Improving subject teaching through appropriate use of ICT
The evidence from the project indicates that development work to support teachers in making effective choices about when, when not and how to use ICT to meet their teaching objectives needs to take account of a range of factors.
Starting points
The project team found that teachers responded to different approaches to using ICT according to their individual knowledge, beliefs and approaches to teaching. For example,one school in the project already regularly used overhead projectors in each of the classrooms when working with the whole class. They easily adopted activities which were suited to this kind of presentation and were keen to explore the potential of an interactive whiteboard in their computer room. Other teachers preferred to develop effective use of ICT in group activities. Where a teacher had a strong preference for a particular approach or a subject this was found to be an effective starting point for developing more effective teaching with ICT. Success achieved in moving forward from the teacher’s preferred starting point could then be used as a springboard for extending development into less familiar or less comfortable areas.
Teachers’ confidence
Identifying a good starting point is clearly related to teachers’ confidence and skills in using ICT. A teacher with more confidence and more advanced skills may be prepared to try a new teaching approach (such as using a presentation package with the whole class to share a text as part of a structured literacy lesson). A teacher less confident or skilful may be happier to experiment in a situation where they feel more confident (a discussion around a text, but with a group of pupils and perhaps involving a word-processor for shared writing, rather than less familiar presentation software). The project team found that more effective teachers tended to report higher levels of personal ICT skill and believe that this reflects their understanding of the potential and determination to use ICT to support their teaching. Overall the teachers in the project had a wide range of competence in using ICT and it was necessary to identify appropriate starting points.
Focusing learning
Some of the accompanying illustrations show how ICT can help teachers to focus pupils’ learning. One example of this was a teacher who used multimedia software to create a teaching resource about apostrophes for other pupils to use ("Teaching the correct use of omissive apostrophes in Year 4"). Another teacher increased the pupils’ attention on aspects of story-writing by planning stories and creating pictures with painting and drawing software ("Developing story-writing skills in Year 2"). The teacher’s use of ICT as a presentational aid helps to focus pupils’ attention during whole class teaching. One school used an interactive whiteboard in this way. ("Using short rhymes and other textsto enhance reading comprehension"). A further example is a teacher who used presentation software in the literacy hour on a classroom computer in "Presenting texts and supporting
writing in Year 2". ICT can help to focus an activity in other ways, for example, by simplifying the process of data collection. In "Developing understanding of decimals in Year 4", the ICT enabled two types of decimal numbers to be produced easily which
enabled the pupils to concentrate on ordering the numbers rather than on the process of collecting the information. Another way to focus pupils’ learning is by increasing access to ICT equipment and the amount of time spent using ICT effectively. In one school pupils had access to a suite of computers which the whole class could use once a week, in others portable equipment was used to increase the amount of access pupils had to ICT equipment on a daily basis.
Sustaining development
In all of the schools, sustaining effective development work was a challenge. Most of the teachers felt that there were already considerable demands on their time. Several factors affected how the teachers were able to maintain their momentum in using ICT to support more effective teaching and learning.
1. The role of the head teacher in supporting such development work was one important factor. This might be only in terms of acknowledging it as a priority. Alternatively, some heads gave additional support to teachers in the project by providing extra resources or release time.
2. The support of other colleagues in school was another factor which the teachers found helpful. The project team provided this support for some of the teachers in the project.
3. Technical issues which arise need to be overcome quickly and effectively. This is particularly true in the early stages of any development work with ICT to ensure that sufficient benefits are achieved to encourage further development.
For each of the teachers there seemed to be a critical point of confidence and skill. Once this point was reached they were prepared to continue such development on their own. Not all of the teachers in the project reached that critical point. Even at the end of the project all of the teachers indicated that they would benefit from further support. This was related to
developing their use of ICT in their teaching, as opposed to developing their own ICT skills, which a few of the teachers felt was their personal priority. Choosing software which can be used in different ways is also helpful. A teacher who has learned how to use a range of tools in an integrated package can more quickly learn how to use its graphing functions more efficiently to make connections in the mathematics. At the end of the project, the teachers who had been involved reported greater use of ICT for direct instruction compared with other teachers. They also reported changes in patterns of use reflecting a clearer focus on identifying where ICT could support their teaching of literacy and numeracy.
