An Empirical Study On Imporving Preservice Teachers' TPACK

In 2005, "TPCK" (known as'TPACK'now) was first mentioned by Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler from Michigan State University. As TPACK concept is elaborated, a great number of relevant studies are emerged in the field of teacher education abroad, brought affluent findings and achievements. The studies are focused on the issue about "how to improve teachers'TPACK", mainly involve in the followings:measurement in TPACK, teaching strategies in TPACK, teacher education curriculum design and reconstructions, and preparation of textbooks. On the other hand, as of now, despite some domestic scholars have been paying close attention on TPACK, systematic research in this area is lacking in China. Therefore, in this thesis, on top of the results of studies abroad, we have carried out study on TPACK in the context of preservice teacher education and tried to answer the question of "how to improve preservice teachers'TPACK".This study adopted a pre-posttest design method, taking preservice teachers in mathematics major from a university in Shanghai as model. A mini-scaled was carried out which employed "learning by design" strategy. A TPACK scale for mathematics teachers was designed, and used in pre-posttest periods to measuring and comparing the TPACK level on preservie teachers before and after the mini-scaled courses. The process of the mini-scaled courses was also analyzed by data drawn from course video. Data show an improvement on TRACK level is obtained.There are altogether five sections in this thesis:Chapter one presents a literature review on TPACK and relative studies in teacher education field abroad followed by a brief introduction on the current statues of TRACK study domestically.Chapter two elaborates the development of questionnaires which were used in pre-posttest period, especially the scale used to assess mathematic teachers'TPACK. The results of reliability and validity analyses were also provided.Chapter three based on the literatures review on "learning by design" and "strategies to improve teachers'TPACK", summaries of the design of mini-scaled course and the procedure of the course. It also explained in detail on four pieces of supporting strategies.Chapter four focus on the analysis and results of mini-course's implementation according to the data from two scales and course videos. The analyses were done from two aspects:a summarized view on the effect of mini-scaled course, a formative view on the process of mini-scaled course.Chapter five is the conclusion of this study. The limitation of the study is also mentioned. The strategies of integrating TPACK framework into teacher education in China and the future work on TPACK in teacher education field were discussed.