Reflection on IWB lesson

My interactive white board (IWB) lesson was very easy to complete.  I feel the hardest part of the assignment was having to come up with a topic to design my IWB around.  When I was in high school, I volunteered in my local Elementary school.  The teacher I was assigned to, taught math class every day using a SMART board.  When I was choosing what topic I should do mine on, I just knew that I saw a lot of math lesson plans, which all seemed easy to do.  I was then inspired to do something using reading because I feel that teachers are less likely to create a IWB during a reading lesson.  One challenging thing with developing a reading IWB lesson is the amount of words on a given page.  We have discussed that you should only have roughly 30 words on a page.  I however wanted to put a page of text on the IWB which isn't always the best thing to do.  However when I developed my IWB lesson I needed more words on my page to show the class how to use context clues.

I feel that it was beneficial to do reading as a IWB lesson because I was also able to see other lesson plans relating to reading.  Teachers can use a IWB to assess the students if they understood the plot of a story, explain different elements to a story, learn about literary elements.

I would also love to have an IWB inside my classroom.  When I am in practicum around the Stevens Point area I see many SMART boards inside the classroom, however teachers use them just like they would use an overhead projector.  I personally believe if these schools are paying big money to incorporate this expensive technology inside their classroom they should use the technology like it was designed and not teach a lesson like I was taught when I was in 3rd grade.

Designing this lesson opened my eyes on how to make a particular lesson interactive.  When you teach you  shouldn't just put a piece of paper on the board and read off of the sheet of paper.  You shouldn't make a IWB lesson like a PowerPoint.  There are many other tools in the SMART notebook technology to allow students to participate in your lesson besides calling on a student and having them respond while sitting in their seats.  For example you can have students solve different math problems using manipulatives created in SMART notebook.  In reading you can have students illustrate what clues they actually used to find the meaning of a word.

IWB lessons are also engaging in students involvement.  When I was younger we didnt' have a IWB board and would have loved to be involved in moving objects across the screen with only the touch of our finger.  As a future educator, I would make sure to develop different lesson plans that are engaging to students and are very interactive to promote learning in my classroom.