Tips for Using Interactive Whiteboards to Increase Participation of Students with Disabilities
APA Citation: Whitby, P. S., Leininger, M. L., & Grillo, K. (2012). Tips for Using Interactive Whiteboards to Increase Participation of Students With Disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 44(6), 50-57.
The article recommends that students with disabilities' instruction be interactive, engaging ,and provide opportunities for social interaction. Most classrooms' instruction is delivered via spoken language which has proven to be challenging for students with disabilities in receptive and expressive language as well as students with attention concerns. The article walks us through a co-taught science lesson and how the teachers designed the lesson with the use of an interactive whiteboard. The tips are focused on how to break the lesson into chunks from grabbing students' attention with a short sound bite that focuses attention on the learning objective to an avatar that restates the lesson's objective for the student to restate to a partner using their own words. Other tips include using video and pictures to activate prior knowledge and to introduce vocabulary. In the core of the lesson, students break into centers for exploration and stimulation. The class is then brought back together for questioning responses using clickers for real-time data on student's learning. Students then continue to rotate while teachers provide feedback though coaching opportunities. Teachers must provide specific feedback and praise while students are actively engaged in exploration. Following engaging exploration, teachers use varied assessment strategies to collect data on student achievement. Students can engage in team work and submit in-time vocabulary activities including Poll Everywhere or Wordle. The final tip was to refine the lesson. Teachers must not only monitor the academic achievement but also the social interaction, response to questions, attention to task, and comprehension of the materials. The article provides recommendations to use in your classroom through the tips but also the article provides links to resources. The article provides a table of websites that support the use of interactive whiteboards. The article also includes a table for websites that provides lesson planning and planning resources online.
In reflection, I plan to use the first tip mentioned, using a short sound bite to gain attention before stating the learning objective. This provides students with a quick transition to the next subject and gains attention before stating the purpose of the lesson. I plan to use this with my reading groups this week. I also plan to use the third tip of anchoring activities with videos, photos, or multimedia. This tip suggests using photos to engage prior knowledge and also to use pictures to preview vocabulary. My final take away from this article is the following quote from the article, "As technology evolves, teachers must embrace these changes in order to find creative ways to support and improve learning." This quote to me states that while teaching and technology are always changing, as a teacher I must embrace these changes and use my creativity to best support and improve learning for my students. This article has inspired me to take a more creative look at how I present lessons to my students.
