Mini Whiteboards
There are pluses and minuses to using mini whiteboards in language classrooms. Here are a few thoughts and considerations.
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I’ve been teaching for the past 7 weeks, many groups of “tweens” each day. It has been uplifting and it’s a nice opportunity to return to my roots, being a primary-junior educator.
It’s also an opportunity for me to test things in my teacher toolkit and one thing I’ve been experimenting with has been having all students use “mini whiteboards”.
In my teacher training, mini-whtieboards have always been something I’ve advocated but with some important caveats (see below). Currently in education, they are making a bit of a comeback and becoming all the rage. The pendulum, especially in education, always keeps swinging.
The idea is to use them during lessons to elicit student responses. Students respond with their whiteboard and hold them up together, after answering.
Whiteboards can be as simple as an A4 piece of paper laminated or you can buy more expensive ones. Same goes with the markers and brushes (erasers). Whatever works for you and your budget, where you teach. Just be careful that students are limited to using the markers only for their responses. They’ll be tempted to draw with them, get off task and also use up the markers pretty fast.
I’ve found mini-whiteboards useful for language teaching primarily because they give every student an opportunity to answer, even forcing them to do so. We also can learn from each other. They are very democratic in that sense.
Mini-whiteboards can be a strong tool for keeping students on task and engaged but like any “method” - there are pitfalls to be avoided. Here are a few thoughts and considerations about their use in a language classroom.
Some Ways I’ve Used Mini-Whiteboards
Assessment. Mini-whiteboards are really helpful to assess student understanding and also they allow a teacher to make initial assessment of student language skills by comparing within a larger group.
Quizzing. There are a lot of popular Kahoot style apps for quizzing that use the same principle as mini-whiteboards, everyone answering together. But whiteboards are much easier to use in class, imho. Sometimes, old tech is good tech. Mini-whiteboards are great for quiz, short answer, multiple choice style scoring. For example - I used mini-whiteboards for students to unscramble complex sentences and show their word order grammar skills.
Brainstorming. Stop wasting paper and use a mini-whiteboard and have students use one board for the group to illustrate their knowledge and ideas.
Caveats. Pitfalls To Avoid
Have a clear routine for distributing and ending the use of whiteboards. Give students roles as necessary. Model the routine clearly at first.
Avoid situations where answers can be very ambiguous, difficult, lengthy or open ended. Mini-whiteboards work best when there is a clear correct response that you the teacher are looking for.
Teachers should reply as well. If appropriate, the teacher should also reply on a board with the correct answer or suggested answer. So all students can compare their own reply with the teacher’s, quickly.
Avoid overusing the boards. Think your lessons through and apply this tool when appropriate. It’s not something you need to use front and center for all your teaching and I’ve seen many teachers fall into this pitfall of planning their lessons with whiteboards, front and center, in mind.
Have the right classroom culture already in place. It’s imperative that mini-whiteboards be used in a classroom where there is a climate of equity, of learning through our mistakes and not one of competiveness, ranking and right or wrong answers. Set this kind of classroom culture up and then you will be ready to use whiteboards. Otherwise, can quickly involve into a shaming contest and not an educational, growth experience.
I highly advocate for teachers to at least experiment with mini-whiteboards. Find out what works for your students and also your own teaching style and set of teaching beliefs. But find or create an opportunity to use them and see how it goes. You might just be surprised!