These teachers’ observations therefore show the impact of the IWB on learners of all abilities, and as my class has a wide range of abilities including two children with SEN, it will be a tool that I will definitely be using during my teaching. They commented that this approach also encouraged increased interaction from some children and removed certain barriers to learning. She talks of feedback from mainstream and early years SEN teachers in Northamptonshire, who commented that the curriculum became more accessible, meaningful and relevant. Price (2009) recognised that visual prompts and the use of an IWB support students learning as they appeal to varied learning styles, with great impact on children with significant learning difficulties. These questions may not have arisen if the visual prompt was not present on the IWB.
It also prompted questions from the children such as in a picture of a Yad and Torah, a child asked why the boy could not touch the Torah and another asked if the scroll was heavy as he could see a child with a large scroll. The picture allowed children to make the connections of not only what the items were but also why and how they were used.
This learning of the Jewish faith was also supported by the pictures of the artefacts being used in figure one this is a boy wearing both the Kippah and Tallit. Throughout the session, including the role plays the children engaged in, the names of all artefacts remained displayed on the IWB and were therefore constantly accessible should children not have remembered the names of the items. Howard-Jones (2007) criticises the labelling of children as certain learners that have a specific learning style, however he does comment that there is great value in presenting through varied forms and medias, as this approach engages all learners and supports the processes of learning through varied methods. The lesson appealed to children of different learning styles, as children heard the pronunciation of the words, saw the spellings and enjoyed using their phonics to identify which item was which and the class teacher had also provided real artefacts for the children to feel and try on. In an RE session, where children were learning about Judaism, my class teacher used the presentation to display pictures of Jewish artefacts and the artefacts in use with their names written underneath example slide in Figure 1.