Teacher Education Initiative Project Final Report

Teacher Education Initiative Project Final Report Ludlow College Castle Square, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 1GD Project manager: Carol Booth (CTL Access ...
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Teacher Education Initiative Project Final Report

Ludlow College Castle Square, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 1GD Project manager: Carol Booth (CTL Access & Teacher Training) cbooth @ludlow-college.ac.uk

Names of team members: Isobel James (Co-ordinator – Teacher Training) Maggie Hughes

June 2009

1 Introduction Project Title: Interactive Whiteboard Training Context Ludlow College can trace its history back for over 800 years. More recently, in 1977, the boys Grammar school and the Ludlow Girls High School combined to become a comprehensive sixth form college. It was (and still is) the main provider of 16 – 19 education in South Shropshire. Since then, the college has expanded its adult provision extensively and is now classified as a “sixth form college with F.E. provision”. It is a genuinely “open access” college and works in partnership with other colleges and education providers in Shropshire to promote learning and training opportunities for all. The teacher training courses offered sit within the ATT (Access & Teacher Training area) and contribute to an expanding provision of accredited courses for adult learners.

Aims and Objectives The aim of the project was to gain financial support towards training the ITT team in the use of interactive whiteboards. At the start of the year the College had just 3 IWBs, so staff had little opportunity to use them and were not experienced in their use. A portable IWB was made available in the ITT room and clearly students we train on the 7303, 7304 & 7305 (PTLLS, CTLLS & DTLLS) should be given the opportunity to use IWBs. Our staff therefore needed to be trained to use them effectively and to step up from the “consciously incompetent” rung! The college had begun negotiations to introduce portable, wireless IWBs (Mimio) in all teaching rooms via the Molenet bid, and staff were to have demonstrations during college CPD training days. However, the time scale for implementation of the technology within the ITT course was urgent (with the teacher training courses being well under way) and the ITT co-ordinator felt that trainee teachers would benefit from, and should have access to, alternative IWB systems. Previously the teacher-trainees had had access to discrete training in another room and had, as part of their course produced Power-point presentations which were then extended and annotated with the IWB in a different classroom. The need for developing Power-point has lessened greatly over the past 5 years as most of the trainee teachers are now familiar with this. However the use of the IWB in South Shropshire is less prolific, although many report having such a Board in their placements which they would like to use. The moving of rooms for this aspect of the course had now become problematic and instead of specialist staff to teach this aspect, it was felt that not only training in the use of this Board was necessary for the trainees and the ITT team, but modelling its use during teaching sessions was desirable. This necessitated training therefore in the specific (Hitachi) software available in the ITT classroom. There was no time for staff to attend general courses using a Board which was unlike the one available and transporting the skills. The college would not have funded this training because the general move was to the use of the Mimio software with portable IWBs.

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It was deemed to be imperative, that: 1. the present team should understand the general advantages of using an IWB so that this could be convincingly incorporated into the teaching of strategies and 2. the Team should be immediately able to model this when teaching the present course. 3. the trainer should be familiar with both teacher-training and the teaching of Maths in order that 2 of the team could see and demonstrate the benefits of this training in their specialist subject areas.

2 Strategies It was important that training should be provided in the ITT room at a time when the whole team were available. A Saturday proved to be, at this late stage, the only option. The course team leader had previously observed the innovative use of IWB by a member of the Shropshire Advisory Team during a previous training session and hence contacted the Advisory service to see if they could help. Fortunately they were able to do so and so it was arranged for our ITT team to undergo CPD training through the Advisory service. Ruth Tanner, who is experienced in advising in schools and also a Maths specialist, was suggested by the Advisory service and duly gave a thorough demonstration of the Hitachi software on the portable IWB to the ITT team members. This workshop was opened to other members of staff who also use the training room. Ruth negotiated our particular learning objectives and allowed time for all staff to explore their individual specialisms. Although the CPD opportunity was offered to other college staff, in the event, only the three team members attended.

3 Outcomes and Impact All objectives were met in that: 1. The staff team are now confident that they can explain and demonstrate the use of IWBs convincingly and incorporate their use into their own work. 2. This was immediately modelled in the following weeks’ classes. 3. The team benefited from particular Maths strategies and Ruth generously supplied much of her own material which they could incorporate into their own teaching. The starting point of the team was varied from zero to limited experience in the use of IWB. Following the training, the immediate impact was that two students in the current PTLLS cohort gave a presentation to the group using IWB within a week of the staff having the training. This has since extended to several other ITT learners as the co-ordinator has been June 2009

able to demonstrate use with a degree of knowledge and competence! She has gained the confidence to explore less obvious uses; for example she has been able to demonstrate use of a music stave with annotation and writing of music. The Teacher Educator staff have been able to extend IWB use to other programmes they teach on. Since some of the CTLLS learners are already currently employed by the college, they too, have passed on their knowledge to other members of staff; one even led a CPD session within her own teaching team.

4 Learning Points The reasons for and methods of calibrating the screen How to use IWB annotation tools over any document or web page How to access different background screens, such as grids, graph paper music paper, etc. How to add images to documents and work with these: a particularly striking example was the way Ruth used photos of herself and colleagues near a rock face for students to estimate and finally work out distances etc. This added interest and would show students real applications of maths. How to use sound with documents. How to create links to all the resources which may apply to a topic, such as web pages, photographs, other images, videos and sound.

It also must be acknowledged that there were initial delays in arranging the training for the staff, which has limited the time for the benefit to be felt by our current learners. This was partly due to waiting for quotes from alternative trainers and the practicality of getting a time/ date that all concerned could honour. The initial aims have been met, but staff may continue to need further support or advice in the future. The limitations of use in numeracy and science teaching were realised i.e. text capture does not recognise chemical or mathematical formulae and some difficulty was experienced in particular uses e.g. gaining a graph paper background. It was recognised that specific software packages (e.g. for graphic work) might need to be purchased.

5 Synopsis In summary, the Teacher Educator staff requested support in order to develop their own competence in the use of interactive whiteboards and to observe imaginative use of them in order to improve and enhance their own lessons and to impart confidence and knowledge of their use to trainee teachers. The latter have had immediate benefit by having access to the

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technology for their own use. The ITT team will need to continue to incorporate this technology in their own delivery and to strive to increase the variety of use; they are still “new users”, but have gained the confidence to have a go!

6 Key words / Phrases Interactive whiteboard or IWB Hitachi Mimio ITT (Initial Teacher Training)

June 2009