Whiteboards

I got a set of dry-erase boards for my classroom a while back, but I must say that I haven’t used them as much as I thought I would.  I did try to use them a few times with my senior group (mostly lower-ability students), but it was never a good experience.

First of all, because the group contains lots of kids who are not confident or independent in math, as soon as I assigned any problem, hands would go up all over them room.  (”Mrs. Tentoni, can you come here and help me a minute?”)  I would get so bogged down trying to help those students that the rest of the class would be stuck in a holding pattern waiting for me to catch the lost ones up.  Second, most students would show me their boards when they finished a problem, but a few would sit back and doodle because I had no systematic way of making sure I saw everyone’s boards.

Well, yesterday we had a worksheet to do in my regular classes, but I am fed up with worksheets too.   I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to use the boards if I would lay down some ground rules and stick to them.  Here are the rules I used:

1.  Don’t doodle with the markers.
2.  Work the problem that we’re on, but don’t show me your board until I ask you to.  Don’t work ahead.
3.  After I’ve seen everyone’s boards, erase your work and start on the next assigned problem.  When I see your board, it should have the answer to only the current problem.
4.  Because we all have to work together, I won’t be able to come to your desk.  Try the problem, and after a short time period, I will show the correct work on the board.  If you still have a question, I’ll answer it then.

Well, I was absolutely astounded at how well it went!  I don’t think we’ve had such a good day in my room in a long time, and every class said they hoped to get to use the boards again soon.  There were students helping students and there were students who don’t normally try very hard who were trying and succeeding.  I’m all for anything that gets them to participate.

There was another unanticipated positive:  The kids who often say, “We can’t do this!  It’s hard!”  got to see that their classmates are doing it.  And a couple who started out complaining ended up doing well when they realized that they were practically the only person in the room who wasn’t doing it right.  I wasn’t expecting peer pressure to come to my aid. 

Of course, the markers that came with the boards will run out soon, and then they’ll have to supply their own markers, but I don’t think they will mind doing that since they enjoyed yesterday so much.

We didn’t get through as many problems overall as some students could have gotten done if I had just told them to do the worksheet, but I really believe that a lot of students got more problems WORKED CORRECTLY than would otherwise have been the case.  And no one sat there lost, staring at one problem, for the entire period.

And finally, I know that it was good for many of them to hear me say, “That’s right!  Good for you!” after each problem they got right.  I forget how discouraging it is to work when you don’t know if you’re doing it right or not.  It really boosted their confidence to get immediate feedback.  And being able to instantly evaluate the work gives me assurance that they really do understand what I taught them.

Well, I’m sure the new will wear off the boards, and every practice day may not be as nice as this one, but I think we’ll be using them a lot more often.  Turns out that the major problem with the boards was that I wasn’t giving them the right instructions to make them work.