Getting the Most From Your Interactive Whiteboard Investment: Three Guiding Principles for Designing Effective Professional Development

The adoption of interactive whiteboards (IWB) in many schools outpaced the delivery of adequate professional development on their use. Many teachers receive IWBs without adequate training on methods to use the technology to improve their instruction. Consequently, IWBs remain an underutilized resource in many classrooms. Teachers who are given IWBs require purposeful, scaffolded, and sustained professional development to maximize the IWB's potential. This article identifies three promising professional development practices for teaching educators how to use IWBs effectively. The literature describing effective technology professional development suggests it should (1) build efficacy by scaffolding the instruction of new tasks, (2) establish long-term collaborative partnerships among teachers, and (3) include positive supervision that encourages teacher self-reflection and measures student engagement with digital media using the IWB. Professional-development designers can increase the effectiveness of their instruction by incorporating these principles into their training.