Education — Transfer teachers put electronic display boards through their paces

By: Laurent Bonczijk, The Newberg Graphic
Published: 9/28/2010 2:02:20 PM

Erin Mahony, a teacher in Green School at Newberg High School, says the Smart Board is her favorite piece of equipment.
Going up to the board can be more fun when one gets to spin wheels and throw dice, as high school teachers use electronic boards to engage students in mathematics.

Erin Mahony, 36, started teaching in Green School at Newberg High School this year and came from Clackamas High School. She views the Smart Board in her classroom as her favorite piece of equipment.
Why does she like it so much?

It offers “more opportunity for really close interaction with the kids,” she said. “Student engagement is the biggest thing; they’re physically involved with what I’m teaching.”

Mahony demonstrated that students who come up to the board may write numbers on it as they’re solving problems. To explain probability they’re able to throw dice or spin a wheel. There is an element of newness that catches the students’ eyes.

Cassandra Thonstad, 27, — who also started teaching at Newberg this year, but has six years of previous teaching experience — said that to keep students interested you have to keep software that is up to date and provides them with relevant problems. Math books in the district are eight years old, but with the Smart Boards teachers may download applications from a regularly updated menu.
When Thonstad interviewed for her job she taught a lesson on the Smart Board. While older teachers might struggle with the technology because it’s not innate to them, students are perfectly comfortable using it. “It’s much better than the book,” she said, “as long as you’re not using it as a glorified white board.”

Another advantage of the technology, Mahony said, is that her computer records everything she does on the board and that file may then be turned into a pdf, which can be given or e-mailed to a student who missed a lesson. A math lover and former stock market worker who returned to school to become a teacher, Mahony said she can also print her notes in advance for the students who have trouble keeping up. “It’s kind of a Power Point slide,” she said of the format.

She searches for new games and activities on the Internet so the activities she presents students remain relevant.

Smart Boards aren’t a panacea though. Mahony teaches algebra, which requires the ability to discern patterns and have some solid basic math skills like multiplication tables. With the Smart Boards she warms up the students by bringing up previous knowledge and then shows them the same concepts in as many different ways as she can, but “I can do that with or without the smart board.”