CDIO-based Training Model For Teachers' TPACK And Its Application

Teachers are the key to ensure the quality of education.Over the past decade,the Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic has been committed to improving the teaching knowledge and ability of in-service teachers through short-term and long-term trainings.Teachers' training involves the training of subject professional knowledge and skills,especially the training of teaching methods.The rapid development of information technology has gradually improved the teaching environment in primary and secondary schools.At the same time,it has put forward new requirements for teachers' teaching knowledge and ability.How to integrate information technology with practical teaching to improve the quality of education is a problem worth studying.In 2011,the Education Department of Lao PDR drew up the education development plan to promote the education reform under the information technology environment and emphasized that the improvement of teachers' information technology application ability is the key to promote the education reform.However,through investigation and research,it is found that most teachers cannot apply information technology to their actual work and teaching.Although the education department has organized a large number of teachers' information technology application training,the actual classroom teaching quality has not been significantly improved.Although information technology curriculum has been included in the teacher training plan,teachers'ability to integrate information technology into teaching still needs to be improved.Therefore,how to design and develop training courses and resources to effectively enhance teacher's ability to integrate information technology with teaching has become an important issue for teachers' professional development in developing countries.Based on the case in Lao People's Democratic Republic,a developing country,this study intends to explore how to improve teachers9 ability to apply information technology,especially how to integrate information technology,subject knowledge,and pedagogical knowledge,through theoretical demonstration and practical exploration,to enhance teacher's ability to integrate information technology and teaching.In response to the problems above,the paper mainly includes three parts:(1)Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate(CDIO)training model for teachers' TPACK development;(2)Design and development of information technology application training course based on CDIO mode;(3)Research on the application practice of CDIO training model for teachers.1)CDIO Training Model for Teachers' TPACK DevelopmentIn response to the problems existing in the current teacher training,such as the disconnection between theory and practice,the lack of close integration of technical expertise and teaching methods,this paper combines the reality of information technology teaching in developing countries,and explores how to promote the application of teachers'information technology under limited conditions.This paper puts forward a training model of CDIO teachers' ICT application ability aiming at teachers' TPACK competencies development.This model is not only a practical process of teaching and learning but also a process of designing a teaching system.The aim of the model is to improve the TPACK ability of pre-service teachers,especially the skills of using ICT in classroom teaching practice.Compared with relevant training theories and teaching models,TPACK-CDIO model combines conceive,design,Implement and Operate training processes to organically integrate teacher competence objectives,application practice,and training process to break through the difficulties existing in traditional training models,thus meeting the needs of teacher development in developing countries.2)Design and Development of Information Technology Application Training Course Based on CDIO ModelThe course design and development of information technology application training is an important part of effective training.How to integrate the improvement of teachers'TPACK teaching competencies into the process of teacher training and practice,and how to design curriculum content and organize learning activities in the process of CDIO training are the difficult problems in the application of CDIO model.The purpose of this study is to improve the pre-service teachers' classroom information technology teaching application ability.Firstly,the relationships among teachers' professional knowledge,pedagogical knowledge and information technology skills needs are discussed in the four-stage training process,which lays a foundation for the target design of training content.Secondly,it studies the general model of curriculum design of information technology application training based on CDIO model developed by TPACK,explores how to implement teacher training and application practice under limited technical conditions,and improve the curriculum content design to improve ICT ability and teaching methods,professional knowledge teaching,etc.Finally,typical application cases are developed to support the training of TPACK teaching competencies for pre-service teachers,such as(1)training handbook,which includes seven modules,the difficulty of which is ranked from simple level to advanced level;(2)teaching and learning resources,including demonstration of each module,web pages and Google applications,such as Google Classroom and Google Forms;(3)integration of technology and application.In the operation phase of the training project,new technology equipment such as smart board,computer desktop,computer notebook,tablet computer,and WIFI are used to train teachers' basic technical application ability and support the development of training and learning activities.3)Research on the validity of the application of the CDIO training model oriented to TPACKThe purpose of this study is to improve and develop the TPACK teaching competencies for pre-service teachers and demonstrate the effectiveness of the application of the CDIO training model.In this study,there includes both the pre-test and post-test and two groups of experiments were designed to verify the validity of the test.In the first round of the experiment,a random sampling method was used in the control group.The participants included 25 pre-service teachers in the third grade of the Salavan Teacher Training College.Among them,8 major in preschool education,8 major in primary education and 9 major in English education.The number of participants in the experimental group was the same as that in the control group.There were 25 participants,8 majoring in preschool education,8 majoring in primary education and 9 majoring English Education in the experimental group.In the pre-test,TPACK ability of participants from two groups was tested.During the experiment,both the experimental group and the control group received information technology teaching ability training for one and a half months.However,for the control group,no treatment was given,while in the experimental group,ability training for teachers under the guidance of CDIO was conducted.The post-test results of TPACK showed that besides CK,PK and PCK ability,TPACK ability of other dimensions of the experimental group members was significantly higher than that of the control group.In order to further investigate the impact of information technology application on teachers' teaching ability in underdeveloped areas,an integrated application of information technology dimension was added in the second round of experiments.Two groups of pre- and post-test experiments were conducted.The participants were pre-service teachers who were senior students majoring in English.Both groups had a sex ratio of 11 males and 10 females.In the training of the experimental group,at the level of design,conception and operation,it emphasizes how to use ICT to design,implement and carry out teaching.The ability training under the guidance of CDIO was adopted in the control group.Through nearly a month of training,all participating teachers participated in the application of curriculum practice teaching in primary schools.The results show that:1)The integrated application of ICT can effectively improve the enthusiasm and effectiveness of students,learning.One third of students can use information technology tools,such as tablet computers and the Internet,to support the completion of scheduled learning tasks.2)Participants can integrate ICT into classroom teaching more effectively.Teachers in the experimental group can better use information technology to design,implement and operate teaching activities supported by technology,such as creating presentations and using the Internet to collect relevant materials and integrate them into teaching.3)By using ICT to design teaching cases,teachers can apply the skills learned to junior high school teaching practice,and improve students' learning enthusiasm and related performance.4)Integrating the subject teaching resources of information technology to carry out training is more conducive to the improvement of ICT knowledge and skills of trainees.To sum up,the main innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)A CDIO training model based on the improvement of teachers' TPACK ability is proposed,which is characterized by combining the current situation and needs of education in developing countries for teacher training.(2)Information technology application curriculum based on CDIO model is designed to solve the problem of insufficient information technology and curriculum integration ability of teachers in developing countries,and corresponding curriculum resources to carry out training to enhance teachers' ability of information technology and teaching integration is developed;(3)Validation of the application of the TPACK-CDIO model.From the practical application level,it is proved that in developing countries which lack information technology resources,the CDIO model can effectively improve teachers' TPACK ability;ICT technology application integration can be more effective in the teaching,design,implementation and operation of teaching.Improve the information technology application capabilities of teachers in developing countries.