Skillful Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Science Classrooms

From the Marshall Memo #443

In this article in Teaching Exceptional Children, Peggy Whitby (University of Nevada/ Las Vegas), Mark Leininger (a psychologist in the Clark County Public Schools, NV), and Kelly Grillo (High Point University, NC) suggest ways to maximize the learning benefits of interactive whiteboards, with a special focus on helping students with disabilities grasp abstract concepts and succeed academically. The examples are from a middle-school science class.

• Pair a sound with an image to focus on the learning objective. The teacher kicks off the class by showing a large magnifying glass on the whiteboard with a sound bite of Inspector Gadget (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-JHfXVlkik). 

• Use avatars to confirm the learning objective. The teacher taps the whiteboard and a mad scientist avatar says in a digitized voice, “Here is the critical question for today: Do you know your blood type? What is it? And why are blood types important?”

• Use anchoring activities with video, multimedia, or photos. The teacher then shows a four-minute video clip on blood typing and its importance to saving lives, followed by several questions in an interactive PowerPoint.

• Use simulations and manipulatives for specific models. Students’ stations have an activity called Using Blood Tests to Identify Babies and Criminals, and they read it while the timer on the whiteboard counts down from eight minutes. Then the teacher calls for a student volunteer to model a blood type simulation through a transfusion game displayed on the whiteboard: http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/landsteiner/landsteiner.html. The student works at the simulation with support from classmates. Students then have 25 minutes to work on a lab packet while the teacher calls groups up one at a time to complete the transfusion game on the whiteboard. 

• Use clicker response as data. The teacher calls the class back together (the whiteboard says, “In five, four, three, two, one, hands down and heads up”), shifts to Poll Everywhere (http://www.polleverywhere.com), and has students use their cell phones to respond to several anonymous clicker questions, with the responses to each one instantly displayed. The teacher looks at the responses to each question and decides whether to re-teach and/or have students engage in peer instruction within their groups.

• Use feedback through coaching opportunities. The teacher strategically groups students so there will be productive collaboration and peer tutoring for students most in need of help. 

• Use varied assessment strategies. The teacher calls the class together again and asks students to partner with the lab group to their right. Students then share one thing they learned in the lesson and one thing they still need to learn. Then the teacher puts a word cloud on the whiteboard and has students write an essay using 10 percent of the words in the cloud. The teacher might also use an interactive assessment tool like Quiz Revolution 

http://www.quizrevolution.com to test students at the end of the lesson.

• Refine the lesson. A well-planned interactive whiteboard lesson “allows students to acquire knowledge and skills, and provides multiple practice sessions to hone skills to fluency,” conclude Whitby, Leininger, and Grillo. Teachers also get immediate feedback on student understanding and can tweak the lesson to make it even better. 

• Clean up. The teacher manages the end of the lesson by playing photos on the whiteboard of students in the class cleaning up and putting things back where they belong. 

“Tips for Using Interactive Whiteboards to Increase Participation of Students with Disabilities” by Peggy Whitby, Mark Leininger, and Kelly Grillo in Teaching Exceptional Children, July/August 2012 (Vol. 44, #6, p. 50-57),

http://cec.metapress.com/content/n810001677w5p203/; Whitby can be reached at peggy.whitby@unlv.edu.