in the overlapping fields between each and one of them and systematically underlines the importance of knowledge in the field of technology by equating the technological knowledge (and pedagogical) with content knowledge. They formulate a more technologically adapted theoretical term “Technological content knowledge” (TCK) pinpointing how technology and content reciprocally relate.
“Thus, our model of technology integration in teaching and learning argues that developing good content requires a thoughtful interweaving of all three key sources of knowledge: technology, pedagogy, and content. The core of our argument is that there is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching. Quality teaching requires developing a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between technology, content, and pedagogy, and using this understanding to develop appropriate, context-specific strategies and representations. Productive technology integration in teaching needs to consider all three issues not in isolation, but rather within the complex relationships in the system defined by the three key elements.”
(Mishra & Koehler 2006 pg. 1029)
Acquisition of these technological content skills drawn by the authors are what I will focus on in the AUPU2 course.
The course I choose to work with
What I bring with me from the discussion above is the great importance of integrating the technological knowledge with content and pedagogical knowledge. This must go into planning and course design from scratch. I intend for future in my continuing work to develop three courses within my subject along with this concept. In this course, AUPU2; I intend to use the KAU-course “Cultural Heritage Studies HIG650” to meet the challenge technological knowledge implicate. The course is given by the history department both within our master’s program in history and as a free course. It covers 15 ECTS credits, runs at 50% speed for a semester and is given at the undergraduate level. The course focuses on how cultural heritage is constructed and formed from a historical as well as social perspective with the aim to critically investigate cultural heritage and the various environments or contexts where cultural heritage is produced reproduced, transmitted and applied. The learning outcomes of the two parts in the course are:
Part 1, Cultural Heritage ideas (7.5 hp)
After completion of Part 1 of this course students will be able to
1. Identify and analyse historical and social ideals, ideas and preconceptions about cultural heritage,
2. Give an account of the central methods and theories of the study of cultural heritage.
Part 2, Cultural Heritage Environments (7.5 hp)
After completion of Part 2 of this course students will be able to
1. Critically reflect on different forms of cultural heritage environments and
2. Apply different perspectives of the meaning of cultural heritage for the identity creation.
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References:
Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22.
Karlsson, Klas Göran. (2008) “Historiedidaktik och historievetenskap – ett förhållande I utveckling”. I: Historien är nu. Red. Karlsson, Klas Göran & Zander, Ulf. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB,
Mishra & Koehler (2006) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record 108(6), pg 1017-1054.
Stolare, Martin & Wendell, Joakim (red.) (2018). Historiedidaktik i praktiken: För lärare 4–6. Första upplagan Malmö: Gleerups
Schüllerqvist, Bengt (2005). Svensk historiedidaktisk forskning. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet
http://www.kau.se/sites/default/files/Dokument/subpage/2009/12/svensk_historiedidaktisk_forskning_pdf_35866.pdf