What are mini-whiteboards?

Mini-whiteboards are usually used during the whole-class teaching part of the lesson. The purpose of them is to ensure that children are properly engaged in a lesson. For example: if a teacher is teaching children how to multiply numbers by 10, they may put three numbers on the board:

4    9    20

and then ask the children to multiply these numbers by 10 on their whiteboards. Using whiteboards means that every child is the class is being asked to engage in an activity. The alternative is that a few children will work out the answer to the above, but many children may not be engaged at all.

A further purpose of using whiteboards is to allow teachers to quickly assess how well their class is grasping a concept. For example: with the above task, the teacher may notice that many children are not able to multiply 20 by 10, so the next step could be to ask a child who can do it to demonstrate how to do this.

Mini-whiteboards may also be used in literacy. For example: if a teacher is carrying out a shared writing session where they are writing about a goblin, they may say that they need some good words to describe the goblin and ask the children to write these on their whiteboards then hold them up.

Mini-whiteboards are a good way of encouraging children who are lacking in confidence to put forward more of their ideas. For example: if a teacher notices a less able or less confident child has written a good word, she or he could point that out to the class and then use the word as part of the shared writing.