Whole Class Teaching Strategies and Interactive
Technology: towards a connectionist classroom
David Longman - University of Wales, Newport, UK
Malcolm Hughes - University of the West of England, Bristol. UK
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference,
University of Warwick, 6-9 September 2006
Abstract: this paper outlines some implications for pupils’ learning and for teachers’ practice, of
the much increased availability of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in UK schools in the context of
national educational agendas for desirable characteristics of classroom teaching. In an earlier
paper (Hughes and Longman, 2005) the authors presented a critique of the concept of
interactivity and connectionism in teaching and learning using IWB. That paper was based on
preliminary video data gathered in secondary classrooms. In this paper, lessons are drawn from
the outcomes of a small-scale research project based in a Herefordshire primary school during
the spring term of 2006. For one focus week, and following training in recording and editing,
class teachers and children were given unlimited and unstructured access to digital video
recording equipment with a request to capture uses of the interactive whiteboard. Results of the
study suggest that: there are advantages to this methodology in recording what happens in
classrooms (though technical improvements are suggested); that good teachers can be a
become a little better even when novice users of the technology; and that the notion of the
connectionist classroom and the implications of the use of connected digital technologies could
be important in our understanding of how children learn.
Introduction to the context of the research
The energetic promotion and introduction of interactive whiteboards (IWB) into classrooms by
United Kingdom education policy makers seems to be based on belief in a number of desirable
characteristics of classroom teaching that it are associated with expert use of the new digital
input and display technologies. These associated characteristics of good classroom practice are
regarded by many as key to raising standards of teaching and learning, and perhaps are best
summarised by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta):
The key feature of this technology is that it emphasises whole-class teaching
strategies. These include teacher modelling and demonstration, prompting,
probing and promoting questioning, managed whole-class discussions, review
of work in progress to reinforce key points emerging from individual and group
work, and whole-class evaluation in plenary sessions
(Becta, 2004)
In an earlier paper (Hughes and Longman, 2005) the present authors presented a critique of the
concept of interactivity in teaching and learning using IWB. That paper was based on
preliminary video data gathered in secondary classrooms. This paper extends that critique with
further data gathered from teachers and classrooms in a primary school. Access to the research
school in Herefordshire was sought because of its reputation as an example of a school where
we might find evidence of connectedness in teaching and learning using ‘digitally connected
technologies’.
The data we collected is not clear on this particular aspect of the school's approach to ICT, i.e.
the extent to which the connectivity of the technologies influenced or was highly visible in the
teaching although certainly it is a school which is well equipped and where pupils have good
access to ICT. But our evidence does at least confirm certain findings made by other
researchers looking at IWB (see Smith et al, 2005, for a thorough literature review). There is
evidence of continuing enhancement in the quality of teacher led presentations and
demonstrations and the engagement of the pupils is clearly improved.
The evidence we have gathered in this paper is limited in three major ways. First we do not
have extensive transcripts or tallies of classroom events and interactions relying instead on
video recordings that have been edited and selected for the researchers' gaze by the
participants (teachers and pupils). This methodological approach is developed below. Second
we have only recorded the pupils' views and have not asked the teachers involved for their
perspective on the lessons that were recorded. Third, there has been selectivity in relation to
what counts as an episode worthy of video recording. The pupil interviews suggested that other
kinds of activities such as drawing, "colouring in" and "going on the internet" also took place but
we saw none of these in our video. These informal situations have been selected out and our
video samples have only captured formal teacher-led learning situations.
Overall our relatively brief observations indicate that the structural social conditions, i.e. the
'standard' teacher led style of whole-class teaching in primary school classrooms, remains
strong. On the whole the potential influence of dynamic, interactive display technologies as
suggested by Becta is yet to be realised, if indeed it is realisable.
What are we to do about these observations? It is too simplistic to argue that there is a better
form of teaching, broadly termed 'interactive teaching', to be contrasted with a less preferred
model – often referred to as just plain whole-class or didactic teaching. For example, while
providing a useful literature review, Glover et al (2005) tend somewhat to this simplified
perspective choosing to emphasise the contrast between a more desirable, interactive style of
teaching, and the 'didactic' or 'conventional' style. We need to avoid deficit descriptions of
teaching with IWB that seem to suggest that we are missing an important sea change in
pedagogy if we do not somehow become adepts with IWB. Perhaps the IWB, in its most
common configuration, is well suited to teacher-led whole class teaching and supports this style
very well.
