Centering Cultural Knowledge in TPACK— Evidence From a Collaborative Online International Learning Collaboration

Sohyeon Bae; Kyle L. Chong

doi:10.19173/irrodl.v25i2.7548

Authors

Sohyeon Bae Collegiate Professor, Center for Education Innovation, Korea Institute of Energy Technology https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3007-2171
Kyle L. Chong Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Michigan State University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0860-4127

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v25i2.7548

Keywords:

collaborative online international learning (COIL), technological pedagogical content knowledge (TRACK), culturally sustaining pedagogy, online education, college teaching

Abstract

In this qualitative study, we analyzed the processes of a collaborative online international learning (COIL) collaboration between two higher education institutions in Japan and the United States from the perspective of the technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework. The research question this study aimed to address was: What is the utility of the TPACK framework, as a lens of analysis, for this online cultural exchange? To address this question, we conducted semi-structured interviews with student participants and examined their written works. From the student participants’ learning experiences, we identified evidence of cultural exchange as well as evidence of missed opportunities for cultural exchange arising from the limited knowledge of technology, pedagogy, content, and culture. COIL and TPACK both share a common goal of increasing students’ access to multiple knowledge systems using educational technology. As a result, COIL conceptually aligns well with the TPACK framework. This collaboration showed an ongoing need for the centering of cultural knowledge and cultural exchange in both COIL and TPACK. We, accordingly, outline potential for a TPACCK, a modified TPACK framework to center cultural knowledge in both with the hope of taking steps towards a more culturally sustaining framework of international collaboration.

Author Biographies

Sohyeon Bae, Collegiate Professor, Center for Education Innovation, Korea Institute of Energy Technology

Sohyeon Bae is a researcher and educator in higher education administration. She completed her Ph.D. in higher, adult, and lifelong education at Michigan State University. Her research interests include international higher education, global rankings, institutional research, teaching and learning, and diversity at higher education institutions. With years of professional experience in various universities worldwide, she tries to better understand how universities work in different local, national, and global contexts and make the voices in the higher education field heard by broader audiences either in the policy or public areas.

Kyle L. Chong, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Michigan State University

Kyle L. Chong (張陳創庭) (he.him.his) is a Ph.D. Candidate of Curriculum, Instruction & Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Kyle is a transnational adoptee born in Taipei, Taiwan raised by Chinese American parents in San Francisco, CA. His teaching and research both sit at the intersections of global, urban, and ethnic studies education. Kyle’s research uses Asian Critical Race Theory and decolonial theory to study the multiple curricular and educational spaces through which young people move and how curriculum can forge stronger coalitional resistance possibilities across educational contexts. Kyle’s dissertation shows how global movements of state discourses of Chinese identities impact the curricular representations and relationalities of Asian diasporic communities. Kyle is a 2023 Curriculum Inquiry Writing Fellow, Residential College of Arts and Humanities Undergraduate Teaching and Learning Fellow, and an Inaugural Asian Pacific American Studies Fellow at Michigan State. Kyle holds Graduate Certificates in Qualitative Research Methods, Urban Education, and Online College Teaching, and a B.A. in Political Theory from the University of Puget Sound where he was a Trimble Distinguished Asia Scholar.

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