Anyone who knows my teaching knows that I’m enthusiastic about this very low-tech piece of classroom equipment. MWBs can be quite expensive bought from retailers, but can be easily made from laminated pieces of card. All you then need is a set of markers and some cloths to wipe them clean.
In this post, I’m sharing my top 5 uses of MWBs.
1. Synchronous Retrieval Practice
Perhaps the most common use of MWBs, at least in my classroom, is for synchronous retrieval practice. Prior to the lesson, I plan 5-6 questions that prompt students to recall information from previous lesson(s), ideally with a one-word answer. Each student has a MWB and I work my way through the questions: I ask the question, students have an appropriate period to think and write down their answer and then after “3…2…1…” they hold their MWBs up. A quick visual scan of the room tells me how well students have recalled this item of information and whether I need to cover it again (or set some specific homework to individuals or sub groups).
Absolutely key here is that the questions test prior knowledge not prerequisite knowledge (at least in the majority of situations). If getting these questions right is necessary to access today’s lesson, then this is prerequisite knowledge and if I discover that the students don’t have this knowledge, then I need to reteach it before I can continue. Thus, I need to have two lessons planned for today, which is not efficient. Instead, if I discover that the students are not confident with these questions testing prior knowledge, I can plan to address the misconceptions in a future lesson, while still continuing to today’s planned content.
2. Do Now
Students often enter our classrooms “cold” and so we give them warmer tasks (also known as Starter tasks, or Do Now tasks). It means that those who enter on time have something to immediately focus on and shows them that they are in an efficient and purposeful learning space.
If your Do Now task is more about practice than product, using MWBs rather than notebooks means that the work done is explicitly ephemeral. Students who find the subject more challenging or who take a bit longer to switch focus to your class, thus, have less pressure to produce perfect work in the first few minutes. They can easily rub out and correct during a minute of self-correction before whole-class review and the whole exercise can be wiped away and forgotten at the end.
3. Silent Dialogue
When students are working independently and silently on a task, especially a piece of extended writing, one guaranteed way to ensure that the whole group loses focus is one student asking you a question. The spell is broken: the silent focus gives way to all eyes on you, students lose their train of thought as they listen to the question and your response, and all students now have tacit permission to also ask you questions and thus break the spell again and again.
Give each student a MWB and instruct them that if they absolutely have to ask you something during the period of silent work, they must write on the whiteboard and that your response will also be silently written. Novel at first, and it will break the spell the first time that a student raises a MWB for your attention, like anything routine, it will soon become normal if you make it routine.
4. Hinge Questions
A hinge point in a lesson is a point at which you move from one key idea/point/concept to the next and where the knowledge from the first idea/point/concept is prerequisite for the subsequent one. In other words, if the students don’t understand the first point, they won’t be able to understand the next point.
A hinge question is, thus, a question we ask as a way of checking understanding before moving on to the next point. Without MWBs, you might just ask one student or have everyone write down their answer in their notebook, but these are respectively unrepresentative and inefficient for checking if all students have the prerequisite knowledge. Having your students write their answer on the MWB gives you, at a glance, the information you need about whether to continue to the next point or not.
5. Thinking before cold calling
Another use of the MWB is as a thinking space to help students prepare an answer before cold calling/nomination. This is best used with open questions that have many (or near infinite) valid responses. Planning an essay, for example. Rather than cold calling to elicit suggestions for paragraph content, ask students to think of at least 3 or 5 possible ideas. As a next step, I ask them to work with their talk partner to choose their best suggestions, so that each student has at least one clear idea to propose, with a confidence boost provided by their peer. Then, you cold call asking students to make suggestions for you to board at the front.
Routinise
If the use of MWBs is a novelty, it is likely to be unsuccessful: students are not used to them, they find the novelty more meaningful than the learning, and learning doesn’t happen. Make them part of the furniture in your classroom and they will be much more successful. Here are my suggested steps to routinise the use of MWBs:
- The first time you use them, explain why you are using them.
- Then explain how they will be distributed. Will you do it each time? Where are they kept? Will a student be responsible for distribution/collection?
- Once they have a MWB in their hands for the first time, tell them this is the only time you will permit them to write/draw without purpose and give them 60 seconds to do so. At the end of the time, tell them to wipe the boards clean and that from now on they can only write what and when you tell them to. Make sure you enforce this otherwise you will be dealing with distracted, doodling students.
- When using MWBs for suggestions 1, 4 and 5 above, students must write in a way that is legible from the front of the classroom. Demonstrate this using two MWBs, one with large writing and one with normal writing. Hold them up and ask the back row which is easier to read.
- Likewise, it is essential that all students hold their MWBs up at the same time so other students don’t simply wait, look and copy. The entire point is having all students engaged and thinking throughout the task.
- Once the task is finished, make a routine out of putting lids back on markers, wiping boards clean, and packing them away.
This is not the last possible word on the use of MWBs in classrooms. Do you have another use for them that I have not included? Have I missed a step from the setting up routines list? Please leave a comment below to share!
Chris Richards ELT 