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A subtler view of the nature of interactive teaching models is required if we are to make
progress on the issue of how IWB (and related technologies) could bring about a step change in
the character of teacher-pupil interactions. Even so, investigations into the features of wholeclass interactive teaching, and especially investigations into the whole-class interactive teaching
strategy promoted by the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, show that such higher
order teaching styles are difficult to achieve and sustain (e.g. English et al 2002, Hardman et al
2003, Hargreaves et al 2003, Myhill et al 2004, Smith et al 2003, Tanner et al 2005)
Whereas the aim of such strategies is to raise standards by providing a richer more constructive
experience for pupils, the competing constraints of such elements as maintaining pace and
allowing time for pupil contributions has the result that “…teachers are becoming more directive
in their teaching, with little opportunity for pupil elaboration” (Hardman et al, 2003). The
evidence and analysis suggests that classroom teaching within the framework of the WCIT
approach remains teacher centred and teacher led. There is, overall, little change in the pattern
or quality of interactivity in pupil learning. Teachers do most of the talking and most of the
thinking because the strongly objective oriented approach of the NLS and the NNS provide little
opportunity for genuine pedagogical interactivity:
“Far from encouraging and extending pupil contributions to promote higher levels of
interaction and cognitive engagement, the majority of the time teachers’ questions are
closed and often require convergent factual answers and pupils display of … known
information.” (Hardman et al, 2003 p)
In short, whether we consider the impact of IWB (and related technologies) or the impact of
curriculum strategies that explicitly aim to shift the default teaching style, neither is particularly
successful in achieving the higher order aspirations of interactive teaching.
In our previous paper (Hughes and Longman, 2005) we proposed a slightly different way of
thinking about the apparent choice between interactive or didactic teaching. This is the concept
of the 'connectionist' classroom1 as a way of thinking about what sort of teaching and learning
environment may best be served by the functionality of ICT (e.g. the list advanced by DfEE,
1998: speed, automation, capacity, range, provisionality, interactivity). There are important
issues about the ways in which ICT can be configured so as to maximise the potential of this
functionality, not singly but in a systematic way (see Hughes and Longman 2005 for a small
scale example from a primary school).
One way to handle this is the connectionist classroom (Askew et al. 1997). This model of
classroom teaching emphasises the connections between ideas as a key tool in shaping
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understanding – the case of Askew et al, the domain was mathematics. It also emphasises
social connectivity as a key part of effective teaching and learning, as are dialogue, problemsolving and we would add, enthusiasm and excitement. At this stage the model does not
propose that all teaching should be aiming at 'higher order' questions but only that, for example,
through creating an atmosphere of dialogue, higher order questions will naturally arise – they do
not have to be aimed for.2
In a connectionist classroom ICT, and therefore the IWB, is organised heterarchically, i.e. there
is high interconnectivity of the parts of the system. This means that any ICT 'tool' can in principle
be captured or displayed by other similar tools. This technological solution however cannot be
imposed and it would not on its own bring about the higher order step changes in classroom
teaching that are widely thought to be desirable in the drive to push up standards. Alongside the
configuration of ICT, which cannot happen all at once but takes time, there needs to develop the
exercise of certain kinds of teaching behaviours that promote such activities as children thinking
collectively (i.e. socially) or reaching out to look for things in other parts of the world (e.g. " …
going on the internet …").
In this paper, and with this perspective in mind, we are taking a descriptive look at some small
episodes of IWB use in primary classrooms. Our data show us that the connectionist description
of a classroom can be seen in small flashes. This is not to say that our data is negative, that we
are in any sense disappointed with what we have seen. How we take this on in the future is
returned to in the conclusions but it is not important to explore the methodological principles we
are developing alongside the descriptive model of the effective ICT-rich classroom.
Methodology for the use of classroom video
As already suggested in this paper, hints drawn from hearsay led us to believe that in a primary
school in Herefordshire, we might find evidence of connectedness in teaching and learning
using ‘digitally connected technologies’. The school was approached for permission for a smallscale classroom-based research project to see whether or not such evidence existed. The
school was well-equipped with digital display technologies linked to the Internet available in all
1
Not to be confused with connectionism, a computational approach to designing and building neural nets,
although there are conceptual links which we will take further in future papers.
2
In the stage of final revisions to this paper the TDA ran another television advertisement using the
'inquiring minds' hook. Secondary pupils are shown asking a range of highly individual, often idiosyncratic
questions. All are worth answering, but one wonders how well present curriculum structures really would
allow a teacher or pupils to address them in any depth? In part, perhaps, they might.
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Reception to Year 6 classrooms.
All teaching and support staff had received training in
technical and pedagogic issues, the school received excellent OfSTED and Diocesan reports (it
is a Church of England School) and the headteacher and several staff were self-confessed
‘converts’ to use of ICT to enhance teaching and learning.
The headteacher was concerned about the potential use made of any recordings but was
reassured that the methodology chosen was to ask the children and their teacher to engage in a
collaborative task; ‘telling a story’ of how the interactive whiteboard was used over the period of
a week. Each teacher and class were given a morning or afternoon’s training in using digital
video cameras and the editing software which was provided on a laptop computer. Therefore
the task also addressed some key learning objectives for ICT. Each classroom was equipped
with a digital video camera, a tripod stand and a laptop running editing software, capable of
connection to the IWB. What was recorded, edited and kept was entirely in the hands of each
teacher and their class.
At the end of the week teachers gave the research team edited
highlights of their story. Only one class failed to provide any data as there had been technical
problems with the equipment.
Ruby (1995) suggests that the written word is seen as the more creditable and authoritative
medium than the visual. From her perspective as an anthropologist, she notes:
“Anthropology is a word driven discipline. It has tended to ignore the visual/pictorial
world perhaps because of distrust of the ability of images to convey abstract ideas.
