PAPER INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD USE IN HIGH-TECH SCIENCE CLASSROOMS: PATTERNS OF INTEGRATION Interactive Whiteboard Use in High-Tech Science Classrooms: Patterns of Integration http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i9.4141 R. Stroud, B. Drayton, K. Hobbs and J. Falk TERC, Cambridge, MA, USA Abstract—Interactive whiteboard (IWB) use has been asso- ciated with increased student motivation, engagement, and achievement, though many studies ignore the role of the teacher in effecting those positive changes. The current study followed the practice of 28 high school science teach- ers as they integrated the IWB into their regular classroom activities. The extent of teachers’ adoption and integration fell along a continuum, from the technologically confident “early adopter” to the low-use “resistant adopter.” Patterns of use are explored by extracting data from representative teachers’ practice. Science-specific benefits of IWB use, barriers to integration, and lessons learned for professional development are discussed. Index Terms—interactive whiteboard, technology adoption, technology integration, science teaching I. INTRODUCTION Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) are becoming standard technology in many elementary, secondary, and college classrooms across the globe. Integration of the IWB is highest in Europe (73%), and also quite prevalent (be- tween 35% and 50%) in other countries including Den- mark, Australia, and the United States [1]. Furthermore, research on technology trends suggests that these numbers will increase in the coming years [2]. Similar to the tradi- tional whiteboard and projector set-up, teachers can use IWBs to project content to students. However, the new technology also opens up a host of additional possibilities. For example, the IWB enables teachers to save annota- tions, email them to students, and post them to their class website. Internet resources and files can be incorporated into lecture or discussion on the fly. Teachers and students can resize, rotate, zoom, and otherwise manipulate on- screen text and objects, and multiple students can interact with the board simultaneously, creating opportunities for student-centered instruction. Considerable time and monetary investments in equip- ment, initial training, and continuing professional devel- opment are made based on the assumption that use of IWB technology in the classroom will improve student outcomes [3]. However, early research on the costs and benefits of IWB use tended to focus on the potential of the technology under favorable conditions, as part of targeted initiatives, with little focus on typical use by teachers with varying access to technology, technical support, and pro- fessional development experiences [4, 5, 6]. What does IWB use look like in a typical high school science classroom? How is IWB use shaped by a teacher’s attitudes towards technology? How, if at all, do teachers make use of the features of the IWB that set it apart from a traditional projector and whiteboard? We sought to build upon earlier work in the field and to address these ques- tions by exploring the practice of 28 high school science teachers as they integrated the IWB into their regular classroom activities. We considered IWB integration along a continuum, from the most confident teachers to the most resistant. The influence of the IWB is explored with this range in mind, paying particular attention to ways in which it may improve science teaching and learn- ing. Factors that may inhibit or promote full integration, both internal and external to the teacher, are also consid- ered. A. Benefits of IWB Use: Initial Reports from the Field Initial investigations of IWB use in classrooms revealed two broad categories of benefits: enhancing teaching and supporting student learning [7]. In terms of enhancing teaching, one of the reported primary benefits is the effi- cient creation and delivery of flexible multimedia presen- tations [6, 7, 8]. Though teachers appreciate the ease with which they can create lessons, reports suggest that teach- ers do not often take advantage of the interactive features available via the IWB [6, 9]. Specifically, there is little evidence to suggest that teachers are encouraging students to directly manipulate the IWB. More often, the IWB is used exclusively by the teacher as a means to present their prepared lecture [5]. The potential for the IWB to support student learning has also been widely explored, with student motivation receiving significant attention. Teachers have reported that their students are more likely to participate in class discus- sion when the IWB was in use [8], and that it makes class more interesting, faster-paced, and exciting [4, 6]. Stu- dents have also indicated a preference for learning with the IWB [4, 10, 11], frequently mentioning the integration of multimedia components into class lessons as a basis for their preference [7]. B. More Recent Findings The preponderance of positive reviews, and the relative lack of negative ones, fueled new and continued invest- ments in IWB technology. However, many of the early studies were “descriptive,” “small scale,” and reflective of the “enthusiasm of the ‘initial innovator’ or ‘early adopter’” [12, p. 214]. Reported benefits were often not specific to the IWB, and could have been achieved using more traditional technology [12]. The more innovative features – the interactive features that set it apart from a traditional whiteboard described earlier – were often those that were least utilized. More recent research on the utility of the IWB for teaching and learning has focused on integration in the iJET ‒ Volume 9, Issue 9: "Blended Learning", 2014 41