Recent policy initiatives in England have focused on promoting 'interactive' teaching in schools, with a clear expectation that this will lead to improvements in learning. This expectation is based on the perceived success of such approaches in other parts of the world. At the same time, there has been a large investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources, and particularly in interactive whiteboard technology. This paper explores the idea of interactive teaching in relation to the interactive technology which might be used to support it. It explains the development of a framework for the detailed analysis of teaching and learning in activity settings which is designed to represent the features and relationships involved in interactivity. When applied to a case study of interactive teaching during a lesson involving a variety of technology-based activities, the framework reveals a confusion of purpose in students' use of an ICT resource that limits the potential for learning when students are working independently. Discussion of relationships between technical and pedagogical interactivity points a way forward concerning greater focus on learning goals during activity in order to enable learners to be more autonomous in exploiting ICT's affordances, and the conclusion identifies the variables and issues which need to be considered in future research which will illuminate this path.
ABSTRACT. Eight Welsh secondary schools participated in an action research project which developed approaches to teaching and assessing mathematical thinking skills involved in practical modelling situations. The development of the metacognitive and strategic skills necessary for successful modelling is discussed from a socio-constmctivist perspective as a process of acculturation as well as cognitive construction. Learning to model involves socialization into the consensual realities of a wider mathematical culture and the teacher plays a pivotal role in the generation of this consensus through the legitimization of linguistically expressed subjectivities. Assessment is an integral part of this process. Participation in peer and self-assessment was found to involve the student in a recursive, self-referential learning process which supports the explicit development of metacognitive skills.
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