When engaged in ethnography, the researcher must convert the complex
experience of fieldwork to words in a notebook and then transform those words onto
other words shifted through analytic methods and theories.” (p.135)
Heath and Luff (1993) feel that, through the creation of rich audio visual data records, video
ethnographies ‘have considerable advantages over more conventional forms of data used in the
social sciences, such as field notes or the responses to questionnaires’ (p. 308). The selfevident ‘reliability’ of a video data record may actually intimidate classroom researchers, since it
offers opportunities to hold their analysis and findings up to closer inspection. As Lomax and
Casey (1998) explain, “the reliability of the data is, in a sense, self-evident because the
recorded image may be repeatedly re-played, and, of course, the analysis and findings can be
repeatedly checked for reliability and validity.” Central to digital video research has been the
creation of tools of analysis of classroom interaction. Heath (1986) considers that the most
prevalent check on digital video as a primary research method is the “……lack of an analytic
framework….’ for studying the video data.
“In examining video recordings of naturally occurring activities, the researcher is faced
with a level of detail in human interaction that renders our more familiar sociological
concepts and analytic devices somewhat inappropriate save in a very crude sense.”
(1986: 4).
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This factor may have been looked upon as a reason to avoid the method, rather than as a
challenge and an opportunity to access a rich data source which can offer a better
understanding of the classroom phenomena under study. It is relatively easy to present
analytically interesting video clips linked to transcript, as well as attaching coding or key words
to those video clips. Yet, as mentioned in earlier discussions of the marginalisation of the visual,
little room is made for the presentation of video data analysis in prestigious conference settings
or learned journals. We are much more comfortable with a matrix of values and a MicroSoft
chart.
Furthermore, there is not much writing about practical aspects of video analysis methods, with a
‘lack of clarity in the literature regarding the validity of video based methods,’ and little
information about how to formally analyse the data (Lomax and Casey, 1998). Methods of
analysis using other research methods than classroom video are much more established and
widely accepted as leading to reliable and valid finds and it is tempting to revert to tried and
tested methodologies. However, Heath and Hindmarsh (2002) consider “it is not possible to
recover the details of talk through field observation alone, … it’s unlikely that one could grasp
little more than passing sense of what happened” (p. 107). They feel ‘traditional’ ethnography
fails to attend to the situated and interactional nature of practice and action (Heath and
Hindmarsh, 2002: 104). Hughes and Sharrock (1997) agree with this view that the character of
social life cannot be understood by simply ‘taking notes’ of the details of everyday life from
observation. Conventional observational ‘fieldwork’ cannot provide a data source from which to
sufficiently analyse detailed interaction with and around digital media.
The potential for confusion, or misunderstanding, would still be rife if audio alone was used to
augment such observation, since the complexity of kinaesthetics and body language would be
missed. The video camera is the best sociological tool with which to access detailed classroom
interactions around media, and while detailed and repeated observation of video data do not
involve a method per se, they do provide ‘a methodological orientation from which to view
‘naturally occurring’ activities and events’ (Heath and Hindmarsh, 2002: 110). In this study we
have adopted a descriptive approach based upon detailed and repeated observation of video
data. Eight hours worth on four tapes of data was collected. Initial observation of the data led to
much of it being discarded as unusable for technical reasons and the remaining clips transferred
in edited form for ease of viewing by the researchers. With the primary research method of
video recording, we could still continually check the data against any interpretations throughout
the analysis process. Having selected analytically interesting and discernible video sequences,
we occasionally returned to the complete data set for new lines of inquiry. For example, when
observing patterns of technical difficulties experienced by teachers and children we returned to
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the original video tapes to re-scrutinise examples where it was very difficult to see or hear what
was happening, data which we earlier dismissed as being too difficult to make sense of.
Despite the forgoing concerns about what analysis to make and what tools of analysis to use
the most common criticism of using digital video are the unnatural effects digital video methods
can produce on the classroom research subjects. In fact, many classroom researchers discount
the validity of the video camera as a credible research tool on the grounds that it is too intrusive
and generates unnatural effects. Yet, it is an unconvincing argument that assumes that methods
of participant observation can provide a more ‘naturalistic’ appreciation of classroom practice.
So, while video camera recordings are often assumed to be an intrusive method, Heath and Luff
(1993: 308) argue that it can actually have less effect on the ongoing interactions than having a
participant or non-participant observer. Our experience of observing classrooms over many
years lead us to think that pupils and teachers 'act-up' no more or less for a video camera than
for a non-participant observer.
Therefore, without raising ethical issues of invaded privacy and personal dignity by resorting to
covert recording it is impossible to accurately measure the influence of the camera on the
classrooms we investigated, but we understand the importance of dealing with this
methodological menace. For that reason, the video camera’s effects are considered in more
detail later in reference to what we perceive as the teachers’ collective desire to capture
everything that is happening and the teachers’, pupils’ and researchers’ collective
misconception of the camera’s panoptic power. However suffice to say at this point that we did
assume, as Bergstrom et al (1992) do, that ‘all participants soon became used to the presence
of the camera ‘(p. 17).
