I have always found my mini whiteboards to be of great value in the classroom, especially when I happen to be in a school without tools such as IWBs or even a sufficient amount of classroom computers.
One of the main reasons I love these boards is because they are an excellent type of formative assessment.
Whether each individual child has one or pairs of students work together to share their prior knowledge with the class, the amount of information you can gain about where your students are is endless!
Another great advantage of these little boards is their assistance during one-on-one conferencing. They are so easy to just grab and brainstorm ideas, relevant vocabulary for a piece of writing, examples, etc.
Once your students know these tools are available in the classroom and are easy to use, you will see them utilizing them for their own purposes as well. Just this past week I had students using them for support during a Mathletics task and another pair of students trying to explain their answers to each other during a peer math lesson.
The possibilities are endless with these little magic boards. I would even keep them in my ideal classroom with an IWB, and 1:1 or even 1:2 computers!
6 Responses to The Magic of Mini Dry Erase boards