Five Ways Interactive Whiteboards Improve Student Engagement

Interactive whiteboards have been a fantastic addition to the modern classroom. By taking the traditional whiteboard and combining it with technology, teachers can upgrade their traditional methods without changing the way they present their lessons radically.

Teachers can still stand in front of their class and write and draw on the whiteboard, but they now have access to many features to make their lessons more impactful and exciting for their students. Here are but five ways that interactive whiteboards can help improve student engagement in your classroom.

Quite Literally Reaching Further

More practical subjects, such as math or physics, tend to have many experiments or written presentations. For students at the back and those who can’t necessarily see the traditional blackboard very well, a projected screen will allow everyone to see what is being done clearly, thanks to video technology.

Learning Is A Team Effort

One of the more fun aspects of interactive whiteboards is that it’s an opportunity to mess around with new technology for many people. As a teacher, you can easily use your interactive whiteboard to create these beautiful presentations for your lessons. Still, your lesson will be doubly effective should you create opportunities for your students to come up to the whiteboard.

Catered Lessons

One of the more significant critiques of modern teaching is that it is very traditional and one-sided, without necessarily caring about the individual student’s needs. This can leave many frustrated as they are forced to essentially compete to meet a set standard for the grade instead of learning at their own pace in a way with which they are comfortable. We may only now be realizing the importance of personalized learning.

Thankfully interactive whiteboards can be used to cater your lessons to reach a broader audience. You can provide visual aid through videos or perhaps help those who are hard of sight with audio clips. Having students come up to the board and interact engages kinesthetic learners better.

Teaching To Learn

One of the best ways to ensure you fully understand a topic is to try and explain it yourself. With this in mind, you can help students better understand the subject by creating brief presentations of their own.

By coming up with presentations of their own and then using the whiteboard to aid them, you can give them the open floor for a few minutes so that your students can get a refresher from one of their own.

Interactive Visuals

While some might prefer the blackboard and white chalk methods of teachings, interactive whiteboards offer you far more flexible approaches to accentuate specifics. You can zoom in on specific parts, use different colors and fonts to distinguish ideas, and even include clipart or gifs should your application allow for it.

This creates a more visually appealing presentation that is updated and created live, so you, as the teacher, can better punctuate your points and get the ideas across to your students.