The impact of formal and informal professional development opportunities on primary teachers' adoption of interactive whiteboards

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Lewin ◽  
Peter Scrimshaw ◽  
Bridget Somekh ◽  
Maureen Haldane
Author(s):  
Niamh O´Meara ◽  
Fiona Faulkner

The Professional Diploma in Mathematics for Teaching is a 2-year part-time programme dedicated to out of field teachers of mathematics in second level education in Ireland. The programme was introduced in Ireland after a report highlighted that 48% of second level teachers of mathematics in Ireland were not qualified to teach mathematics (Ní Ríordáin & Hannigan 2011). The programme has been running since 2012 and is currently upskilling its 6th cohort of out-of-field teachers. As part of the programme, teachers are required to undertake mathematics content modules as well as mathematics specific pedagogy modules. One such mathematics specific pedagogy module requires students to undertake five 3-hour workshops which examine mathematics content contained on the second level curriculum and offers suggestions on how to teach it for conceptual understanding. Teachers in Cohort 5 of the programme completed a questionnaire prior to completing the 5 workshops to outline how confident they felt teaching particular aspects of the second level mathematics curriculum. They were also asked to best describe the teaching approaches that they favoured at that point in time. Upon completion of the 5 workshops, this same cohort of teachers completed a similar questionnaire investigating their level of confidence in teaching the curriculum and any changes in their teaching practices that occurred as a result of participation in this module.


Author(s):  
Arthur Winzenried ◽  
Barney Dalgarno ◽  
Jacqueline Tinkler

<span>This article describes the findings of a qualitative study investigating teacher perspectives on the impact of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) on their classroom teaching practice, using intensive case studies focusing on six primary and secondary teachers from two rural schools. The study found that all teachers were enthusiastic, had seen improvements in student engagement, and were able to develop and evolve their IWB teaching strategies through explicit reflection. However, there was considerable diversity both in the ways in which the IWB was used and in the degree to which teachers changed their classroom teaching practices. Whereas some (Glover and Miller, 2001; Kennewell, 2006) have been critical of IWB adoption without clear pedagogical transformation or without utilisation of all IWB features, we argue that one of the IWB's key benefits is that it can be used initially without requiring a big shift in pedagogy but that it may gradually afford more major pedagogical changes over a longer period of time. These findings are important for the design of professional development in schools because with such a diversity of perceived IWB affordances, effective professional development is more likely to take the form of informal practice sharing than of specific hardware or software training.</span>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document