Let's share the effective ways that we use mini whiteboards as a formative assessment strategy across our school.
You may like to read the following excerpt and watch the short clip from Dylan Wiliam (mentions whiteboards and then explores coloured cups) before reflecting on your own practice.
You may like to read the following excerpt and watch the short clip from Dylan Wiliam (mentions whiteboards and then explores coloured cups) before reflecting on your own practice.
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Whiteboards (sometimes called “slates”) is a whole-class, visual method of checking for understanding. On the teacher’s cue, each student draws or writes a response to a question or prompt on an individual whiteboard. Unlike other checking for understanding (CFU) methods, in which teachers make an inference about student learning from a sample of students, with whiteboards, the teacher visually records answers from the entire class. Generally, checking for understanding using whiteboards is most effective when the responses are short so that the teacher can scan the responses from all students relatively quickly (e.g., the answer to a computation problem, a single word or short phrase, an arrow pointing to a specific part of a sketch).
Three universal characteristics as they relate to Whiteboards 1. Teachers use Whiteboards to check for understanding of important content. For example, teachers check for understanding at key moments in the lesson that are revelatory of students’ progress toward mastering the lesson objective. 2. Teachers use Whiteboards to make less biased inferences about what students know and can do. - A: Teachers ensure that the use of Whiteboards produces clear, visually scannable responses. For example: “Divide your whiteboard in half and record two ways that you could solve this addition problem.' - B: Teachers use strategies to maximize the likelihood that each student’s response is her own. - For example, the teacher creates a culture in which students are sharing their own answers, not copying the answer from a neighbor’s board. Or, teachers can give a crisp in-cue that signals to students when they should raise their whiteboards. “On your boards, write the word in this sentence that conveys the author’s sense of wonder. Show me your boards when I say ‘three’ . . . one, two, three.” - C: Teachers use follow-up questions to probe the students’ whiteboarded responses. - For example, teachers ask strategic questions of intentionally selected students to better understand why students answered they way that they did. “Most of the class drew graphs with slopes of zero between times C and D. There were a few of you who drew positive slopes in that same interval. Let me hear from someone who drew a positive slope. Why did you think the slope should be positive? . . . . . . Jamal?” *Teachers make appropriate instructional adjustments in light of the formative data gathered via the whiteboards exercise. - For example, the teacher’s next instructional move will be based on the information gathered, for example whether the majority of the class are finding the task to be too simple or if two students demonstrate that they mastered the concept. (Adapted from the Graduate School of Education, 2014) |
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This week's in between task:
Please record responses to the following questions in this GDoc.
You may like to reflect on your practice to date or plan a lesson this week that includes mini-whiteboards.
How do you use mini-whiteboards as a formative assessment strategy?
Please provide a specific example of how you have used information gathered from whiteboards to guide your teaching within a lesson.
Please record responses to the following questions in this GDoc.
You may like to reflect on your practice to date or plan a lesson this week that includes mini-whiteboards.
How do you use mini-whiteboards as a formative assessment strategy?
Please provide a specific example of how you have used information gathered from whiteboards to guide your teaching within a lesson.
