The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate a training program informed by the thinking of Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) (Koehler and Mishra 2008, Matthew, Koehler and Mishra 2015) in order to impart and train the graduate students with the specialized knowledge of teachers who are able to respond to the call for, and be intimately involved with, designing activities and environments for “active learning” and “learner-centric classes,” and are able to take leadership in effectively utilizing ICT and new environments (Fullan and Langworthy 2014, Puenterdura 2006).

The participants of the program were the 27 students attending a Graduate School of Teacher Education, 7 of which are current teachers attending as graduate students and 20 graduate students who entered the program directly after graduating college. (The breakdown for teacher certifications were: 3 were for high school, 7 were for junior high school, and 17 were for elementary school). The trial program conducted consisted of 180 minutes × 8 classes.

In regards to evaluating the trial program, the following two approaches were taken. The reason for this set up is because it was thought that after participating in this program, the participants would have had a new mindset especially after engaging in designing lessons and learning environments which use ICT, and that it would be important for them to be able to organize what they had learned in order to utilize the specialized knowledge in designing learning activities and environments.

   1) At the beginning and at the end of the program, a questionnaire survey on awareness in relation to designing lessons and learning environment which utilizes ICT and to see their change (an indirect evaluation measuring change in awareness)

   2) The participants were asked to draw mind-maps at the end of the fourth and eighth week of the program regarding certain specialized knowledge they were expected to have gained by participating in the program, and the two mind maps were compared for each of the participants (Buzan and Buzan,1996). Then, the TPACK framework was used to detect the changes and see the degree of the organization of the specialized knowledge, as well as its breadth and depth, was examined (a direct evaluation method to evaluate changes in specialized knowledge). The operation of the program was evaluated based on the findings of these two evaluations and used to develop the program further.

As a result, it was found that in relation to “active learning,” this program was able to contribute to the participant’s ability to select and utilize ICT based on the purpose and content of activities and to increase their intention to draw out its effects, and to their overall expansion and deepening of their specialized knowledge.However, when it came to designing “learner-centric classes” which uses ICT effectively, it became clear that there are still several challenges relating to the content of the program.

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