From Chalkboards to Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs)

Recent immigrants and English language learners (ELL) enter schools with little or no educational experiences and exhibit a wide range of educational, social and emotional needs. Students who are ELL are almost two times more likely than fluent English speakers to be placed in special education. What may in fact be poor language proficiency is being assessed as a learning or behavioral issue. Students who are ELL challenge public classrooms that are already stressed by struggling local economies, teachers with less prep time, and aggressive benchmarks for yearly progress. Chalkboards to Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) seeks to enhance instructional practices and boost the reading skills of students who are ELL using IWB-incorporated teaching.

By introducing Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) technology into the English Language Learners (ELL) classroom at Stevenson Middle School, the project has 3 objectives:

1. Enhancing student engagement and creating positive learning outcomes in reading and writing.
2. Adapting ELL curricula (ESOL and Language Art) by incorporating IWBs and IWB-based reading and writing strategies.
3. Professional development / training for ELL teachers involving IWB technology and IWB-based reading and writing strategies.

The methods include conducting two ELL language arts classes using the IWB-incorporated teaching activities at the Stevenson Middle School. The teachers and EAs will participate in professional development workshops on IWB technology and the reading & writing strategies adapted for the IWB-incorporated teaching. For project assessment and evaluation, we will obtain student performance data including curriculum-based measures (CBM) conducted by teachers and standardized school-wide testing (DIBLES), conduct weekly class observations as well as focus groups of teachers and selected students.

Principal Investigators: JoAnn Yuen