I didn’t buy Cyril Taylor’s newly released “A Good School for Every Child – How to improve our schools” because I wanted to read another book on how to do school better.
At the moment I drift towards thinking and reading about museums rather than schools – probably because I am feeling burdened by the narrow perspective of what is written by people telling us what to do (and not to do) in school.
In truth when you work in a school it often feels like a big part of the problem is that there are too many people "telling" and not enough people "doing".
Still I relented and bought Cyril Taylor’s book because of his background. All that cover blurb stuff - Taylor has “served as an adviser to ten successive UK education secretaries and four prime ministers, both Conservative and Labour, including Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.”
Given some of the budget funding decisions made by our own New Zealand Minister of Education I wanted to understand the thinking of a ministerial adviser, albeit one from the UK.
As a litmus test I chose to start with Taylor’s take on “How information communication technology (ICT) can be used to improve learning.” This is an area that our minister chose to continue funding through things like the ictpd cluster contracts. I intended to to follow this with the chapter on “Why and how our gifted and talented children should be nurtured” an area where funding for gifted and talented advisers has been pulled in New Zealand.
In Chapter 9 “How information communication technology (ICT) can be used to improve learning.” Taylor asks –
“Does your school have an interactive whiteboard in every classroom?”
This is a revolutionary teacher’s tool which has made obsolete the old school
blackboard with chalk, as well as slide projectors. Whiteboards can have a dramatic effect in
raising standards. Not only can they show film clips and slides, and enable the
teacher to write electronically instead of using chalk, they are also
interactive with pupils being able to access them through their laptops.“
Given my sceptism over IWB's I immediately wished educational books were displayed in racks at supermarket checkouts so that I could have done a better flick/scan of the content before I ordered my copy from Amazon
I don’t know about you but I was underwhelmed by both the description of use and the claim over outcome for IWBs .... but in fairness to Taylor I continued reading to see what might be offered in defence of his claim “Whiteboards can have a dramatic effect in raising standards”.
In defence Taylor argues ....
“A good example in the effective use of whiteboards is Kemnal
Technology College, an all boys school in Bromley Kent, sponsored by Lord
Harris. Its outstanding head teacher,
John Atkins, grew frustrated a few years ago with the difficulty in recruiting
good maths teachers and the resulting poor performance of his boys in GCSE
maths.
His solution was to convert, by knocking down the partition walls,
three of his classrooms into one large classroom with up to ninety desks. He then hired a master maths teacher at a
high salary, plus three teaching assistants.
Every one of his boys was then given a laptop. The large classroom was equipped with two
interactive whiteboards.
I sat in on a maths class conducted by the outstanding maths
teacher. The boys were enthralled by his
teaching skills, received personal help from the three teaching assistants, and
were able to benefit from three whiteboards in front of them, including
learning to solve maths problems.
As John Atkin says: ‘interactive whiteboards means that we can “teach
the way the students learn”’
Despite its incoming 11 year olds having lower than average ability
range, 64 percent of Kemnal Technology College students soon achieved five good
grades at GCSE, compared to its expected results using the Jesson Value Added
approach, of only 54 per cent. They
achieve 47 per cent including maths and English with a similar value added of
10 percent, and 63 percent of their boys now achieve A-C grades in GCSE Maths.”
Taylor uses the Temnal Technology College results to back his claim that when we introduce interactive whiteboards into a classroom we see dramatic effects in raising standards.
I don’t have enough information to tell whether the shifts from actual versus expected results he details are valid and reliable but the anecdote allows us to raise a number of alternatives.
For example what if instead
of asking “Does your school have an
interactive whiteboard in every classroom?
And following this question with the claim “Whiteboards can have a dramatic effect in raising standard”s
He had asked “Does your
school have class sizes of ninety students?"
