Interactive whiteboards as mediating tools for teaching mathematics: rhetoric or reality?
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Author(s)
Lerman, Steve
Jorgensen, Robyn
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2007
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Interactive whiteboards (IWB) are an innovation that is gaining considerable presence
in many contemporary classrooms. This paper examines the use of IWBs in
mathematics classrooms. Using a productive pedagogies framework to analyse
classroom videos, it is proposed that the classrooms observed used a restricted
approach in their use of IWBs. It was found that they were used for quick introductions
to lessons, were teacher directed, whole class teaching and fostered shallow learning.
Through interviews with the teachers, it was found that the approaches observed were
based on assumptions about learners and technology.
In this ...
View more >Interactive whiteboards (IWB) are an innovation that is gaining considerable presence in many contemporary classrooms. This paper examines the use of IWBs in mathematics classrooms. Using a productive pedagogies framework to analyse classroom videos, it is proposed that the classrooms observed used a restricted approach in their use of IWBs. It was found that they were used for quick introductions to lessons, were teacher directed, whole class teaching and fostered shallow learning. Through interviews with the teachers, it was found that the approaches observed were based on assumptions about learners and technology. In this paper, we explore the ways in which teachers use Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) in mathematics classrooms. There is a sense that this tool may offer considerable potential to enhance student learning. Promoters of the tool provide case studies of the novelty and support that can be achieved through the clever use of the tool for example, (Edwards, Hartnell, & Martin, 2002). How this is enacted in classrooms is the focus of the analysis in this paper. In exploring computer-mediated learning, Waycott, Jones and Scanlon (2005, p.107) reported that there is a reciprocity between the tools and the learner where “the user adapts the tools they use according to their everyday practice and preferences in order to carry out their activities; and how, in turn, the tools themselves also modify the activities that the user is engaged in.” We argue that this is the same for teachers.
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View more >Interactive whiteboards (IWB) are an innovation that is gaining considerable presence in many contemporary classrooms. This paper examines the use of IWBs in mathematics classrooms. Using a productive pedagogies framework to analyse classroom videos, it is proposed that the classrooms observed used a restricted approach in their use of IWBs. It was found that they were used for quick introductions to lessons, were teacher directed, whole class teaching and fostered shallow learning. Through interviews with the teachers, it was found that the approaches observed were based on assumptions about learners and technology. In this paper, we explore the ways in which teachers use Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) in mathematics classrooms. There is a sense that this tool may offer considerable potential to enhance student learning. Promoters of the tool provide case studies of the novelty and support that can be achieved through the clever use of the tool for example, (Edwards, Hartnell, & Martin, 2002). How this is enacted in classrooms is the focus of the analysis in this paper. In exploring computer-mediated learning, Waycott, Jones and Scanlon (2005, p.107) reported that there is a reciprocity between the tools and the learner where “the user adapts the tools they use according to their everyday practice and preferences in order to carry out their activities; and how, in turn, the tools themselves also modify the activities that the user is engaged in.” We argue that this is the same for teachers.
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Conference Title
Proceedings of the 31st Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Vol. 3.
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© The Author(s) 2007. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. For information about this conference please refer to the conference’s website or contact the author(s).