Incorporating Knowledge of Students Systematically into TPACK-based Instruction: An Illustration

How might teachers’ knowledge of students’ specific learning needs and preferences be incorporated into their TPACK, and subsequently into their practice? How can this knowledge help teachers to select and employ particular technologies in specific ways that can accommodate students’ differing learning requirements? Building upon previous work that supports teachers’ TPACK-based instructional planning with taxonomies of learning activity types in nine different curriculum areas, we developed a taxonomy of teaching strategies, each supported by recommended digital technologies, that are specific to particular learners’ needs. In this first TPACK-based teaching strategies taxonomy, the needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) are addressed. The new taxonomy is designed to be used in concert with one or more curriculum-based learning activity types taxonomies, scaffolding the development and use of teachers’ TPACK while they are planning curriculum-based, well-differentiated instruction