Furthermore, we observe that the video camera has become almost
naturalised through its commonality in everyday life, through closed-circuit television cameras in
city centres, in shops, road safety cameras and home security. A recent television commercial
for a make of car confidently asserts that we are ‘caught on camera’ three hundred times a day
and we might as well look good (presumably by being recorded in the car being advertised).
In one of his later works, Goffman (1975) singles out video ethnography as being specifically
suited to the study of ‘small behaviours’ and in classrooms it is often the small behaviours that
are the most revealing:
“Tape and film, unlike a still, provide not only a recoverable image of the actual activity in
question but also an appreciable collection of these records. More important, audio and
video recordings of very small behaviours facilitate micro-functional study, that is an
examination of the role of a bit of behaviour in the stream which precedes, co-occurs,
and follows.” (1979: 24).
However, camera positions chosen by teachers and children in this study were often a ‘position
of self-imposed marginality’, keeping a ‘social distance’ from which to observe what was
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happening. (Harper, 1998) and small behaviours were much more difficult to pick up.
Nevertheless, video data captured by the children provided a different kind of immersion in the
field of study, providing us with a resource to continually revisit and re-scrutinise the minutiae of
everyday classroom life; the very interactions that structure the operation of the classroom and
the use of interactive whiteboard media.
The decision about where to mount the video camera, which with the use of one camera per
classroom is certainly limiting and excluded some areas of a room, is one of many decisions
taken by teachers and children during data collection. Whilst video images do stand in a close
relationship to that which they represent, they are still only representations of reality. No video
record can be completely adequate and no source of video data can act as a comprehensive
verification of events. A decision was made to use a single video camera. This can only offer
one angle, of one room, at one time period of one day. Yet, it is necessary to constrain the data
collection in some way in order to keep the research project practical and workable. As
Silverman (2000) explains, ‘once you recognise that there can be no ‘perfect’ recording of
interaction, it is always a case of making do with what you have’ (pp. 45-6). Yes, it could have
been better.
The locations chosen were often limited, whether through the position of power sockets or
through teachers’ preferences. The typical positioning of the camera created problems for using
much of the data. Our pupils/teachers often chose to use a corner or side position not normally
taken by a teacher or pupils but more usually a specially prepared place offered to a visitor,
frequently someone important such as an OfSTED inspector. In some sense the camera
becomes a visitor in the classroom and is not accepted as part of the teaching and learning.
Because of this constraint the camera’s viewpoint meant that in some lighting conditions the
images and text on the IWB were not discernible. When asked about this both teachers and
pupils explained that they had been warned by the demonstrator (one of the research team who
had trained the teachers and pupils) that too much panning and zooming were not a good idea,
so chose positions that attempted a panopticon of the whole classroom. “….so we could see
everything that was happening…..”
We also found that the position of a small boom
microphone on the camera meant we picked up a good deal of background classroom noise
and often lost the interactions we wanted to focus on. It was difficult for our teachers and
children to tell their stories because of the technical difficulties. Classrooms are difficult places
to capture good quality video data and in hindsight we could have asked the teachers and
children to do things very differently. Despite the difficulties the children were able to capture
something of what happened in their classrooms during a school week and we were able to
make some sense of the data they provided.
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Analysis of video data
In the following analysis we try to build from the ‘low level’ issues to do with the use of the IWB
the ‘higher order’ issues that perhaps related to pedagogy.
Throughout the video sequences we reviewed there were frequent hold ups caused by a
number of operational problems. These centred almost always on the use of the pen (this
school uses a pen-based IWB) and involved a mixture of calibration problems (pointer not lining
up with the pen tip), ineffective or accidental clicking opening the wrong part of a program.
Another type of problem arose with the displayed materials. Typically those materials generated
by teachers themselves used tools such as Word or the bespoke software supplied with the
IWB to construct object-based presentations. In these situations clicking on the object to move it
or start some action is sometimes equally likely to select the object, not to activate it.
Both these types of case occurred in almost every video sequence in some form or degree. In
all these cases the teachers displayed impressive levels of confidence and skill in working
through these small interruptions in order to keep the lesson moving forward. The teachers
could manage and recover from such low level glitches easily and were rarely thrown by them.
Teacher confidence in these video records is high and of necessity perhaps the teacher is firmly
in control of the board, in one case at least the teacher states to the class that the board only
works properly for her (Video Ch 10)
Such operational issues (most of which are easily corrected either in set up or during use) were
rarely mentioned by the pupils in the interview data in answer to the question (asked by a pupil)
"…what are some bad things about the interactive whiteboard?". Interestingly they did
frequently report another type of operational interruption that was not captured in our video data
that of screen blanking by the PC or laptop (probably due either to a blank screen saver, or
power settings). Several pupils reported this as a nuisance "… you could be looking at
something and then suddenly it's gone and you have to hit the space bar …" and even worse
was "freezing" (hibernation perhaps?) particularly when this resulted in lost work.
The physical size of the board in relation to the height of children made for some awkwardness
when using the board, more obviously for the youngest children in Year 1, but still for the older
children. Even when the boards are brought down almost to the floor (and no boards in this
school have been placed as low as the floor) for the youngest children the top area of the board
is not at a suitable height for an interaction that requires the use of hands and arms.
