Mini Whiteboards

Wonderful piece of kit that should be in every maths classroom. (Sometimes called Show-me boards or Mini Dry-erase boards)

In Australia – you can buy them here

I use them constantly. They’re an integral feature of the lessons, students like working on them because they aren’t afraid to make mistakes. If something’s wrong they can quickly erase it. It almost completely eliminates the ‘staring at a blank piece of paper not knowing where to start’ thing.

They’re brilliant for whole class feedback too. The most basic way is to ask the class a question, get them to down the answer and hold it up. Of course some students won’t want to hold up an answer at first – some will take longer over it than others – so there are different techniques you can use to counter this. For example distinguishing between group questions by using things like Numbered Heads Together (a Kagan structure) and individual responses Hinge Questions (an AfL strategy). And there are a whole host of other ways in between.

I can’t emphasise enough how brilliant they are!

Here are a few ways I use them and I’ll add links as I post them:

Checklists

Numbered Heads Together

Hinge Questions

Working Out

Exit Passes