WPP Part B: Application of TPACK

TP Knowledge

My hope for this project is simple. Motivate students who have been absent to complete their lab or activity analysis in order to gain an understanding of our content expectations. The technology will be a short screencast or video of our lab/activity. Absent/suspended students will be able to watch this on their own time and complete our higher order thinking questions (Kagan structures) and data analysis. In the past, students were simply given a set of data and expected to work through the analysis. With many of our students being visual learners, watching the procedure of our lab/activities may help them with understanding and analysis. For the students who are in class, our creations will give them a chance to review the content and storyboard the screencast/video encouraging them to focus on the big idea of the activity in order to help their fellow students experience what they were able to experience first hand.

TC Knowledge

The technology of producing short screencasts or videos of our labs and activities will allow students who have not been in class some experience with our content. With our high rate of absenteeism, long-term suspension and severe tardiness (not arriving until 2nd hour or later) our students miss out on many of our hands on activities. The technology in this case will allow students to see what other students have done in class and may become an incentive for coming to class. The technology aspect will also help students work through the data analysis and potentially make it more meaningful than just answering questions about recorded sets of data. Incorporating technology into make-up work may make it easier for students to catch up and work on their understanding of larger concepts within our classes. The incorporation of technology will also give us a record of our labs/activites for students to use at later dates as refreshers.

PC Knowledge

This project has two groups of students - those students who are in class and experiencing our labs first hand and those students who are not. The main focus of the project is to use technology to give our absent/suspended students a simulated lab experience. The post-lab pedagogy is the same for both students (department/administration requirement) and we need a way to encourage our students to do the work even if they are not a part of the lab/activity. While the technology doesn't necessarily become a part of the pedagogy or content, it becomes an aid for both. Expecting our students to be able to complete higher order thinking questions about a lab/activity with simple a "set of data" hasn't been motivating our students to complete any of their work setting them further behind while they are out of class. Incorporating technology in this case may be one way to combat this student behavior and motivate them to be a part of the assignment rather than ignore it.