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Typically we observed two kinds of materials being used by teachers, the 'home-made' and the
'found'. Often the found materials were familiar types of educational computer program or
software. These either required the children to watch, teacher or pupil 'interacting' with the
board only to move on to the next frame or sequence or they were simple games relying entirely
on the pen as the control device. With the lower years groups there was considerably more use
of such found materials particularly story telling programs and simple number and word games.
Quite often in the lower year groups the IWB was used purely as a projection screen for the
pupils to watch videos (Video Ch 2-4) and sing along or speak with the sound track. An
enjoyable and useful activity of course but here the projector is the key tool rather than the IWB.
It is an interesting thought that by the use of activity programs designed to be projected onto the
IWB we are make greater demands on their physical ability to reach all the corners of the board
(e.g. see Video Ch 5, 6 and 7) than we would for ourselves! It is obvious from watching the
board in use by children that some of the activities project onto the board would be better
undertaken with the board laid flat. For example, we observed young children playing a simple
reaction game and manipulating an alphabet puzzle and in both cases the upper parts of the
screen were harder to reach. Indeed, in the case of the alphabet puzzle the children had to
stretch to reach the top row of the puzzle picture ('a', 'b', 'c' etc.) and the teacher intervened to
place a chair to stand on. When they had finished, the teacher asked them to point to the letters
and "sing the alphabet song". Since they could not easily point to the top two rows they waved
their hands in the direction of the letters as they appeared in the song. The teacher, however,
asks them to point more accurately and not wave their hands. For the children this presented a
small contradiction.
However, and outweighing these physical limitations, the high visibility of the board is an
important virtue in two ways – one explicit and one less so. Explicitly, the pupils reported in the
interviews that among other things they like about the IWB its visibility is very good, " … you can
see everything but larger from the back of the room …", and "… when you are using a flipchart
all the children at the back have to come and sit down at the front …" (flipcharts were used a lot
in this school and the pupils often compared the properties of the IWB with them).
Less obvious is the high visibility for the teacher of pupil activity. Notwithstanding the fact that
the children playing the alphabet game had some minor difficulty with the physical size of the
board, the teacher, who was elsewhere in the classroom, could intervene easily and focus their
activity. In another example this high visibility was clearly an important aspect of the teacher's
classroom management. In this episode (Video Ch 26- 27) the pupil worked alone at the IWB
with a program that reinforced number bonds and arithmetic operators (in this case division) by
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graphically allowing the pupil to drag objects into groups against a number line. While the
program supported checking by confirming the groupings and 'snapping' to the number line, it
was up to the teacher to encourage the pupil to make a prediction.
Throughout this episode the teacher is elsewhere in the classroom working with other pupils but
was able to talk to the pupil at the board to direct her activity and to keep her on task. This was
a constructive way for the teacher to use the IWB in this context – the lesson for the whole class
at this point involved the children in activity at their tables – and while this pupil could have
carried out this number activity on the laptop (some of the time she used the keyboard to control
the software and only used the pen to drag the objects) the deliberate decision by the teacher to
project the activity enabled better support for this pupil.
In relation to these found materials (i.e. materials downloaded from a website or purchased for
use on the whiteboard) our video data illustrated a variety of approaches and all relied on the
high visibility of the projection. In whole class settings, such as a foreign language class, the
IWB was used effectively to play word reinforcement exercises such as going to the board and
touching a picture to reveal the word asked for by the teacher or to follow a sequence as a
group and collectively raise hands in response to certain listening events (Video Ch 16,
although only in the former case is the interactivity of the whiteboard exploited). In another case
the projected image is used solely by the teacher as a method for displaying the answers to a
paper-based word activity (Video Ch 25). In these cases there is little doubt that the IWB
enhances the quality of the presentation of resources but it is the effectiveness of the overall
classroom management that is a key to the effectiveness of its use. In these cases we are
watching a 'standard' language lesson where vocabulary and the use of simple forms of the
target language are the order of the day.
In all our video episodes, as already described, the relaxed and confident manner in which all
the teachers dealt with various minor operational and functional issues ensured that in all cases
the learning objectives remained in focus even when the materials did not necessarily greatly
assist the activity. For example a teacher worked with Year 2 children on telling the time,
reinforcing the positions of the minute and hour hands to show half-past the hour (Video Ch 1214). Here the teacher was using made materials – a clock dial consisting of a ready made
picture (presumably taken from an image library) and two clock hands positioned appropriately.
Due to the way this picture had been constructed each of the three elements (dial and hands)
could be moved (i.e. dragged) independently of the other; moreover the length of the hands
could be changed by dragging and care was needed to select the handle for rotating the hand
and the handle for resizing it. Some pupils had considerable difficulty manipulating the image,
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although one had no trouble at all and quick as a flash rotated the hands without disturbing any
other element of the picture.
In most cases, however, the teacher took control of the pen when the pupil was clearly having
difficulty, and in one case in our video sequence takes control at the very first manipulation error
made by the pupil. Importantly, the learning objective remained the clear focus in the lesson and
the teacher was clearly not allowing functional problems to interfere with it but even the teacher,
in manipulating the clock picture, had some difficulty in adjusting the hands without muddling it
up.
