Empower Students at the Board: Give them an Interactive Board

Student-centered learning is fueled by student led discussion. This year I have given more time to students to lead and share. I realize that the fluid design of my interactive lessons designed for the interactive white board* has directly supported that outcome. Here are some ideas:

• Create unit based interactive flipcharts or smartbook files with interactive activities that students can lead. Incorporate options for the direction the lesson can take by including different lessons and elements in a unit based flipchart.
• Give students a chance to share websites and technology tools at the board.
  
• Let students lead discussions using formative assessment personal response device tools like activexpressions. In other words: let students ask each other questions, use likert scales, and lead discussions where peers provide text ideas and answers.

* To see some examples of interactive lessons use the Teacher Feature link below left.

In the News: Visual Learning (it's in the News!)

Digital lessons that are part of interactive learning design can easily incorporate visual images. We know the current generation of students are visual learners, and we know that enhancing lessons with visuals is an effective differentiated instruction strategy.

Watching the news today I realized that they know it, too and that our generation (any generation) may learn more or differently when information is delivered with supporting audio and visual.

The weather is visual - we don't hear the temperature. We see the geography, the cloud cover, graphics display pictures along with degrees for the 5-day forecast. Newscasters have a picture over their shoulder. More often than not we see audio and video intertwined with current story.

It is simple and obvious, television is visual and television is powerful. It makes sense that visual learning in the classroom can be powerful, too.