Board-work: Students using Whiteboards to Make Their Learning Visible

There is nothing more exciting as a teacher, when you have that moment, the moment that you get out of the way and listen to what the kids are saying and they are just exploring ideas. Today I listened and watched a number of students talking about how to create a Lewis dot diagram for a number of molecules that they have yet to encounter. I listened to them say; “Try this. . . that doesn’t work, what should we do?, Try this. . .. I stood back in utter excitement knowing that they were in the full throws of learning something. THEY WERE LEARNING. I did not need to give them a test. I did not need to give them a quiz. They were in the zone, that special zone where it is not too easy but yet not too hard. Just at the end, when they exhausted all their ideas, I was called over and they asked for help. I gave them a couple of suggestions and then, the insight, the HUGE smile on their faces and the laughter that followed. It is just that moment that we as teachers all live for. Needless to say I felt as though I was making a difference.

I have to be quite honest that these moments seem to be occurring more and more for me as a teacher. I have to give credit to where it is due. I would like to share with you my insight.

Last year I was given the opportunity to teach in a classroom with a colleague who was teaching a math course. Our math department, phenomenal I might add, has been exploring an idea of how to get students more engaged in Math. After attending a conference with Peter Liljedhal from Simon Fraser University, our math teachers were inspired.  Who can doubt inspired education? Not me. As a result they have made a movement toward the incorporation of the latest and greatest technological advance in teaching, the whiteboard, and lots of them. The intention in their math classes is to have students doing math up out of their seats and doing it in small groups on a whiteboard. They have put up whiteboards on all the walls of their classrooms where there is space. The work that they are getting to do is affectionately referred to as “Board-work”.

Board-work is

1.       Cooperative and active

2.       Visible for others

3.       A great opportunity for formative feedback

4.       Time saving

5.       Engaging

6.       Promotes risk taking 

So what does board work look like in a classroom? Board-work is corporative and active by design. Students are working together in small groups. Often the teacher will have their students assigned into random groups of anywhere from two to six students. These groups will be assigned a set of problems for which all are responsible to try and solve. Students work together on a whiteboard, one writing others helping, monitoring, learning in the moment. If a group gets stuck, they can just look around the room and see what other groups are up to. Group learning is at the forefront of this organizational approach to learning.

Board-work is a visible for others and a great opportunity for the teacher to provide formative feedback resulting in lots of time saved. Students see that there are a number of different ways to solve a problem. As a teacher it is mind blowing. Rarely is there such an opportunity to provide such instant formative feedback to student work. Often we are organized in such a way that students work at their desk, a teacher circulates, provides individual help, and students may get some help from a neighbor. With board-work a teacher can help four students at a time and neighboring groups can listen in. Common mistakes become instantly visible for others to see and the teacher can address the whole class quickly to correct the issue. Making student work visible for others by bringing the work up off the worksheet and into a public form is another of its strengths.

Students love it. In a conversation with a colleague out in the hallway, I was asking, do you think that this approach could be extended beyond math and be used in a science classroom? His response, “Let’s ask.” He proceeded to stop numerous students in the hallway and ask them two questions: 1. “What do you think of board-work?” and 2. “Do you think that it could be done in Science?” It was a fantastic insight for me as I listened to student after student just light up and respond with how much they liked it. Additionally it was an overwhelming yes to the thought of doing it in a science class. One student even went as far as to say, “Could you convince my Chemistry AP teacher to do it?” Board-work in my experience is engaging.

Finally, board-work promotes risk taking in the simplest of ways. As students write on a piece of paper, and there is a mistake that needs to be corrected it seems to be so much more difficult to correct. When writing on a whiteboard, a student is more likely to feel the freedom to explore a variety of different ideas. With others, students will explore these ideas through conversation using the whiteboard as the visual for the exploration. Students often will say that is it so much easier and acceptable to make a mistake on the whiteboard as it is easily corrected. “I can simply erase it.”

It has been my goal has been to incorporate more board-work into my practice as a science teacher. Recently, inspired by the work that our math department has been doing I have discovered what structures might enhance the opportunity for these moments. I have found that taking a large group of students and dividing them up into 6 large tables (merging 6 individual desks) I have created an environment whereby I have enough room to visit everyone comfortably, students are ready to converse and get involved in group learning. Having each of these groups sitting next to a whiteboard is an open invitation for students to explore their ideas on the board. There is the opportunity for peer teaching, collaboration on a problem and me as the teacher to provide formative feedback.

If you are looking for one approach which can have a dramatic impact on teaching and learning, making learning visible in a classroom for you and others alike, I would have to say board-work is a great answer.