In this case, although the lesson remained focused through effective teaching, the quality of the
made materials perhaps reduced the visual impact of the clock face. Indeed, we may ask why,
in this case, this sort of illustration is actually any better than those still available (and cheap)
cardboard clock dials and given the class setting, pupils gathered at the front around the board,
high visibility was not such an issue (the same could be said of the alphabet puzzle in the earlier
example). The pupil interviews, however, suggested that their previous experiences of this sort
of activity had involved 'paper and pencil' rather than concrete apparatus. When asked what it
was about the whiteboard that helped them learn about telling the time two pupils replied that
they could simply move the hands and when you got it wrong you did not have to rub it out and
draw a new one (Video Ch 15).
So far, therefore, our video evidence does not on the face of it suggest that in this particular
school with a reputation for its use of "connected" technologies there is a major shift in the
teaching strategies. Certainly all the teachers we saw would be classified as very good to
outstanding if we were using an inspection style coding system. But the IWB was
accommodated to the teaching style of the teacher and though used well was slotted into an
existing repertoire of strategies. Some features of the IWB were clearly being exploited (its
visibility for example) as aids to more effective teaching or management of learning but overall
the teachers in this survey, as far as their use of IWB go, fit more firmly into Beauchamp's
‘Apprentice User’ category (Beauchamp 2004).
There are elements however that suggests many teachers in this school are already moving into
the ‘Initiate User’ category though perhaps experimentally (some hints about this come from the
pupil interviews). In one case the teacher was clearly using sequences of stored pages to
support his teaching, moving from a first page to illustrate ideas and stimulus and then moving
to a second, activity page. Yet, it is clear from observing this class that this teacher is already
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working in a well organised, imaginative and focussed style. The IWB is used in such a way as
to reinforce or illustrate the concepts being taught and is generally well managed.
In this teacher's classroom the children have access to a tablet which is passed around the
class. Pupils are offered the choice – they can use the tablet from their desk to manipulate the
board or they can use the board directly (pupils do sometimes prefer the latter option). In the
observed lesson (Video Ch 17-19) the whole class was effectively engaged in some textual
analysis, looking at and reading a sample of text on the screen, then choosing a highlighter
colour to mark where one of the five senses is described in the text (yellow for touch, green for
hearing etc.). Where several of the teachers in our sample offered explanations or reminders to
the pupils about how to control or operate the projected activity this particular teacher gave very
clear and accurate explanations of operational considerations, attempting to ensure that the
children were clear and confident on these details.
The whole approach of this teacher is stimulating, orally versatile, and well structured. The
pupils were highly engaged with a sustained focus on the text. Pupils used the slate or the
board accurately to select a highlight colour and to mark a chosen element of the text.
Throughout this episode (and the next, below) pupils were engaged as a whole class reading
the text, identifying the language of the senses. As individuals marked up the text there would
be mutterings of agreement and encouragement from many in the class. As the activity
proceeds, while a pupil is confidently using the tablet to mark up an example of sight, a pupil in
the background is heard to mutter "…we've got quite a lot of sight in this story…".
Certainly in this example we can see some elements of a co-construction process going on and
an effectively shared group product. The pupil behaviour in this lesson, quiet, thoughtful but
making oral contributions as well as volunteering to mark a phrase, indicates a good example of
aspects of whole class interactive teaching, a process in this case evidently facilitated by the
board and all that goes with it – visibility, clarity of text and colour, ease of undoing mistakes.
The important points here are that sometimes when observing pupils in classrooms with IWB it
appears that the purpose behind tapping the board is very limited. Pupils are frequently
engaged in "reactive interaction" (Hughes and Longman, 2005) and in pedagogical terms might
be regarded as rather low-level activity – the children are not very pro-active and therefore
making few active decisions or evaluations. In this episode the pupils are not engaged in any
complex physical interaction with the board but the evidence of an underlying intellectual activity
is clear from the video – evidence which is not easily gleaned from a simple tally count of
classroom events since the events in question are quite subtle.
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This teacher had made a great feature of the IWB in the classroom which was already well
endowed with nicely made displays and well organised furniture and resources. The IWB
occupied a space on one wall of the classroom with curtains draped on each side and a curtain
pelmet across the top of the board, turning the space around the board into a proscenium.
In another episode this same teacher made use of made materials, two Word documents with
simple graphic objects (made using Draw) to represent a character named Mr Angle Eater and
some angles that he would try to eat if the pupils dragged him over the angle (Video Ch 21-24).
Mr Angle Eater's mouth is a right angle (a little like Pac Man) and the lesson, of course, is about
identifying right angles. Again, in this lesson the teacher explains very carefully the difference
between dragging an object and rotating an object whilst maintaining the focus on the learning
objective, using the language of mathematics and emphasising higher order process like
prediction. Even for this teacher one or two slight hindrances to the manipulation of the objects
(e.g. objects can be dragged so that that the rotation handle is no longer visible) were adroitly
managed. As a nice aside, during his demonstration of dragging an object a pupil says " …Mr
Jones we can’t do that with a piece of paper can we…".3
In a similar way to the text example previously seen from this teacher, this lesson exemplified
some important elements of an interactive style of whole class teaching. Whatever a pupil was
doing at the whiteboard was keenly observed by the whole class with comments and
suggestions frequently muttered, providing evidence of “small behaviours” (Goffman, ibid) of
higher order thinking, even though the children are sitting quietly at their desks.
