This post is a follow-up to my recent post: The Case for Mini Whiteboards. If you have not read that post, I recommend you do so, as it lays out an argument in favor of the use of mini whiteboards in the classical classroom. This post will discuss the procedures, routines, and general advice that will allow you, the teacher, to get the most out of mini whiteboards in your classroom.
My first piece of advice: Use mini whiteboards all the time! You can use them at the beginning of class as a warmup to review material from the day before. You can use them during class to check student understanding of the material you are discussing with them at the moment (this works especially well for math). You can use them as an exit ticket to see if your students grasped the main objective of your lesson. You can use them in place of notes when you are practicing material they have seen previously (again, another great one for math class). Be creative; there are so many good times to use mini whiteboards!
My second piece of advice: Have a routine for passing out and returning mini whiteboards and practice it relentlessly during the first weeks of school. Mini whiteboards are effective because they allow for a high amount of feedback in a quick amount of time. However, a lot of valuable classroom time can be lost to the distribution and returning of mini whiteboards if the students are not well-practiced in being prepared to use them. The best scenario would be one where every student has a mini whiteboard, marker, and eraser readily accessible in their desk that they can pull out and be ready to use in seconds. If you have a self-contained classroom, this is the routine I recommend. If you do not teach a self-contained classroom, then I recommend placing the mini whiteboards in a bin at the back of your classroom and making it the job of students in the back row to grab and pass them up the rows of desks while all of the other students get out their markers and erasers. You could even have separate bins for markers and erasers that could be passed around as well. Experiment with your classroom and find the routine that works best. However, make sure you have your students practice it to the point of habituation. It should not take longer than 30 seconds for all of those materials to be distributed to or returned from the class. To ensure proficiency with this routine, challenge your students with a timer; they love the competition!
My third piece of advice: Have a procedure for answering questions on the mini whiteboards. Not only do students need to be well-practiced in habits of distributing and returning the mini whiteboards, they also need to have good habits of answering questions. Otherwise, the whiteboards become a distraction instead of a tool. My recommended procedure is as follows.
- Ask a question
- Give your students a specific amount of time to answer
- Have your students flip their whiteboard over once they have answered, so other students cannot see their work
- At the end of the given time, ask all students to hold up their answers towards you
- Once you have surveyed their answers, tell them to put their boards down, erase, and listen to the next question
- Repeat for as many questions as you have
This procedure does a couple of things. It makes efficient use of class time, is quick-paced, so it keeps students focused and engaged, and discourages/prevents students from copying each other’s work.
My fourth piece of advice: Have consequences for students who do not follow procedures and follow through with those consequences. Mini whiteboards are a tool, which means students have to learn to use them well. If they are not able to use them responsibly, then they should not have access to the tool. Procedural violations could include a variety of things.
- Not being ready to use the whiteboards in a timely fashion (after practicing)
- Drawing on the whiteboards instead of writing answers
- Copying another student’s work
These are just a few, but there are others, and following through on these violations stresses the importance of the whiteboard as a tool. I operate under a system where a student first receives a verbal warning if they are not following a procedure. If I have to remind them again, then I take their mini whiteboard, have them participate mentally along with the class, and return it to them after the questions are finished.
Finally, a word of advice about the most common issue facing mini whiteboard use in the classroom – drawing. My advice: Let students draw, but only at specific times. When going through the procedure of asking questions and collecting answers, I will usually throw in a “drawing round” after about 5 questions. In this “drawing round,” I give my students a very short timeframe to make a drawing based on a prompt I give them. An example prompt would be something like this: “you have one minute to draw an octopus playing ping-pong!” I find that these drawing rounds are great because the students know they will get a chance to draw, so they are less likely to draw on their boards while answering questions. The drawings are also wildly entertaining when you give them limited time and an extreme topic, which makes them fun to view!
The Classical Classroom 