And followed this question with the claim “Raising class sizes to ninety students can have a dramatic effect in
raising standard”s
What if:
We asked “Does your
school have expert teachers?" And followed
this question with the claim “Expert teachers can have a dramatic effect
in raising standard”s
We asked “Does your
school have teaching assistants in classrooms?" And followed this question with the claim “Having
teaching assistants in a classroom can have a dramatic effect in raising
standards”
We asked “Does your
school increase the visibility of presentation surfaces in classrooms?" And followed this question with the claim “Increasing visibility of presentation
surfaces in a classroom can have a dramatic effect in raising standards”
We asked “Does your school have triple sized learning spaces?" And followed this question with the claim “ Increasing the physical size of classrooms threefold can have a dramatic effect in raising standards”
We asked “Does your school give every student a laptop?" And followed this question with the claim “Giving every student a laptop can have a dramatic effect in raising standards”
We asked “Does your
school pay teachers high salaries?" And followed this question
with the claim “Paying high salaries to teachers can have a dramatic effect in raising standards”
We asked “Does your
school change the learning environments available? And followed this question
with the claim “Changing the learning environment
can have a dramatic effect in raising standards”
We asked “Does your school measure teacher effectiveness
through value added testing of students? And followed this question with the
claim “Measuring teacher effectiveness
through value added testing of the students they are teaching can have a
dramatic effect in raising standards.”
Prof John Hattie's meta- analysis in Visible Learning - allows us to critique some of these claims BUT it makes me want to ask yet another question altogether -
Why did Cyril Taylor prefer to interpret any changes in student learning outcome at Kemnal Technology College as being causally related to the presence of two (or was it three) interactive whiteboards when so many other factors are in play? Why did he privilege the IWB in all of this? What happens to our common sense thinking when we get too close to “simmering electrical” technologies?
I want to know how the whiteboards were 'interactive' when they all sat at their desks?
Posted by: Marnie | July 30, 2009 at 05:39 PM
Hi Marnie - thanks for sharing your thinking about the challenge of interactivity –
Defining what we mean by “interactive” is not as easy as it looks or as obvious as the IWB marketers will claim – it is a constable idea – an in the eye of the beholder idea.
Wikipedia describes it like this
Interactivity is similar to the degree of responsiveness, and is examined as a communication process in which each message is related to the previous messages exchanged, and to the relation of those messages to the messages preceding them.
Figuring out what is meant by Human whiteboard interaction is something different from the human to human interactive stuff.
I prefer Lev Manovich’s thinking when it comes to looking at the myth of interactivity and new media –
The 'closed' interactivity refers to selection from a set of pre-defined choices - for instance, selecting which scene to play from a movie on the DVD, or selecting the section of a web site. The 'open interactivity" refers to a more complex interaction between a human and a computer in which the content (or at least, not all of the content) is not pre-determined but is generated in real time in response to user's actions.
This of course is the most basic distinction - I still think that the interactivity remains the most difficult among the new cultural dimensions brought about by computerization - I still have not seen anybody developing any systematic theory of interactivity.
So Marnie if - 'open interactivity' – is programming and developing media systems and - 'closed interactivity' – is when elements of access are determined by the user, where does the interactivity between the two or three interactive whiteboards and the boys at Kemnal Technology College sit?
Posted by: Artichoke | July 30, 2009 at 06:16 PM
Thanks for the post which challenges the causal link between IWB and improved student learning. I have been looking at Elmores theory of Action which suggests you need to work on 3 things at the same time to improve learning and that at the core the instructional task presented for students is a key indicator to learning success. Therefore is it the task set of students using technolgy that was the predictor of success - not necessarily the use of technology - although I do acknowledge the interrelationship here.
Thanks for the post it challenges my thoughts.
Mark Walker
Posted by: Mark Walker | August 07, 2009 at 02:10 AM
I’m a teacher at the University. I like teaching and my students. To be a good teacher I need constant working at myself, new and interesting materials for my lessons. And learning from other teacher's experience is a great way to learn new teaching methodologies. To motivate a student to learn, we have to get him to like to learn.To get his interest we have to implement innovative learning processes in his learning routine like using quizzes, flash cards ,videos and photos to make learning more of a fun activity,in this way the child will be interested in learning and will memorize details also easily.I’d like to get the latest information on teaching techniques and methodology of other teachers. Thanks beforehand!
Posted by: judy | October 23, 2009 at 12:44 AM