More convinced than ever

[Chris Betcher]

I'm becoming more convinced than ever that there is no one pedagogy for teaching with an IWB. I see so many teachers using them in so many ways, many of which are seemingly quite mundane, and yet these teachers are getting value out of them.
I'm sure that it is a continuum of use, from mundane to innovative, but if they are getting value and kids are learning then I guess that makes them effective. I'm sure that in many cases they can be more effective, but every start point is valid.
I do think we need to see beyond the flipchart. Used as a digital hub generally they have so many possibilities.

[Peter Kent]

Hi Chris very good comment. While I agree entirely with you point, it probably depends on how each of us define pedagogy (probably the most over-defined word in education). I take a very big picture view of pedagogy and so would have used the term 'teaching strategy' rather than pedagogy.

The reason that I take the big picture view of pedagogy is that along with the vast body of good practice with IWBs there is also an equally vast body of poor practice.

Fundamentally the good teaching strategies that we all see with IWBs have features in common, features that are missing in the poor teaching strategies. Teachers / School Leaders need to be able to distinguish between inspired and poor teaching strategies. So that we can learn from both.

Personally I need a 'big picture' definition of pedagogy to help me do this. To destinguish between good and poor uses of IWBs (and all other technologies) I used 'Quality Teaching'. For those reading this from outside of NSW, Quality Teaching is very similiar to Productive Pedagogies (QLD) and Principles of Teaching and Learning (VIC) and all have been heavily influenced by Authentic Pedagogies (developed in the USA).

In a nut shell what Quality Teaching says is that all good teaching fundamentally has three things in common, regardless of the subject and the age group of the students. That is the good teaching promotes a high level of 'intellectual quality' within the lesson, the teaching makes the lesson 'significant' or relevant to the students, and the teaching promotes a learning environment that is 'supportive', that is all students are able and feel comfortable to participate in the lesson. (note I have just summed up a very big concept in about 3 lines, but hopefully you get the jist).

One of the implications of this is that if the use of the IWB does not enhance the intellectual quality of the lesson (often measured by the depth of the conversations); if the IWB does not help the lesson to be more 'relevant' to the student; and if the IWB does not assist more students accessing the lesson then the use of the IWB is probably poor.


I hope this make sense, leave a comment if it does not and we will flesh out the issue. I think that this issue is very important as it is vital that we can distinguish between poor and inspired uses of IWBs.

Cheers

Peter