Finally, in the pupil interviews (two children at a time and the older pupils conducted their own
interviews) several general features were repeatedly described as virtues of the IWB. These
virtues have been reported time and again in the recent literature on IWB in classrooms and we
can simply confirm these (see e.g. the literature review by Smith et al 2005). When asked for
their opinions about the IWB pupils are unanimous in regarding it as fun and "…much better
than a flipchart …" or an "… old type of blackboard …". Correcting errors, moving things about,
selecting, changing, and undoing are all regarded as great features. Several children referred to
drawing and "…colouring in …" but we did not see this type of use of the IWB.
When asked to compare the IWB with a flip chart a pupil responded with confidence,
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“You can’t type on it, you can’t drag pictures onto it and you can't play games on it very
well, you haven’t got the internet and it isn't very good in the dark either”. (Video Ch 35)
The visibility of the board was the most frequently mentioned positive feature; as one pupil put it
"…it's got a good lighting system and it's sometimes better to see something instead of having it
told to you …". Many pupils referred to this aspect – that you can see things clearly; that the
teacher could show it to you again if you forgot or didn’t understand; that the teacher did not
spend time setting up the visual material " … Mr Jones just turns the computer on and it's there,
you just read it …" – and clearly the visual impact of the IWB is considerable. Repeatability too
is an important feature identified in the interviews – pupils appreciate that they can see the
same thing again and from the same starting point as before; they also appreciate that this is
helpful to the teacher as well.
At the same time some pupils were a little hazy about the different aspects of the technologies
they used. Many referred to a feature of the IWB as being that you can go on the internet with it
or that sometimes it goes blank, i.e. the screen saver or power saver on the attached laptop
kicks in. Some of the operational details too are hazy,
“…it helps you if you need to find something like maths, you would go onto the internet
and then you would click on maths and then sort of click on something else…”. (Video
Ch 29)
These are not too problematic – in time children, and teachers, will sort out the distinctions
between the parts of the system. Though not a major issue it is important that children come to
understand that access to the Internet is independent of the whiteboard or in the case of one
enthusiastic boy, that the library of pictures is independent,
“ … I like it [the interactive whiteboard] because you can do nearly everything on it – you
can drag things and you can draw things it's got a whole stack of pictures of maths and
science and things …”. (Video Ch 36)
So in this review of the data we have identified common issues to do with the operation of the
whiteboard as a device, the functional characteristics of the software and other objects that are
manipulated on the board, the physical size of the board, its visibility and visual character, and
questions about the appropriateness of materials (i.e. the old TTA question about when and
when not to use ICT).
3
It has to be said that this child was not an 'audience plant'! Although she was, perhaps, making this
comment because the camera was present, all the same it is a small but interesting example of how the
pupils are acquiring the rhetoric of ICT. This rhetoric is present too in all the pupil interviews.
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Motivation and engagement in lessons where the IWB is used are clearly in evidence
throughout the school and in our video samples although there is some variation in the cognitive
levels of the activities and the way in which the learning environment is managed. Moreover, we
do not have data about similar lessons in this school where the IWB is not in use so we cannot
talk in more general terms about the ethos of the learning environment that these teachers have
established.
Conclusions made about classroom practice
Following on from our earlier account of IWB in the secondary classroom (Hughes and
Longman, 2005), as indicated in the introduction, and based on hearsay for the selection of a
school context, we set out to collect descriptive data of connectionist teaching in practice. Our
thinking was already beginning to move even as we collected the data and certainly when we
viewed it realised that we had to be much more careful in the way that we interpreted what we
saw.
Perhaps like many researchers in this area we thought we were looking for something dramatic
or obvious and it wasn't there. We were seeking something different in these classrooms, some
obvious manifestation of interactive teaching at least and connectionist teaching at best. Instead
we found relaxed and confident teachers (and one trainee) working within the norms of so called
conventional teaching but using the IWB to make a difference no matter how small to their
teaching. The deeper, wider changes that may be lurking out there do not occur suddenly
because a teacher uses a large brightly coloured, digital, and dynamic display system.
We found therefore that we have had to abandon the simple dichotomy between interactive
teaching (that is good) and didactic teaching (that is bad) (e.g. as we suggested in the
introduction, the useful literature review by Glover et al, 2005 tends to this view). It turns out that
good teachers use the IWB well, their teaching is enhanced but not transformed – and nor could
it be. Professional practices tend to normative by their nature (Fielding, 1999) and didacticism is
always present.
Although what we are seeing is normative practice, and more than that the IWB is clearly being
accommodated to these norms, it is in fact good teaching made more engaging for the pupils in
a number of interesting ways. Our example contains at least one quite scintillating teacher who
would, of course, still be scintillating when he uses a flipchart (though very occasionally these
days).
