Teaching
Activity and Learning Teaching IWBs Other-ICT
Teachers used a variety of levels of pedagogical interactivity in each lesson, but predominantly worked at the lower levels. This was particularly the case in language teaching, where the use of the target language was paramount and deeper reflective interaction was more difficult. Interaction in the target language reduced with ICT – teachers asked fewer questions and there was more reading and writing of key words and phrases because these actions were the ones supported by the affordances of ICT currently perceived by teachers. However, this was overcome to some extent by using ICT displays to support oral activities by pupils. The sound feature of ICT was only rarely used.
Teachers used a variety of pupil activity groupings – whole-class, group, pair, individual. The interactivity was more dialogic when the teacher was directly involved to prompt at a conceptual level, to question pupils about reasons, and to answer pupils’ questions. Discussion with peers was valuable, and more so when ideas were subsequently shared/challenged more widely with teacher orchestration. Without direct teacher intervention the depth of interactivity depended very much on the richness of the task and the culture of collaboration in the classroom.
Different media were used to support interaction, including mini-whiteboards, cards with words/pictures, and ICT devices. ICT facilitated more independent investigation but in itself did not seem to generate deeper interactivity; indeed the inequality in pairs/groups in which only one member could operate the mouse/pen at a time tended to inhibit constructive interaction unless pupils were educated to take specific roles in collaborative tasks with ICT and to take turns in carrying these out. Teacher intervention during individual and group work was less frequent and less sustained with ICT than with manual/oral tasks; as a result, these often became more focused on completing the task than on the intended learning. When the teacher did intervene with ICT tasks, it was sometimes because of an ICT-related difficulty.
It seemed that technology and pedagogy were mutually influential. Most teachers pursued familiar pedagogical practices and utilised ICT where this supported them, but there were other cases where the arrival of new technology had stimulated change because it enabled now forms of activity and facilitated different types of task. Some teachers were driven by the constraints of the pre-programmed software that they were provided with, but most selected from this carefully to support the teaching approach they felt was most appropriate. Some chose flexible software and carefully specifed the constraints for action within the task set. With tasks were constrained by the software, pupils often subverted the task when the technology afforded alternative actions with more motivating goals.