Monday, April 12, 2010

Using Whiteboards and Math Templates to Encourage Active Participation

Encourage active participation in class by using whiteboards and templates.  Both tools should be regulars in classroom lessons and each student must be required to participate in these mini-assessment activities.

Teachers who effectively incorporate whiteboard and/or template activities gather useful data about which students understand or are proficient, which students need some additional guided practice or instruction and which students are missing some of the prerequisite skills for the particular lesson or need a different approach to the concept or skill.

Be sure to check out these Mathwire collections for ideas on incorporating white boards and templates in math lessons:
Try out these strategies and begin replacing some oral classroom questioning with questions and/or problems that require each student to write down answers on whiteboards or math templates.  These mini-assessments require students to stay on-task and and holds each student accountable for explaining math concepts in words, pictures, and numbers.  Plus, students get to see how their peers explain a term or picture a mathematical problem which adds to their own problem-solving repertoire. 

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