AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
students and observation sheets. Below the materials to the
(curricula) topic Wood, Its Significance, Properties and Use is
presented.
The IWB presentation consists of three parts and includes in all
12 slides:
Introduction part – presents information on the topic,
objectives and lesson organization.
Main part – contains subject matter of the given topic
processed within particular teaching/learning tasks
(activities). The number of the tasks is irrelevant. The
kinds of the tasks vary (choosing the right answer,
completion – writing, drawing). It is important that each
presentation presents such situations which enable the
students to develop their knowledge and key competences.
Conclusion – serves the teacher as information on
resources.
Slide 1: contains the name of the taught topic and a motivational
picture relevant to the presented topic.
Slide 2: contains information on the lesson goals, use of the IWB
in the subject matter acquisition and on the work of the students,
their work in couples using the worksheets.
Slide 3: contains the first task (T1) in which the students are
asked to divide trees into the right categories.
Slide 4: informs the students about the macroscopic composition
of wood and presents the second task (T2) in which the students
have to put the right name to each part of the cross-cut wood.
Slide 5: informs the students about various shapes of wood cores
and presents the third task (T3) asking the students to make right
pairs out of the pictures, shape of the wood-core + tree, on the
IWB.
Slide 6: informs the students about ligniperdous insect and
presents the fourth task (T4) asking the students to put the right
insect name to the pictures.
Slide 7: informs the students about woodworking tools and the
students are given a task (the fifth one T5) to indicate the right
answer.
Slide 8: gives the student the sixth task (T6) to write the right
names of the presented woodworking tools below their pictures.
Slide 9: contains a revision exercise (the seventh task T7) asking
the students to choose and mark a picture of a chisel.
Slide 10: contains a video by means of which the teacher
provides further information about wood and woodworking.
Slide 11: contains information (mainly for the teacher) about
resources used for the presentation.
Slide 12: is the final slide, which contains acknowledgement
addressed to the students for their work and gives them
instructions how to calculate in a team work the gained scores
(achieved number of points) for the tasks they solved.
To each of the presentations a workbook for the teacher was
worked out. The workbook serves as a methodological guide
according to which the teachers manage the lesson course. It
contains information on all organizational and material
requirements put on the given topic teaching. It specifies total
number of the lessons devoted to the particular topic, grade in
which the (curricula) topic is taught, the lesson content relevant
to the taught (curricula) topic, lesson objectives and learning
outcomes, and mainly students` key competences which should
be acquired or developed during the lesson by means of the IWB
and solving the particular tasks involved in the (to the given
topic) relevant presentation. The workbook informs the teachers
also about the time intervals necessary/recommended for solving
each of the tasks involved in the presentation and about the
number of points which the students can obtain for their correct
solutions.
Students´ worksheets contains the task assignments and relevant
instructions for their solving on the IWB. Students solve the
tasks by the means of IWB and consequently they check
correctness of their solutions in the given worksheet. In term of
the key competence development, the IWB provides variable
multimedia visualisation elements (Fig. 1). And it makes much
easier to incorporate a wide use of multimedia resources in
lessons such as text, pictures, video, sound, diagram, and online
websites (Johnson, 2002). This means that solving the given
tasks on the IWB was the crucial matter with reference to the
carried out research.
All the designed teaching/learning materials were consulted with
in-service teachers at schools where their verification was going
to be observed (i.e. their drafts, to enable to make contingent
modification before their application into the teaching practice).
3.2 Verification of the designed teaching materials and their
possible contribution to the students` key competence
development
The second step of the research was verification of the draft of
the teaching model using the IWB means and confirmation of
the designed teaching materials` suitability for the created model
application to Technology teaching with respect to the possible
impact of the relevant teaching/learning activities based on the
use of IWB means on the development of the students` key
competences (i.e. verification of the educational model and its
applicability and contribution to the specified students` key
competence development through the created methodological
materials).
The verification was done at schools located in Nitra and Trnava
region, namely in five classes of the 6th grade and one class of
8th grade. The total number of the students engaged in the
research sample was 85.
Lessons, during which the materials were verified, in all of the
schools and grades included in the research sample consisted of
the same standard structure (motivational part, exposition part,
fixation part and diagnostic part) apart from the fact that they
were focused on the work with IWB means as the teaching
process supporting element.
In the introduction parts of the lessons the teachers informed
students about the objectives, arrangement and methods going to
be used during the lesson. The main part of each of the lessons
was focused on the use of IWB and the relevant
teaching/learning activities based on their use (solving the
relevant tasks), given in the particular presentation, both on the
board and in the worksheets. Prior to solving each of the tasks
the teachers motivated the students through a short discussion
aimed at the appropriate issue. Consequently the teachers called
a pair of the students to the IWB to solve the task. The rest of the
pairs solved the task in their worksheets. During the solution of
the particular tasks the pairs of students took turns step by step at
the IWB. The students checked correctness and accuracy of their
solutions in the worksheets and noted down the number of the
points they gained. At the end of the lessons, the students
counted their total scores achieved in the worksheet and the
teacher evaluated the lesson.
Verification of the designed teaching materials and their possible
contribution to the students` key competence development was
based on observation. For the purpose of the presented research
there was used direct short-term structured observation (6
lessons) done by a trained observer. There was also an intention
to record videos of the lessons to increase exactness of the
research data records but most of the schools rejected to provide
an agreement on this possibility.
The observer`s task was to note down the occurrences of the
situations in which the students manifested use of some of the
relevant key competences in the performed learning process. The
observer took a place in the classroom before the start of the lesson
in a position from which he could flawlessly see the selected
observed pairs of the students (each time only two pairs were
observed, see below). To record the data he had an observation
sheet at disposal. The structure of the observation sheets was
similar to the students` worksheets. The similarity of the structures
of these two kinds of sheets ensured the observer`s orientation in
the progress of the lesson, what eliminated appearances of his
possible mistakes. The observer recorded the occurrence of the
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