Smart Board Technology in Fifth Grade Social Studies

Introduction

One textbook cannot meet the needs of students in a fifth grade social studies class whose students read at a wide range of levels. The goal is to reach all students and enable them to engage meaningfully with the content. The textbook alone is inadequate as a tool for accomplishing this. The proposed plan is to use interactive whiteboard technology (a "Smart Board") to enhance student understanding of social studies material.

The hypothesis is that there is a positive relationship between Smart Board use and greater engagement with and understanding of social studies core content. Students who actively participate in lessons in which Smart Board technology is used will demonstrate greater knowledge of social studies content and achieve higher test scores on end-of-chapter tests, compared to students in other fifth grade classes who do not participate in Smart Board-driven social studies lessons. The research question is: How will the use of Smart Board technology affect fifth grade students' understanding of core social studies content, as measured by end-of-chapter exams?

Assessing Student Engagement and Performance

Chapman (2003) discussed various ways in which teachers can assess student engagement rates. Given the emphasis placed on levels of academic achievement in schools, the way in which students acquire knowledge through the learning process has become a primary concern. Several studies have subsequently highlighted the significant role that such factors can play in the learning process (e.g., Mathewson, 1994), laying particular emphasis on those associated with student engagement levels.

Chapman (2003) described methods by which student engagement could be measured, including teacher observation and self-reporting by students. The author also reported that "some educators have used work samples to assess levels of learning task engagement, focusing again on students' use of higher cognitive or metacognitive strategies in confronting learning tasks." The end-of-chapter tests will serve as the work samples by which the performance of fifth grade social studies students will be measured. Correct answers to objective questions will be easy to tabulate. Subjective questions — such as short answers and essays — will perhaps demonstrate the level of student understanding to a greater extent, since there is no chance of the "lucky guess" that can skew the results of a true-false or multiple choice test.

In discussing open-ended responses, Chapman warned that "the efficacy of these methods hinges on the use of suitably structured tasks and scoring rubrics." It will therefore be important to standardize grading in the classroom when making the case for using Smart Board technology to engage students and increase achievement.

Conclusion

Research indicates that today's students are technologically savvy and expect that technology will be used in the classroom. Research also indicates that students are more engaged in lessons in which they can actively participate using technology as a learning tool. It seems reasonable to expect that Smart Board technology will be effective for teaching social studies to a group of fifth graders with diverse learning styles and abilities. It likewise seems reasonable to expect that greater engagement will facilitate understanding of the content, as reflected in scores on end-of-chapter tests — a measure used by all fifth grade classrooms school-wide.