Epistemological considerations for approaching teaching in an on-line environment Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher education program: reconsidering TPACK

This research inquiry explores teacher educator knowledge, understandings and beliefs informing their teaching in a web-based Australian teacher education program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Through the use of a phenomenologically aligned process, the study investigates instructors' consideration of practice for teaching in an on-line environment. Using the TPACK framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) as a lens for analysis, what emerges from the data is how lecturers' knowledge and beliefs about students influences the roles they adopt as educators, and how this influences, in turn, what and how technology is used to support student learning. The study ends by critiquing and re-conceptualizing TPACK and providing insights that program developers and teacher educators need to consider in the conceptualization and enrichment of web-based learning, especially those which engage with minority students, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners