In defence of Student centric IWB use
Posted by Lauren O Grady on September 20, 2008
Recently I got a comment from someone I respect greatly and I wanted to keep the discussion going. As it was an old post I thought it best to post my comment as a blog response. I love this type of discussion and thank Peter for taking the time to comment on my blog and I would love others to respond and give me their insights on my original post and related discussions in my post “the great white hope”
Let me first say I won’t be tearing anyone to shreds. I have no wish to “tear (you) to shreds” and I certainly hope that was not your intent. I blog to invite intelligent discourse and whilst I do not have my own book to reference from I am happy to discuss all insights in a measured and intelligent way.
I would have loved to have discussed this in Sydney and please next time anyone is in my presentations please ask questions as discourse in presentations is what moves learning forward. Disagreement can also drive learning forward. You are right in saying that my focus in my presentation is that it is all about the students but I think you have misinterpreted why I have that focus. I hardly think that by me saying that putting students first and in charge of their learning I am promoting a narrow model of education. My focus is that for good teaching to happen teachers need to focus on student learning as the core purpose of their pedagogy. I am saying that teaching should be student focussed plain and simple. I was never in my opinion marginalising the role of teachers but suggesting that the focus of professional development and pedagogy should be on how to use these tools for student learning.
In relation to your citing of the Becta research, which was in 2007, can I first say that I have never said that teachers are not important in classrooms. I have simply said that students are more important because if they are not in the centre of the picture then what is the point?
2008research from a review, which draws evidence from 17 recent impact studies, found:
* The use of ICT impacts positively on educational performance in primary schools, particularly in English, and less so in science and not in mathematics, although there is some evidence that longer use of ICT by young people is linked to improved mathematics scores (Machin et al 2006).
* Use of ICT improves attainment levels of school children in English, in science and in design and technology between ages 7 and 16, particularly in primary schools (Harrison et al 2002).
* In OECD countries there is a positive association between the length of time of ICT use and students’ performance in PISA mathematics tests (OECD 2004).
* Schools with higher levels of e-maturity demonstrate a more rapid increase in performance scores than those with lower levels (Underwood et al 2005.
* Schools with good ICT resources achieve better results than those that are poorly equipped (Pittard, Bannister & Dunn 2003).
* ICT investment impacts on educational standards most when there is fertile ground in schools for making efficient use of the technology (Machin 2006).
* Providing structured approaches to Internet research develops students’ search and research skills, which are transferable across the curriculum (Beta 2006).
* Broadband access in classrooms results in significant improvements in pupils’ performance in national tests taken at age 16 (Underwood 2005).
* Introducing interactive whiteboards results in pupils’ performance in national tests in English (particularly for low-achieving pupils and for writing), mathematics and science improving more than that of pupils in schools without interactive whiteboards (Higgins 2005).
* Issuing teachers with their own laptops increases positive attitudes towards their work (Becta 2003)”
It also goes on to say that teachers pass through three pedagogic phases as they learn to use IWBs effectively. In the first phase, the supported didactic, teachers use the technology in the same way as an ordinary whiteboard. The second phase, interactive, involves deeper understanding of the technology and results in teachers using it to enhance traditional teaching rather than as ‘the driving force for conceptual understanding and cognitive development’ (ibid).
By contrast, those teachers who used IWBs most effectively were in the enhanced interactivity phase” Which was the point of my presentation that enhanced interactivity is best sought through the partnership between teachers and students whereby knowledge is co constructed instead of spoon-fed.
Teachers do not have to have all the answers re IWB usage anymore that philosophy is based on an old Cartesian model of learning of “I think therefore I am” when for us to be 21st century learners we need to be engaged in more participative learning style where “we participate therefore we are” (Seeley Brown keynote 2007)
The central issue is not the teaching or the IWB – it is the professional development and ICT Integration into Digital Taxonomies that will change the use of IWBs, because they will be programmed into the ‘norms’. I don’t know what ‘extreme’ constructivism is, but IWBs are best put to use by the students as it is the one device in the ICT classroom that can be used a group tool – by virtue of it’s ergonomic design. Learning is a conversation in my view, and that of many – and IWBs are best used in collaborative settings. We have moved beyond technology alone saving us and it is now just an environment this shift in education has allowed the focus to move toward the personalisation of education where individual needs are placed above and beyond the needs of the teachers. Education in my view is changing where teachers will need to develop autonomy and responsibility for their professional development and the best way to do this is via collaborative learning with students.
