The adoption of interactive whiteboards (IWB) in many schools outpaced the delivery of adequate professional development on their use. Many teachers receive IWBs without adequate training on methods to use the technology to improve their instruction. Consequently, IWBs remain an underutilized resource in many classrooms. Teachers who are given IWBs require purposeful, scaffolded, and sustained professional development to maximize the IWB's potential. This article identifies three promising professional development practices for teaching educators how to use IWBs effectively. The literature describing effective technology professional development suggests it should (1) build efficacy by scaffolding the instruction of new tasks, (2) establish long-term collaborative partnerships among teachers, and (3) include positive supervision that encourages teacher self-reflection and measures student engagement with digital media using the IWB. Professional-development designers can increase the effectiveness of their instruction by incorporating these principles into their training.

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Executive SummaryIdentifying means of assisting teachers in integrating technology during their instruction is becoming more important as the rate new technologies enter the classroom accelerates. The primary means of helping in-service teachers employ new technologies in their classrooms is frequently professional development. Unfortunately, professional development offered to many teachers is ineffective. It has been posited that professional development can be made more effective by emphasizing one specific technology for an extended period of time, including opportunities for teachers to learn from each other in localized contexts, and organizing the learning in ways calculated to help teachers build technology self-efficacy (DeSantis, 2012). This paper shares the results of a research project conducted to determine if professional development with these attributes assists teachers with developing the skills required to integrate technology during instruction. This project involved the creation of a professional development program with the characteristics described in the literature as being most effective (Brinkerhoff, 2006;Cantrell & Hughes, 2008;DeSantis, 2012;Doppelt et al., 2009;Walker et al., 2011). This mixed-methods and design-based study identifies changes in technology self-efficacy and technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge among forty-one teachers following their participation in sustained, collaborative, and scaffolded professional development for one rapidlyembraced technology, the interactive whiteboard. The possession of technology self-efficacy assists teachers in adopting new technologies (Brinkerhoff, 2006;Holden & Rada, 2011;Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2009;L. Wang, Ertmer, & Newby, 2004). Technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge are indicators of teachers' abilities to utilize educational technologies during instruction (Mishra & Koehler, 2006).The results of this study indicate that teachers who participate in well-designed professional development are likely build technology self-efficacy and technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured participant interviews conducted with a random sample of participants in the study revealed that the professional development program under study was integral in this development. Participants were particularly affected by the opportunities to collaborate embedded within the professional development offering under study during this project. The results from thisMaterial published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to r...

Purpose Successful technology integration into the teaching of social studies is imperative in the twenty-first century classroom. This study sought to answer the following questions: do synchronous and asynchronous technology integration increase a student’s understanding of social studies content? Are synchronous technology-integrated social studies lessons more effective than asynchronous technology-integrated social studies lessons? How do students perceive the effectiveness of a synchronous technology-integrated lesson vs the effectiveness of an asynchronous technology-integrated lesson? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental research project comparing the learning outcomes of students who participated in synchronous and asynchronous technology-augmented lessons. Findings The results of this study found that synchronous and asynchronous technology-enhanced lessons are both viable pedagogies for increasing a student’s understanding of social studies content. The results also yielded no statistical significance between the effectiveness of the synchronous instruction vs asynchronous instruction. However, a statistical significance exists when analyzing a student’s perception of their own learning. Students participating in synchronous technology-integrated instruction reported a higher confidence in the lesson’s ability to teach them, when compared to that of the asynchronous population. Originality/value By continuing to seek new ways to integrate technology effectively into classrooms, social studies teachers can design lessons more effectively to meet the needs of today’s social studies students. The need to understand the learning outcomes of various technology-integrated approaches will continue to grow as more technologies become available to social studies teachers.

Purpose Significant differences exist in the racial composition of America’s student and teacher populations. This reality is compounded by the racial re-segregation patterns affecting many schools and systems in the USA. These trends make it increasingly less likely that educators encounter racial diversity during their experiences as K-12 students and more likely that they encounter racial diversity as educators. This paper aims to present the results of a study designed to explore the consequences of this reality on those educators’ abilities to successfully reach their students? Design/methodology/approach The present study used a quantitative exploratory design. Data were analyzed to determine if educators’ experiences as K-12 students affected their present self-efficacy for teaching in diverse classrooms, their self-efficacy for using culturally responsive techniques, and their confidence in the merits of deploying these approaches in classrooms. Findings Data from the present study suggest that educators whose school experiences included significant interactions in racially diverse settings are significantly more likely to possess a higher level of self-efficacy than those who do not. Originality/value This study illuminates an unexplored consequence of school resegregation and lends support for efforts to diversify the teaching force and resist school resegregation.