The TPACK of Dynamic Representations

Abstract

Effective teachers across K-12 content areas often use visual representations to promote conceptual understanding, but these static representations remain insufficient for conveying adequate information to novice learners about motion and dynamic processes. The advent of dynamic representations has created new possibilities for more fully supporting visualization. This chapter discusses the findings from a broad range of studies over the past decade examining the use of dynamic representations in the classroom, focusing especially on the content areas of science, mathematics, and social studies, with the purpose of facilitating the development of teacher technological pedagogical content knowledge. The chapter describes the research regarding the affordances for learning with dynamic representations, as well as the constraints—characteristics of both the technology and learners that can become barriers to learning—followed by a summary of literature-based recommendations for effective teaching with dynamic representations and implications for teaching and teacher education across subject areas.