TORONTO – Researchers are designing a classroom of the future they believe will boost students’ math skills.
In a three-year study, interactive “smart desks” that encourage collaboration through multi-user touch controls were shown to increase both fluency and flexibility in mathematics.
Moreover, researchers found that using a smart desk can have greater benefits than solving math problems on paper.
On Thursday, the team from Durham University published their results in the journal Learning and Instruction.
The team worked with over 400 students, most of them between 8 and 10 years old.
The students were asked to use the smart desks to work together, solving problems and answering questions.
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“Our aim was to encourage far higher levels of active student engagement, where knowledge is obtained by sharing, problem-solving and creating, rather than by passive listening,” said lead researcher Liz Burd, professor in the school of education at Durham University.
“This classroom enables both active engagement and equal access.”
Researchers found that the smart desks encouraged the children to collaborate. Groups of students enhanced other children’s understanding of the math problems and concepts – something that did not happen when the students only used paper to solve problems.
The project called SynergyNet involves multi-user smart desks that recognize multiple touches and are linked to a main smartboard.
The desks can be used as screens, keyboards and multi-touch whiteboards. Several students can use the same desk at the same time, allowing for group participation, rather than one student dominating.
Researchers believe the so-called “Star Trek classroom” could also improve teaching and learning in other school subjects.
The teacher plays a key role in the futuristic classroom by assigning tasks to different groups. The teacher can also send the answers of one group to a different group for them to add to it, or can put the entire problem up on the smartboard for a class discussion.
“Technology like this has enormous potential for teaching as it can help the teacher to manage and to orchestrate the learning of individuals and groups of learners to ensure they are both challenged and supported so that they can learn effectively,” said Steve Higgins, professor in Durham’s school of education.
A classroom like this comes with a hefty price tag and the researchers acknowledge that the reality of getting this level of technology into classrooms is a long way off. However they noted that over the three years of their research the price of the equipment used reduced in cost while the technology continually improved.
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