Alternate title #1: One Great Way to Use a Whiteboard
Alternate title #2: Can I Have an Academic Crush on an Object?
Hi there, readers!
I'm taking a break from my series on Kelly Gallagher's ah-may-zing reading instruction ideas to divulge to you a little secret: I have yet another academic crush, and this time it's on an object. I know what you're thinking . . . after all, this is the fifth or sixth (losing track doesn't make it worse, does it?) academic crush I've written about and now I'm confessing to crushing on, of all things, a mini-whiteboard (but did I mention it comes with its own marker and adorable mini-eraser?). Rest assured, readers, my marriage is healthy and intact despite these academic crushes. Even those on objects. But you can't judge me too harshly for this one -- mini-whiteboards are so fun and great. AND here's the kicker -- they are so useful to CFU.
(Gasp! You're not familiar with mini-whiteboards? Here's a link to the website for The Markerboard People, which is where I got mine: http://www.dryerase.com/.)
Because what the education world needs right now is another acronym, I thought I'd tell you about my personal favorite (yes, I have academic crushes and favorite acronyms, but who doesn't?). CFU stands for Check for Understanding. And since I'm obsessed with ways to informally and formally assess student understanding (especially those opportunities to assess mid-way through a lesson), I find myself talking about, thinking about, and writing about checking for understanding so often that I just had to abbreviate it to its lovely acronym.
Here's where my two loves, CFU and the lovely mini-whiteboard, intersect. Mini-whiteboards offer an amazingly simple and effective way to check for understanding during a lesson.
Here's an example:
I've been coaching a teacher lately on finding more ways to CFU during a lesson. This way he doesn't have to wait until the very end of a lesson to see if students have been following him and understanding what's being taught. This teacher is lucky enough to be blessed with a class set of mini-whiteboards (and markers and mini-erasers . . . have I mentioned how adorable the mini-erasers are?), so I was psyched to show him how he could use these to CFU.
Yesterday, we tried it out. After a certain portion of the lesson during which a new term had been explored, we wanted to know if students really understood the meaning of the term. So, we posed a multiple choice question to them with four options defining the term. We asked students to write their letter choice (A, B, C, or D) on their boards (they keep these boards under their seats -- markers and erasers are also kept under their seats in pencil cases) and to hold them up on the count of 3. At 3, all students held up their boards and we were able to see that all but 2 of the students chose the correct answer. This let us know that the majority of the class could move right along with the next task -- some practice with partners on the topic being taught -- while the teacher could work with the 2 struggling students until they fully understood the term's meaning, at which point they could rejoin their classmates in working on the next task.
You can also do this kind of CFU with a Smartboard as long as you have those fancy clickers (that's the correct technical term, right?) handy. It doesn't matter which you use, really . . . the really important piece of this is that you've found a way to quickly and informally CFU. This doesn't have to only happen during a lesson as in the above example, either. Use the mini-whiteboard as a way to pre-assess before a lesson begins, or as a way to CFU at the end of a lesson during a summarizer.
My biggest practical tip involving this strategy? Only use the mini-whiteboards as a CFU tool if you can ask students something that requires a very short answer (such as a multiple choice question for which they only have to write their letter choice on the board). With very short answers, you can easily and quickly scan all the boards as they are raised and determine where students are at with their understanding. Longer answers are harder to quickly scan -- you may need to think of another CFU tool to use if this is the case. But don't worry -- there are so many great CFU tools -- I've got a million of 'em! (Hyperbole alert -- I don't really have a million CFU tools, but I do have a decent amount.)
Have you joined the mini-whiteboard fan club yet? I hope so. As president, we're always looking for new members.
Happy Checking for Understanding!
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