Effective practice in technologyenhanced learning: interactive whiteboards - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 49

Stages of teachers' professional development: learning to use technology

With respect to developing pedagogy with an interactive whiteboard, Somekh et al.
(2007) cite researchers who traced the stages that teachers work through and ascend
when learning to teach with new technologies. For example, they found researchers
Glover et al. (2004) and Pearson et al. (2004) both identified three stages in the tech-
nology- competence development of teachers. The first stage was defined as 'support-
ive didactic' in which the interactive whiteboard is used 'purely as a presentational
tool', to support visually teacher-centred knowledge and information transmission
(Dewey's 'fact fetish' 1938). The second stage when teachers challenge pupils to
think, using illustrations and stimulating pupil responses through the graphical rep-
resentations of concepts, is defined as the 'interactive' stage. The third stage is when
the technology becomes embedded as an integral part of the lesson and is used to
'stimulate pupils' cognitive development', involving more intensive participation by
pupils through exploratory activities and group work. Referred to as the 'enhanced
interactive' stage, this is a more process-oriented approach to teaching with an inter-
active whiteboard (Somekh et al. 2007: 163). See Table 3.1, which outlines the stages
of interactive whiteboard use by teachers.
The identification of stages that teachers go through as they learn how to teach
with technology is discussed further in Chapter 5. Suffice to say here that this stage
model or 'typological approach' to understanding teacher pedagogical development,
for example, from novice to expert, is evidenced by a number of empirical studies in
both the UK and America (Hooper and Rieber 1995; Dawes 2001; Tanner et al. 2005;

Table 3.1 Stages of interactive whiteboard use by teachers (adapted from glover and

miller 2004)

Competence
Development
Process

Interactive Whiteboard
(IWB) Use

Theory of Learning /
Pedagogic Application Progression

First stage supportive

didactic

IWB used as a presentation tool
by the teacher; visually support
teacher didactic approach

teacher-centred, information
transmission model of
learning, traditional paradigm

Second stage interactive multi-sensory stimuli (verbal,

audio and visual) to stimulate
learner responses, teachers
challenge pupils to think using
illustrations and stimulate
responses through the graphical
representations of concepts

interactive, participatory,
teacher - pupil(s) - IWB
interactivity, constructivist
paradigm

Third stage enhanced

interactive

same as above, with more
flexibility, stimulate pupils'
cognitive development

more embedded, intensive
participation, process-oriented
approach, exploratory
activities and group work,
constructivist paradigm