It's Not About The Boards

Last week, math education writer, podcaster, and expert Craig Barton published his less-than-enthusiastic "thoughts on vertical non-permanent surfaces."  He observed three classes in Sweden using them for practice - not for thinking tasks, he specifies - and came away unimpressed.

To summarize his points quickly, he is transparent that he is biased against group work in general and that practice on vertical, non-permanent surfaces (VNPs) falls victim to all its shortcomings, namely

• it is difficult to maintain individual accountability, and
• it takes longer than individual practice

Additionally, they also come with an additional pitfall, which is

• they make it easy for groups to copy other groups

​I'll cut to the chase and say right out front that I'm not writing this to refute anything Mr. Barton said.  In fact, I'm thrilled that he wrote it, and I'm especially thrilled that he wrote it so well and that he was so transparent with his perspective and beliefs.  His criticism of VNPs gave me the final puzzle piece I've needed to make a point I've struggled to put into the right words for a long time, when it comes to Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics:

It's not about the boards.

I've had this concern brewing for quite some time.  In my piece Building A Thinking Classroom in Mathematics: What If It Isn't Working?, one of my ten suggestions was to consider whether we've fallen in the the trap of building an "At-The-Boards" Classroom rather than a Thinking one. 

It sounds to me like Mr. Barton observed At-The-Boards Classrooms - which are merely traditional classrooms where practice is done at boards instead of on paper.  He didn't see anything impressive happening, and there's good reason why:​

"Maybe if we get this all down on paper, the boards won't get all the credit."

It's not about the boards.  
​
Kids at boards do not a Thinking Classroom make.  Mr Barton doesn't think that using whiteboards for practicing math that has been taught to you is beneficial, and I don't think Peter Liljedahl would either.  Liljedahl provides a compelling case that they're beneficial for novel thinking tasks and for figuring out concepts that haven't been taught directly.  He also suggests that they create a transformative experience for students learning math when combined with the other practices of Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics - not merely as a stand-alone practice.

What he never says is that having kids do routine practice on VNP's instead of paper is a transformative experience.

It isn't.

It's not about the boards.

So what can we take away from Mr. Barton's important warning?  I think it depends on the situation.

First, for teachers who are using VNPs without any intention of eventually implementing the other practices of Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, I think I would heed Mr. Barton's warning and stop using them.  His case for doing so is pretty compelling.

​Next, for teachers still learning Toolkit #1, for whom VNP's are new and learning how to leverage them is still in progress, now is a great time to follow Mr. Barton's advice to learn to do the hard work of maintaining accountability while students are working in this way.  This kind of work will be vital once the thinking tasks are more authentic, too.  Need help doing so?  My go-to practice for managing accountability in thinking groups is beautifully summarized here. 
​

"Man, we're KILLING this thinking task, and I just KNOW the boards are going to get all the credit!"

Finally, for teachers who have built more complete Thinking Classrooms, I think we need to find a way to make the other practices as obviously beneficial as the VNPs.  That's no small feat.  When the kids are thinking away, happily figuring out high-level mathematics themselves, it can really look like the VNPs are the star to the untrained eye - it is one of the great paradoxes of a finely-tuned Thinking Classroom.  Administrators and visitors fawn over the collaboration and the engagement of the students when they're at those boards, and it can be so easy to just smile and let the boards take all the credit.

​But they don't deserve it.  That's all taking place on the back of meticulously-taught routines, painstaking active observation, and obsessively crafted thinking tasks.  There are as many as thirteen more Thinking Classrooms practices - much harder to notice to the untrained eye - going on to support the fantastic thinking that is being observed.

Highlight them!

Celebrate them!

Next time somebody tries to credit the VNPs for the wonderful learning they see in the Thinking Classroom you have spent so much time and effort building, tell the truth.

It's not about the boards.

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