We have now shifted from
A teaching focus to a learning focus
Teaching as a private event to teaching as a collaborative practice
School Improvement as an option to school improvement as a requirement
Mandated accountability to mutual accountability
(Nussbuam Beach 2008 http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/ )
In schools I have been to, where IWBs are used well – it is by the students with sites such as Mindomo – it is used in way, which Ray Oldenburg talks about as ‘third spaces’. Oldenburg suggests that third places are “anchors” of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. The teacher is not the expert, but an expert guide with life experience who works with the students – not to fill them with content.
Lastly..
In regards to the roll marking in the schools we went to this was their one tool after 2 years of practice. I still disagree that this is a useful use of an iwb especially if it is done everyday it becomes just as pointless as marking the roll via analogue means. Like all teaching things work best when they are remixed and ideas are fresh, marking the roll in these classrooms became a routine albeit a different routine but still I would say the use of iwb to support multiple TRIBES strategies such community circles and reflections has a more profound effect on restorative practice than hitting a board to say you are here each morning.
Update** After I wrote this post I recieved a tweet from Sherryl Nussbuam Beach to her video and it reinforced all my thoughts and summed it up so well I thought I would add it to my post. Apologies for not embedding it was having technical issues.
Please I encourage everyone to enter into this discussion so I can and others learn from the disagreement discourse community which is blogs
September 20th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Can you say something about your experiences using a Web-based Mind Mapping tool with students? You mentioned Mindomo in your article. I have not tried to use that type of tool with students in that context before: neither the Web-browser context mind-mapping part, nor the assigned students to collaborate using mind-mapping part.
September 21st, 2008 at 4:37 am
Hi Lauren, Another well thought-out post.
I agree with all you say and I noted you had 11 commenters for your first post, “Great White Hope” what a wonderful title.
I agree with:
*asking questions in presentations, to promote “just in time”, face to face discussion
*focussing PL on how to best use the tools for student learning
*your references to some of the most recent research
*the shift of attention from teaching to learning focus.
*your observations about IWB – roll marking. This is an administrative function.
All teachers using IWBs should be consciously aiming for the “enhanced interactivity” phase, where learning will be maximised.
Elaine
September 21st, 2008 at 4:43 am
I have been reflecting on another Twitter vibe: ‘when does shift happen?’ In my short IWB journey shift has happened when it has returned to student-centric use. When the kids classify words/obejcts according to their own rules. When they have input at the design stage of a new learning object. When they explain their small-group IWB inking to the whole class. All that felt more satisfying than a lesson designed/drawn/manipulated by me. Student-centred? Student-initiated -yay. I have come to their point that if this is not happening, I might as well turn the IWB off for the day.
Cheers
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:06 am
Just to say I popped over to look at the blog and it’s really interesting – so thanks for the link. I bookmarked.
I laughed (and blushed) at the Twittering though… But good photo in the end (second photographer!) – funny how hard people find the iPhone camera is to use first time.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:01 am
Having just read your blog on IWB’s in classrooms I am reflecting on my personal experience. I am into my second year of having an IWB in my class. The first was probably spent trying to learn how it worked, what it was capable of and how my teaching style needed to be modified to take advantage of what it had to offer.
To set the scene, I have a small class of years 1 and 2 in a socially disadvantaged category 2 school.
One of the difficulties I have in trying to ascertain whether it has contributed to students learning is that there are a couple variables that exist in this class which are different from other years. Firstly, I have inherited children from a new Arrivals program. These children are Korean, Japanese and Russian. The work ethic that exists within these children has to be seen to be believed. They have tremendous capacity for hard, focused work and they exude palpable joy when they reach achievable, thoughtfully set goals, particularly in maths and English.
Secondly, the class is small and has been kept that way all year thanks to a focus on reducing class sizes by a principal who knows that this leads to a teacher having time and therefore patience, for all.