Planning for Subject Teaching
A clear distinction needs to be made between planning for pupils’ IT capability (from the National Curriculum) and how ICT can support teaching and learning in other subjects. Most schools identified pupils’ IT capability in their regular planning. Planning did not specify how ICT could contribute to subject teaching, particularly where only the teacher was using the computer (for example by presenting a text in the literacy hour). One consequence of this was that when teachers planned to use ICT themselves in their teaching (for example to demonstrate a teaching point in English or mathematics) this was not included or recorded. Although most schools specified how they planned for IT capability, there was considerable variation in the observations of what pupils actually experienced as a result of this planning. Sometimes this was due to the limited amount of equipment available. In other cases teachers ensured that the equipment that they had available was used very intensively. Some schools provided clusters of machines in designated computer rooms. Large groups or even whole classes could then be taught at the same time. Such arrangements were observed to be particularly efficient for teaching ICT skills to pupils and for supporting teachers in developing their own teaching skills in using ICT. Some of these schools then moved on to providing more ICT resources in classrooms so that the teachers could plan to use ICT in different subject areas more effectively. Clear learning gains were achieved with different forms of organisation of ICT equipment used by the teachers in the project.
"Although I favour using the computer, unless I have planned to use it to meet specific learning objectives you will probably find my computer switched off."
ICT and subject knowledge
The project found that development work in ICT can also be an effective way of developing teachers’ subject knowledge in literacy or numeracy. One teacher undertook a series of activities which focused her attention on a challenging aspect of punctuation. Planning the multimedia activity enabled the teacher (and the pupils) to identify the rules and uses of omissive apostrophes in great detail, and the particular problems which the pupils had in applying those rules effectively. This enabled her to understand a particular aspect of literacy teaching in more structured and systematic detail than she had undertaken before. As a result of this focus she may well not choose to repeat teaching apostrophes in the same way in the future ("Teaching the correct use of omissive apostrophes in Year 4"). Similarly, a Reception teacher was able to devise a series of activities appropriate to the different levels of counting skill in her pupils. This enabled her to plan appropriate practice in different aspects of counting in accordance with the NNS Framework for Mathematics for Reception ("Developing counting skills in Reception").
Effective explanations
Another aspect of subject knowledge which the team found to be important was reflected in teachers’ explanations. A key feature of the more effective teachers in the project was that they used examples and counter-examples when explaining to pupils and that they modelled and demonstrated work to groups or the class (e.g. by giving examples of words ending in -ly which are and which are not adverbs). They also used pupils to model and demonstrate what to do or what they had learnt in lessons (e.g. a Reception pupil touch counting accurately on screen). This aspect of their teaching was also evident in activities which did not involve ICT. The project team believe that this reflects knowledge of their pupils as well as a detailed understanding of the specific subject objectives being taught.
ICT offers the potential to improve standards of attainment in literacy and mathematics. Supporting teachers in making effective choices about when, when not and how to use ICT to strengthen their teaching needs to take account of a range of factors to be effective. These factors include:
• clear identification of how ICT will be used to meet specific objectives within subjects of the curriculum to improve pupils’ attainment;
• ensuring that pupils have adequate ICT skills to achieve subject specific objectives;
• a planned match of pedagogy with the identified purpose of ICT activities and learning outcomes (e.g. by the teacher’s use of ICT to demonstrate or model learning rather than for pupils’ use);
• matching starting points for development for particular teachers in accordance with their preferred teaching styles and approaches;
• adequate access to and intensity of use of the necessary equipment by pupils and teachers;
• effective technical back-up and support to overcome any difficulties encountered and the provision of adequate resources (e.g. printers on networks or supply of ink cartridges).
