Book-to-Board: One of my favourite uses of mini-whiteboards
How to solve three problems with students' work being in their books
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This week I want to discuss one of my favourite mini-whiteboard techniques. In the spirit of Doug Lemov and Adam Boxer, I'm going to give it a (hopefully) catchy name: Book-to-Board.
Three problems with work in books
As much as I love a mini-whiteboard, there are times when we need students to do work in their books. We may want students to do a period of independent practice - say 15 minutes working through a set of questions. Or we may need written evidence of the work students have done.
But there are three problems with having work in books:
1. Books make circulation difficult
Students write smaller in books than on a mini-whiteboard, which makes it much harder to check their answers as you circulate the room. Students may also have turned over the page, which means you cannot see their answers to previous questions without interrupting them.
2. Books make checking for understanding difficult
This is probably the biggest issue. When work is in books, it makes it much more difficult to get a sense of what every student thinks the answer is. Hence, teachers tend to resort to Cold Call (What did you get for Question 2, Ben?), hoping that the chosen student's answer is representative of the understanding of the rest of the class.
3. Books reduce the effectiveness of Turn and Talk
Books are not the best medium to support a paired discussion. Students tend to write smaller, and the permanence of ink means students are more reluctant to edit and annotate each other's work than they would be on a mini-whiteboard.
What is Book-to-Board?
Book-to-Board can solve each of these problems. Book-to-Board involves - surprise, surprise - transferring a student's work from their book to their mini-whiteboard. Often this is just the final answer. But it might also involve transferring some aspect of their working out. The key point is that a student's thinking is done in their books, but they copy the result of that thinking - nice and quickly - onto their mini-whiteboards.
Three uses of Book-to-Board
Let's look at how Book-to-Board can address the three issues identified above.
1. Books make circulation difficult
Ask students to transfer their final answer - and just the final answer - to each question onto their mini-whiteboards as they work through the exercise, leaving the mini-whiteboard clearly visible on their desks:
With your answers in your hands, you can quickly get a sense of each student's understanding as you circulate without disturbing them. And if a student's answer does not match yours, you can ask them to turn to the relevant piece of working in their book to investigate further.
2. Books make checking for understanding difficult
Ask students to transfer their final answer to a single question, nice and big, onto their mini-whiteboards, and show you when asked. Here are three times you might use this in a lesson:
When you want to review one answer at a time
This works really well when going through the Do Now. Say students have had 5 minutes to answer four questions in their books. Instead of saying: right, who can tell me the answer to Question 2?, you can ask everyone to copy their answer to Question 2 onto their mini-whiteboards and show you:
When you want a quick check of understanding during extended practice
Students are working on a series of questions, and you want a quick snap-shot of their understanding. You can stop them, ask them to quickly copy their answer to, say, Question 12, onto their mini-whiteboards, and then show you:
When you are going through lots of answers
Students have been working through a series of questions, and now it is time to go through the answers. Whilst it might be overkill to ask students to show you their responses to each question, one after another, a smart move is to pick a couple of critical questions - perhaps where the difficulty increases or when a new aspect is introduced - and get students to do Book-to-Board for those:
In each instance, data from the whole class will tell you whether you can confirm the answer and crack on, or if you need to intervene.
3. Books reduce the effectiveness of Turn and Talk
And a great way to intervene is by instigating a Turn and Talk! Imagine your Book-to-Board has revealed that there is a split of answers in the class. You can ask students to turn to face their partner, put their mini-whiteboards in between them to support the discussion, and take turns explaining their answer and reason. If students disagree, can they convince their partner they are right? If they agree, what is the best explanation they can come up with between them?
How the teacher could respond
Of course, it is all well and good getting the data from Book-to-Board, but if the teacher does nothing with it, then it has all been a waste of time.
We have already discussed one possible response if Book-to-Board suggests that understanding in the class is mixed: Turn and Talk. But there are others. The teacher could:
Share one board with the rest of the class and use it as a focus for discussion.
Grab two boards and challenge students to decide which is right, which is wrong, and why.
Call upon a number of students to explain their answers to the class, using their working out in their books to support their reasoning.
Collect the different answers the mini-whiteboards reveal on their teacher board and use those to instigate a vote or a Turn and Talk.
Decide there is so much confusion in the room that it is best to pause and re-explain before checking for understanding again.
The choice is with the teacher, but the key point is that Book-to-Board arms teachers with reliable information to make an informed choice.
Reflection
So, there you go, that is Book-to-Board.
How could you use Book-to-Board to improve your own practice?
What challenges would you face?
Book-to-Board works particularly well in maths where there is often a final answer, so I would be interested to know if it could work in other subjects, and if so, how?
🏃🏻♂️ Before you go, have you…🏃🏻♂️
… listened to my most recent podcast about how to secure 100% student engagement?
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… read my Tips for Teachers book?
Thanks for reading and have a great week!
Craig
Some lovely ideas here. I've been trying to add some of these into my A-Level class routines- I absolutely love MWBs but at A-level there's often too much writing on the board or I want them to have a record of the 5 minutes of lovely working out they've done. By getting them to just record their answers it makes it so much easier to hunt for problems!
I could use this to set the tone from the beginning of the lesson - e.g. with a starter. Or just when necessary - I will need few days to figure this out. Maybe use it as a "surprise check" element to keep everyone motivated throughout the lesson.
Downside - state of our school mini whiteboards.