Thirdly is the smart board. The children run up the stairs and into the classroom as soon as the doors open. They rush to the IWB which I have allowed them free access to for the first half hour every morning. They cannot wait to log on and go.. I have never really experienced and therefore understood, concept of the teacher as the facilitator and the students driving the curriculum before now. Now I cannot stop it!! It’s almost as thought I am being hurtled along with them. They can log on, cruise from web site to web site, write their stories on kid pix and display them proudly on the smart board for any ‘willing’( often coerced) audience. They can produce an Avatar, assist in importing pics into photo story and power point,access guided reading sites, access the BBC and the ABC, Lego, maths sites to practice number combinations, use the interactive timer, access the maps, assist in use excel to create graphs, publish and edit stories, import pictures and view their photos from the digital cameras. While using the IWB and the computers they chat incessantly sharing information and learning quickly from each other. They gather around and offer suggestions, Collaborative working in action!Then when its my turn to present my lesson on the board they are more knowledgeable than me when it comes to trouble shooting.
The IWB has injected a life into the room like nothing else I’ve ever experienced and we all benefit. I love my lap top and my scanner and teaching is sooooooooo much more enjoyable. Well being is high, happiness and excitement is a constant and behaviour problems seem not to be there. My only “problem” now is where to from here? They are learning faster than I can and the only thing stopping us moving more into the web 2 tool areas are money and time to inservice. Both seem hard to come by when you’re locked between 4 walls all day long and you need another life besides school and computers!!So Lauren you are right!! Learning is a conversation, issuing teachers with their own laptops does increase positive teachers attitudes towards their work and allowing the children to use the IWB as well as providing structured approaches to Internet research, develops students’ search and research skills, which really are transferable across the curriculum. And its kewl to be Nerdie because computers are fun!!
Di Mulvihill ( Zebrasfly)
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Thanks for the great description, Zebrasfly.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Hi Lauren,
Where to next in this discussion…….
Firstly this biso about student focus vs teacher focus. I think that we are generally in agreement on this issue. With minor differences on how we phrase our points of view.
The following is a short poem that does the rounds of the internet from time to time, I am not sure if you have seen it, but it sums up in a very ‘poetic’ way what I believe about the power of teaching.
I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal.
In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized.
by Haim Ginott
Teachers make the weather. What a teacher actually does in the classroom has a greater impact on student learning than anything else. This is why we need to focus on what teachers actually do in the classroom; this is why we need to focus on teaching. I would think that you and many others would say that students need to be given more control / more agency over their learning. And I would agree completely, but giving students more control is a very definite and deliberate choice that a teacher has made, it has to do with their teaching.
It might be said that we quibble over terms, and in some senses we are, my concerns is sometimes the ‘focus on the learning’ is pushed in isolation from a focus on the teaching, I think that they need to be complimentary foci. I mentioned to you today that it was repeated to me that Alan November said that ‘Teachers should always bring 2 or 3 teachers to ICT PD, and the teacher should bring their marking as well’. (apologies to Alan November if he said nothing of the sort). It is this push to marginalise the role of the teacher that I object to. Remember the teacher ‘makes the weather’, the teacher is the ‘gorilla in the room’ we cannot just ignore it (sorry about the mixed metaphors).
On this point I think that we may be agreeing about the same thing, just using different words.
On the student centred use of IWBs. I am not so convinced on this. In presentation when people ask me what are the students going to do on the IWB in terms of learning activities my usual response is probably not much. The IWB is fantastic for facilitating whole group discussions, it is good for modelling, guiding and scaffolding. It allows teachers to prepare engage and scaffold students into their learning activities, but I don’t see it adding that much to the student learning activities. Learning is a very individual activity, while we often undertake group work, when the penny drops for one student it does not necessarily drop for any other. I see that individual PCs, lego, and other forms of concrete materials are usually much more effective to support student learning, precisely because on the whole they are designed for this individual context. This is not to say that IWBs cannot be used within learning activities, of course they can, but I don’t think that this is where they add their greatest value. Again when I am asked what learning activities can students do on an IWB I usually ask the what student learning activities did we ask students to do on a regular blackboard; probably not much because there were more effective technologies available for students to use.
