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Matthew J. Koehler and Punya Mishra
Editor’s Note: This article was previously published in Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education. Here is the full citation:
Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge? Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60–70.
As educators know, teaching is a complicated practice that requires an interweaving of many kinds of specialized knowledge. In this way, teaching is an example of an ill-structured discipline, requiring teachers to apply complex knowledge structures across different cases and contexts (Mishra, Spiro, & Feltovich, 1996; Spiro & Jehng, 1990). Teachers practice their craft in highly complex, dynamic classroom contexts (Leinhardt & Greeno, 1986) that require them constantly to shift and evolve their understanding. Thus, effective teaching depends on flexible access to rich, well-organized and integrated knowledge from different domains (Glaser, 1984; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Shulman, 1986, 1987), including knowledge of student thinking and learning, knowledge of subject matter, and increasingly, knowledge of technology.
The Challenges of Teaching With Technology
Teaching with technology is complicated further considering the challenges newer technologies present to teachers. In our work, the word technology applies equally to analog and digital, as well as new and old, technologies. As a matter of practical significance, however, most of the technologies under consideration in current literature are newer and digital and have some inherent properties that make applying them in straightforward ways difficult.
Most traditional pedagogical technologies are characterized by specificity (a pencil is for writing, while a microscope is for viewing small objects); stability (pencils, pendulums, and chalkboards have not changed a great deal over time); and transparency of function (the inner workings of the pencil or the pendulum are simple and directly related to their function) (Simon, 1969). Over time, these technologies achieve a transparency of perception (Bruce & Hogan, 1998); they become commonplace and, in most cases, are not even considered to be technologies. Digital technologies—such as computers, handheld devices, and software applications—by contrast, are protean (usable in many different ways; Papert, 1980); unstable (rapidly changing); and opaque (the inner workings are hidden from users; Turkle, 1995). On an academic level, it is easy to argue that a pencil and a software simulation are both technologies. The latter, however, is qualitatively different in that its functioning is more opaque to teachers and offers fundamentally less stability than more traditional technologies. By their very nature, newer digital technologies, which are protean, unstable, and opaque, present new challenges to teachers who are struggling to use more technology in their teaching.
Also complicating teaching with technology is an under