Alien Pedagogy

One thing that I enjoy about the interactive whiteboard is helping students to take notes.

On a regular basis, I encourage my ninth graders to draw pictures instead of writing titles for their notes. So instead of writing a title for the chapter that we’re working on in class, I often draw an icon for the scene. “How to draw the underworld” was my hook for “Land of the Dead.” We moved on to other activities and while moving around the room, I noticed that almost every student took time to draw the underworld but few took time to write “Land of the Dead.”

I also find it easier to color code information using the IWB than I did using markers. Teachers that have taken the time to identify skills and concepts required in their units can color code them during discussion to constantly help students to consider what it is that they’re learning.

These may not be fundamental changes to how I teach, but they are how I’ve begun to explore the use of IWBs in my classroom.

My school just provided me with an interactive whiteboard and within a week I found that I’d unconsciously created IWB routines to manipulate student behavior and learning as well as to non-verbally communicate messages.

One of the most powerful tools is lighting. When I run the IWB, the lights are out and there’s only natural light in most of the classroom (this is also in line with our school’s determination to reduce energy consumption). When I ask students to do a focused reading, I turn on the lights again. The first three times I did this, I said “I’m going to turn on the lights to help you read.” Now I give a focus for active reading and turn on the lights.

The flipchart is also powerful. For one thing, if you want to move on to the next topic you can communicate this by going to a new slide.

I’ve begun listing my objectives on my first slide and then use the flip chart to guide students through the activities and tasks of the class. At the end of the class, we start with the last thing that happened in class and then work our way back to the objectives, which I find a more effective lesson summary than unsupported oral discussion.

The whiteboard pen is like the conch in Lord of the Flies. Somehow, it’s stronger than handing a marker to a student, perhaps because there are many markers in a classroom but only one IWB pen.

In closing:

• There is much that teachers can do to express their expectations using IWBs.
• Teachers should remember that the “interactive” whiteboard should not be an excuse to return to overly heavy “sage on the stage” teaching.