Having said all of this there are many ways that an IWB can add value while students are undertaking learning activities. Just few examples: place on the IWB a ‘reminder photo’ of expected behaviour ie. Students keeping their work area is an acceptable state, maybe correct pen grip if they are going to be writing….., Plug a webcam into the computer and have it stream live onto the IWB what the class it doing. This has two benefits that I have noticed. Firstly when students can see themselves they are more aware of their behaviour and are more inclined to self-regulate their behaviour. Having the webcam also facilitates capturing events that take place during the ‘student learning activity’ phase of the lesson. If the teacher sees a student or a group really engaged they can just capture a frame or two to use during the follow up reflection. When students have break throughs and insights, they can also go up to the webcam and record either a frame, or a short comment. This is most effective when students know that they are going to have a reflection stage in the day as they know that what they capture will assist them, improving their ability participate and articulate their thoughts. I have seen a couple of times students when students making a model would go up to the web cam, take a photo of the model and then draw all over it within the IWB software, discussing what they could do next, what modifications they could make to improve the model. However this type of IWB usage is not that common from my experience, and it could be done without the IWB, but it has potential.
Cheers
Peter
September 30th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Sorry the Alan November paraphrase should be:
‘Teachers should always bring 2 or 3 STUDENTS to ICT PD, and the teacher should bring their marking as well’.
I am an idiot sometimes.
Peter
October 1st, 2008 at 8:16 am
Hi Lauren,
I always enjoy reading your blog and have never commented. Your IWB post caused me to reflect on my classroom IWB. 2008 is my second year of having an IWB in my classroom. There is an interesting article(a somewhat boring title!!) called: Pedagogy and Interactive Whiteboards: Using an Activity Theory Approach to Understand Tensions in Practice.Robyn Zevenbergen
Griffith University
Steve Lerman
London South Bank University, UK
October 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hi Lauren
Thanks for your really thoughtful and incisive posts. I agree pretty much down the line:IWB’s are a pretty lame tool unless they are used in student-centric ways. I think that the big problem is that the learning
October 28th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hi Lauren
Thanks for your thoughtful and incisive comments. I agree pretty much down the line with the thought that IWB use needs to be student-centric or else we are flogging a pretty lame horse. Interactive should mean interactive for all – not just for the teacher at the board.
The real problem with effective teacher use of IWBs is that the learning journey that many teachers take passes them through the teacher centred stages first:
1 Use it as a chalk board.
2 Use it to show prepared data shows.
3 Include (teacher orientated) interactive elements
Before getting on to the really powerful student-centric stuff:
4 Students interact with material on the board.
5 The board facilitates interaction between the students.
And many teachers for whatever reason get marooned somewhere about stage 3. It might be:
because they are operating within their comfort zone,
because they have not seen enough good student centered lessons, because their school has afforded the $6000 IWB but wont part with a couple of hundred for good software.
The challenge for school PL co-ordinators is to assist in removing these barriers.
My personal area of interest in IWB teaching and learning is in learning games which I have found to be an excellent way of using the board in student-centric ways. I ended up writing a lot of my own stuff which I have now made available through my website:
http://www.myinteractiveclassroom.com
The games featured on this site involve interaction for the whole class (often working in teams) and surely this should be the the aim of the IWB.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
[...] 28-1-2009 Primary Framework iwb resources – Kent ICT Blog Saved by zacechola on Sun 25-1-2009 Comment on In defence of Student centric IWB use by john short Saved by WholeWorldIsWatching on Sat 24-1-2009 Atoms, Bits and the e-word Saved by trekwars on [...]
August 24th, 2009 at 8:42 am
[...] Session summary: John’s forte was the development of Learning Games, based on Powerpoint and some more sophisticated Flash based content. He took attendees through some of the games including “Battle Of The Sexes” (useful only in co-ed schools), “Millionaire” and several others. He also talked through the use of these games as templates for students to create their own versions, easily tying these platforms to whatever learning was current in their classroom. There are a number of examples on John’s website at My Interactive Classroom. He also talked through his pedagogical stages of IWB use – which you can find here in a comment on Lauren O’Grady’s blog. [...]