Transitions

Module 3 eJournal – Knowledge Base of Teaching

This week has been a busy week for me. We have a colleague from our Africa factory who visited China to familiarize on how our Hangzhou Office works. Our company will set up a new factory in Haiti so I briefed him about my duties and responsibilities and how China can support them. Just the other day, the person who will take up my post as Industrial Engineer or IE also arrived. And to top it all, our management requested me to conduct an internal training today about IE work. I titled my journal transitions to depict my career transition in addition to teaching and technology evolution and transformation.

I prepared my training material weeks before but our lesson about knowledge base and TPACK gave me an opportunity to incorporate what I learned in action. I was able to do some adjustments to make the training more interesting.

First, content knowledge, the what. As an IE, Methods and Time Study is the first thing that came to mind when I was asked to impart information about an IE job. I thought, every IE knows how to conduct a time study.

Second, pedagogical knowledge. Before I will know the how, I need to know the who, so I asked for the list of participants who will join the training. It is a group of 30 people from Merchandising, Production Planning, Compliance and even Human Resources department. This information gave me an idea that my audience will have little or zero knowledge of the subject matter. Definitions were a bit technical so I used simpler terms to send my message across. Before I put them in a factory setting, I used an example based on everyday activities, like how we can conduct a time study when riding a bus from our house going to the office, or how long do they need to wait for a lunch order etc. I have asked them to bring pen, paper and calculator so they will know how to fill up a time study form, analyze and compute the gathered data. I gave them a short quiz to gauge the level of grasp and understanding.

Third, technological knowledge. I still remember when we still use Manila Paper as tool for making presentations or the old slide projector in our visual room. Technology is changing so fast that we have no choice but to keep up to bridge the communication gap. I used a Power Point presentation as a media tool, with clipart, pictures and actual videos. I also asked them to try to use a digital stopwatch and their mobile phones who have the stopwatch features.

Overall the training went well. The group have engaged in an informative discussion and asked questions for clarification. They thanked me in the end for imparting additional knowledge and how they can use it in their daily lives.

The combination of content knowledge, pedagogy knowledge, and technology knowledge if used systematically and wisely will surely foster learning. Technology provides ease of use, access, and animated features that makes learning captivating while maintaining content and pedagogy for effective teaching and learning.

I have also learned about the SOTL or The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning and the difference with Scholarly Teaching but I still need to read more resources to really understand this one. Starting with inquiry then the lifelong learning continues…

References:

Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform by Lee S. Shulman

http://people.ucsc.edu/~ktellez/shulman.pdf

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teaching Knowledge by

Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler http://punya.educ.msu.edu/publications/journal_articles/mishra-koehler-tcr2006.pdf

 What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge? By Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler http://www.citejournal.org/articles/v9i1general1.pdf

You Can Have Hot Tools and Teach Them Too

http://punya.educ.msu.edu/publications/mishra-koehler-l&l-2009.pdf

Defining the Scholarship of Teaching versus Scholarly Teaching

http://www.stlhe.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/STLHE-Newsletter-46-2007Summer.pdf