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Very helpful featured item from National Science Teachers Association. Some excerpt is included here, but for full article, please click on the link provided.
Whiteboarding Your Way to Great Student Discussions David Henry, Julie Henry, and Stephanie Riddoch | | | Photos courtesy of the authors | Group learning has been embraced by many middle school teachers as a critical component of teaching and learning about science. Teachers have developed techniques to facilitate group learning, but sometimes wish for a better method to keep students on task, allow the teacher to track the progress of individual groups, and promote higher-level thinking and discussion. We have found that large dry erase boards, sometimes called whiteboards, are a powerful tool for facilitating discussion within groups of students. When each group receives a large whiteboard and specific instructions about how to use the board to record their thinking, we have found that students’ discussions are more animated, on topic, and demonstrate higher-level thinking. When students share ideas in groups, they are practicing one of the key elements of science—communicating scientific ideas. NSES Teaching Standard B reminds us that teachers should “orchestrate discourse among students about scientific ideas” (NRC 1996). This is the central purpose of whiteboarding." Read the full article here No one has commented on this article. |
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