Concept of The Board Teacher Project

"The Board Teacher Project" Presentation for Abstract (242 words) Due to the advent of so much technology used now in the classroom, many teachers are using their board less than ever before. This valuable asset can be a tremendous tool that aids in teaching and understanding and should not be forgotten. The Board Teacher project is looking at ways to both analyse teachers board work and to develop instructional materials to advise teachers on how to get best use out of their board. 2 years of documented board work are analysed to look for trends in positioning, colouring, images, sizing, language use and other features to devise teaching materials for any teacher who feels their skills need developed to maximise their results. While boards are very effectively used in elementary education, especially in mathematics, in tertiary education they are often very underused. With the addition of pandemic needs to broadcast lessons and materials, the addition of effective board work as supplementary to digital content is sometimes the glue that holds understanding together for students. Preprepared materials do not allow for on-the-fly documenting that is very common in classroom lessons where confirmatory questions are raised and solutions need to be shown. Added to this is the possibility of plenary summations that support students beyond the classroom and become a catalogue of review materials when shared in an LMS. This presentation hopes to share tyechniques and ideas with attendees in order to improve their boardwork and to further the reach of the project. Keywords (4) Boardwork,Design, Blended-learning, Documenting. This study looks at the boardwork done in class by teachers. Analysis of colours used, placement, size, design, and artwork as well as pedagogical reasoning behind the usage reveals which types of design are most effective in classroom use. Students and teachers were asked which boards conveyed the best information, the best designs, and the most interesting strategies and styles. Boardwork is perhaps underused and very rarely taught in many educational facilities where technology has perhaps replaced the art of putting information down for students to digest. Obviously, the progression from chalk boards, to whiteboards brought several changes, it also brought some limitations. Chalkboards could be used with a box full of coloured chalks (as can be seen outside many restaurants and bars all over the world) to display incredible informational messages, while whiteboards are often limited to the dry ink pens of which often there are only 4 colours (black, red, blue and green)that are impossible to blend together as they dry and clog with each other. Consideration of contrast and colour for many students both with very good visual acuity and those without great visual acuity should be made and considered when all students are to be considered. While boards always exclude students who are blind and have other sight problems, they can and often are an incredible technology that is instant and effective, easy to share, to use, to do so many more things. A robust technology, the pen is mightier than the PC.