Unit 4 - Science
Teachers are expected to use a variety of strategies to ensure students develop 21 century skills such as collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking and within the science curriculum teachers needs to provide “hands-on opportunities for students to develop and refine their inquiry skills, problem-solving skills, critical and creative thinking skills, and communication skills, while discovering fundamental concepts through investigation, exploration, observation, and experimentation.” (Ontario Science and Technology Curriculum, pg. 8). The activities may not always be available in a classroom so using an IWB is one way to bring the outside world into the classroom through simulations, visuals, videos, and well-organized flipcharts.
The use of an IWB in science provides opportunities for students to “more easily articulate scientific knowledge and receive teacher (and peer) feedback”. (Hennessy, Deaney, Ruthven & Winterbottom, pg. 2). Students are afforded the opportunity to collaborate, test out hypotheses, and share whole class ideas. To effectively use IWBs it is important that teachers, however, don’t fall into the trap of using an IWB in place of static technology and encourage student centred learning and manipulation. (Hennessy, Deaney, Ruthven & Winterbottom).
The use of an IWB in science provides opportunities for students to “more easily articulate scientific knowledge and receive teacher (and peer) feedback”. (Hennessy, Deaney, Ruthven & Winterbottom, pg. 2). Students are afforded the opportunity to collaborate, test out hypotheses, and share whole class ideas. To effectively use IWBs it is important that teachers, however, don’t fall into the trap of using an IWB in place of static technology and encourage student centred learning and manipulation. (Hennessy, Deaney, Ruthven & Winterbottom).
This four communicative approaches (Murcia & Sheffield, 2010) shown below suggests the dimensions of discourse and communicative approaches. Inquiry-based learning is one that is interactive. The two phases of a primary science education requires two different interactive pedagogies. These approaches will be an important consideration when incorporating IWB into the lesson plan.
Interactive Many voices |
Non-interactive One voice |
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Dialogic Many ideas |
Interactive / dialogic Many voices and ideas |
Non-interactive / dialogic One voice but many ideas |
Authoritative One idea |
Interactive / authoritative Many voices but one idea |
Non-interactive / authoritative One voice and one idea |
Phases of learning in Primary Science education
Engage & explore phases - Interactive / dialogic
Explain phase - Interactive / authoritative
Engage & explore phases - Interactive / dialogic
- use of open questions to elicit students' prior conceptions
- encourage student participation in conversation
Explain phase - Interactive / authoritative
- use of closed questions to direct conversations to the desired scientific learning outcome
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This video shows how IWB can be used to manipulate 2D/3D diagrams and animations often seen in many science lessons. The programs used in this videos are SMART Notebook, Sketchup and Human 3D
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This is an extensive video on teaching science (both primary and secondary) using the Promethean ActivInspire software. Highly recommend this video if you are using the Promethean board and are teaching Science.
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There are numerous resources available that offer interactive lessons specific for IWBs. Below are just a few examples of lessons to get you started.
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Grade 8 Life Systems - ActivInspire Flipchart
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This link takes you to Promethean Planet's 10 Great Science Resources for Your Interactive Whiteboard. These sites contains animations, videos, simulations as well as a variety of other multimedia.
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