Teaching in an inclusive classroom presents a challenge as you must work to maintain the attention of students with varying ability levels. However, with the assistance of Smart Board technology, this task is made much less difficult. By utilizing a Smart Board interactive whiteboard within your inclusive classroom, you can make learning more interactive and engaging to all pupils, decreasing the likelihood that students' attention wanes as you move throughout your lesson.
Instructions
1. Prepare Smart Notebook lessons to move through material more quickly. Along with the Smart Board comes Smart Notebook software. Through the use of this software, you can create slide-show presentations with interactive media elements. Familiarize yourself with this useful software and prepare presentations of this type, moving through them as you teach lessons to increase the speed with which you can teach. By teaching more quickly, you can reduce the likelihood that you lose student attention before you reach the end of your lesson.
2. Scan and project worksheets, filling them in on the Smart Board. By scanning in PDF copies of worksheets and writing on them with your Smart Board markers, you can make it easier for students of all ability levels to follow along while you go over worksheets, reducing the likelihood that students zone out because they can't follow along with your instruction.
3. Integrate multimedia into your lessons. Play videos and musical selections that pertain to your lesson directly from the Smart Board to add excitement to your lessons and entice pupils to follow along and stay focused on the topics at hand.
4. Allow students to use the board. Get students out of their seats and moving to ensure that they stay awake and energized throughout the lesson. Let students move and manipulate objects on the board as well as write on the board using the Smart Board markers. Many students are eager to interact with the board and the promise of getting to do so can be motivation enough to keep them focused on learning.
5. Use Smart Tools to randomly select students for reading and question answering. In the Smart Toolkit, you can find the "Random Work Picker." By typing your students' names into this tool, you can create a random student selection program that moves through student names much like a slot machine, randomly selecting a pupil. If pupils know that they could be called upon at any moment, it may be enough enticement to keep them focused and aware of what is going on in the classroom.
6. Create or select educational games for students to complete. Either craft your own games using the Smart Notebook software or take advantage of the plethora of Smart Board-ready games available on the Internet. Play games regularly to show students that learning can be fun and give them an enjoyable way to practice this academic skill.
Tags: Smart Board, follow along, likelihood that, Smart Notebook, your lesson, ability levels, Board markers