This paper reports on the second phase of a joint teacher/researcher project that explored teachers’ understandings of the potential of the interactive whiteboard (IWB) as a tool for primary school children’s collaborative group work. By examining teachers’ written analyses and discussions of work carried out in their own classrooms, the paper seeks to contribute to the debate about the ways in which the use of IWBs can contribute to changes in pedagogy. It highlights the interrelationships between collaborative learning and factors identified as important in the research carried out by teachers, amongst them the children’s technical skills and confidence, the mediating role of the teacher, the IWB affordances for knowledge‐building and the teachers’ own knowledge, attitudes and professional development. The paper also provides an account of how participation by the teachers in a course with Faculty staff, focused on the collaborative co‐construction of knowledge related to learning and to classroom research grounded in the values and principles of socio‐cultural theory, supported changes in pedagogic practice.
Gibbons, P. 2008: Abstract: This paper reports on some of the findings from research that investigated how
the notion of ‘intellectual quality’ is played out in schools where there are large
numbers of students who are learning through the medium of English as a second
language (ESL). Starting with the premise that high challenge, high support
classrooms benefit all learners, the paper discusses and illustrates the recurring
intellectual practices identified in five linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms,
where the teachers were involved in action research projects. The paper also
discusses the collaborative process by which the research was undertaken, and the
teacher learning that resulted. It concludes with a brief discussion of the implications
for pedagogy, and suggests that the ‘apprenticeship’ approach that broadly
describes the pedagogy adopted by the teachers has the potential to be particularly
significant for ESL learners’ engagement and participation in curriculum and
language learning.