SAMR and TPACK, which works better?

Hilton, J. T. (2016). A Case Study of the Application of SAMR and TPACK for Reflection on Technology Integration into Two Social Studies Classrooms. Social Studies, 107(2), 68-73. doi:10.1080/00377996.2015.1124376

This week I read an article that broke down two evaluation methods for looking at technology in the classroom. SAMR and TPACK, are the names of the two methods, and this article broke them down within a pair of social studies classrooms. The article did a good job of contextualizing the methods, however, I will not be talking much more about the classrooms from the article. Instead I wanted to briefly discuss the two methods and how I could use them in my own room.

The first is SAMR which is an acronym for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. This model seems to come off as hierarchal and the way it is set up or visualized seems to imply that the methods on the top (R and M which are also defined as transformation) are the better to use. The article relates it to Bloom’s Taxonomy, which when looked at it thorough that lens makes more sense. The article says “..knowledge- and understand-level activities, while often not as exciting, must come before creation-level activities” (Hilton,71). This makes a lot of sense to me, because when designing a lesson using technology we should want to have our students know and understand before creating. If they don’t understand on a basic level what they are doing, then how can they be expected to create anything with or without technology?

TPACK is the next method, and TPACK is very complicated. It boils down to a Venn diagram of sorts that shows the height of lesson design comes when Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Content Knowledge (CK), and Technological Knowledge (TK), are intersected to meet in the middle (TPACK). Using all of these in a combination is the height of TPACKs impact on a classroom.

While looking at both of these I wondered how I could use them in my classroom, and I came to one conclusion. I could use both of them in my classroom as long as I am aware of one central concept. A concept that seems to drive through each of my blog posts so far, and through both of these methods. The concept I am talking about is pedagogy. Pedagogy is HOW one teaches, not what they teach or what they use to teach.  If you are able to teach well and have an established pedagogy then all of the methods available to you are going to be successful. There is not one method for teaching, but there is one thing that all teachers need to have, and that is a good pedagogy.