Exploring the Development of Pre-Service Teachers' ICT-TPACK Using a Cognitive Stimulation Tool

Introduction

In 2001, the meeting of educational reform held by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan stated the importance of employing innovative curriculum and information and communication technology (ICT) tools into pedagogy to increase teachers’ teaching effectiveness. Therefore, school teachers have been encouraged to adopt ICT tools and develop their literacy of technology, content, and pedagogy for their professional development and teaching effectiveness by using technological devices. Researchers have suggested Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) to be an essential concept that can unite pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and technology integration into teaching to improve teachers’ instructional effectiveness (Holmes, 2009; Jang & Chen, 2010; Niess, 2005).

Many studies have shown that self-regulated learning (SRL) skills are beneficial to individuals' learning. Most of them also have highlighted the relationship between self-regulation and academic performances (Kuo, Walker, Schroder, & Belland, 2014; McClelland, Morrison, & Holmes, 2000; Tseng, Liang, & Tsai, 2014; Winters et al., 2008). However, few existing research on the aspect of SRL is seldom inclusively discussed and applied to the research on TPACK of pre-service teachers. Therefore, in the study, the researchers used a cognitive stimulation tool designed according to the area of cognitive regulation in the SRL model proposed by Pintrich (2000), to help pre-service teachers practice activating and regulating their mental processes as they learn and apply TPACK to the final course project in their collaborative learning group.