INVESTIGATING THE DISTINCTIVE ROLE OF THE INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHING

Abstract

Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) are a relatively new tool that provides interesting affordances in the classroom environment, such as construction of visualizations and multimedia. These affordances make IWBs an innovative tool with high potential for mathematics instructional environments. The research involved a small group of Italian mathematics teachers in secondary schools and aimed at exploiting the distinctive role of IWBs in mathematics teaching. Three essential elements were considered: the mathematical tasks on which students work, the discourse activities in the classroom and the support that IWBs give to the previous two elements. Analysing a first series of video recorded lessons, the teachers and the researcher engaged in a discussion about possible improvements relating the IWB use to enhance high-level mathematical tasks and productive discourse interaction. Outcomes of the discussion were used to design and enact a new set of lessons, again video recorded and analysed. Outcomes were compared with those of the previous set. Results show significant improvements in the tasks’ quality, in the classroom dynamics and in the exploitation of IWBs affordances. What emerged from the study is that IWBs technology may be used to enrich the lessons’ experience and that an attentive orchestration by the teacher leads to the construction of an effective and beneficial learning and teaching environment.