The most fundamental feature, and perhaps the most important at the present stage, is the use
of an IWB for display. Of course, this is a truism – you can’t use an IWB without turning on the
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projector - but the pupil interviews strongly suggested that for the pupils this aspect of the IWB
is far and away the most important to them. Moreover, it does not follow that all the best
interaction takes place when the pupil is at the board. Good teachers can stun and stimulate a
class merely by having them look at and discuss a static picture. As someone once said "I get
them to look at a picture [a reproduction of a work of art] until they see it." The visual quality of
an IWB is very significant answer to the question about how the IWB helps learning. As one of
our pupils observed "it's sometimes better to see something instead of having it told to you."
That of course is not all. The episode of the text analysis where pupils took turns to mark up
sensory language illustrated how significant learning is enabled by the whiteboard - everyone
can see what is changing and who is changing it and most of the class are participating as
evidenced by the frequency of passing comments by pupils. But it is, of course the teacher who
has orchestrated this episode (for more on the concept of orchestration in relation to classroom
teaching see e.g. Kennewell and Beauchamp, 2003).
Our data let us see a little more of the pupils' perspective than of the teachers'. This we found
exciting and realised that it is important to gather more data about how pupils see this type of
technology affecting their classroom life. In our data the pupils demonstrate an easy and ready
use of key ideas about ICT – dragging, undoing, finding and displaying, etc., and how easily
they list them when asked to give examples of how the IWB helps them to learn. A particularly
interesting detail that emerged from this data is the value that pupils place on the repeatability of
demonstrations and illustrations used by the teacher.
We also saw that the question usually asked in the interviews was something like "How did the
WIB help you learn?" must be one of the most difficult interview questions to answer! You try for
a moment: how does a wordprocessor help you to learn? You are very likely, like these children,
to refer to things that you can do with a wordprocessor rather than things that you can do with
words and language – and you might struggle to name more than a few examples. (Pupils, for
example will tell you that they like the spellchecker because if a word is wrong it just finds the
right one for you; they won't tell you how using the spell checker can help you help you to learn
to spell!).
In future investigations of this problem about ICT and pedagogy we will be looking in more detail
at what the children think, what they value about ICT in their classrooms, what they don't like,
how they see it helping them to become better at something. A focus group methodology as
employed by Selwyn (2002) but using a similar video based approach is likely to yield richer
insights into the pupils' own perceptions about classroom learning and the IWB (or ICT more
widely).
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We also need to get hold of more data about all those other uses of the IWB that take place,
sometimes informally, and which we did not record. Some clue to better ways for the teachers
and children to tell their stories may be provided (perhaps in some bizarre way) by Noel
Edmond’s variety BBC programme –‘Noel’s House Party’. As part of the programme – a feature
called NTV – a family would be surprised by suddenly finding themselves live on television
because a camera and microphone had been hidden in or near their television set – the focus of
the lounge. The point is that a camera might well best be placed (not hidden) looking outwards
to the class from the IWB. A complementary technique would be to have a second camera on a
small table stand in front of a member of the class and near to the IWB. The camera would see
from the child’s perspective what was happening on the board, a little like the camera being ‘one
of the class’ rather than a visitor pushed back into a far corner. Lighting and angles of reflection
would be experimented with for optimum results and a suspended microphone connected to a
digital recorder near the interaction space would enhance sound quality.
Finally, we must mention connectionism! How far does this evidence take us? Connected
teachers encourage learners to: see interrelationships in knowledge; connect new knowledge to
its roots in old or prior knowledge (rather than constructing anew all the time as perhaps
constructivism might construe the process); and encourage social connectedness (among other
things through the use of networked technology) to help achieve this. In the present data, the
use of the tablet illustrated how the individual pupil is connected to the whole class through the
visibility of the activity on the IWB. The thinking is shared and is more likely to be owned by the
group as a co-connected and co-constructed understanding.
We are working towards this goal. Connectionism, or the view of it that that we are attempting to
describe here, emphasises the importance of taking a perspective on the nature of knowledge
and how it is made. Interactive teaching models emphasise how we get knowledge, they set
store by certain kinds of cognitive process, but they do not give guidance to the teacher,
particularly the novice teacher, as to how the content of teaching should look and feel in
addition to process i.e. there is no model of epistemology to grab on to. The major influence of
the new age of “digitally connected technologies” is not simply, or merely, about processes but
to bring larger audiences closer to diverse content, i.e. a digital enlightenment.
Note
We are grateful to the teachers, pupils and parents involved for their willingness to participate in
this study and to allow the findings to be published. Our thanks also to Paul Rycraft (Bristol
UWE) for demonstration and technical assistance and Liz Farr, Headteacher of Bosbury C.E
Primary School, Herefordshire, for her guidance, support and advice, and for gaining the
necessary permissions.
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For correspondence, access to video data and to arrange research seminar presentations on
any aspect of the first two papers in this series please contact:
Malcolm Hughes
Faculty of Education
University of the West of England, Bristol
Frenchay Campus
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol BS16 1QY
David Longman
School of Education
University of Wales, Newport
Caerleon Campus, PO Box 179
Newport NP18 3YG
Tel: +44 (0)1633 432629
Email: david.longman@newport.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)117 3284209
Email: mal.hughes@uwe.ac.uk
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