Does Group Board Work work?

Whiteboards in my opinion are amazing for doing problems. I myself carry multiple mini whiteboards that I’ve gotten from Amazon and have handed out many to my peers. These whiteboards were great tools when doing math homework or even other classwork. Whiteboards made it easy to fix small mistakes versus having the annoying smudge marks on paper when you make a small error. Coming to SDSU, at the AME building, even the walls are whiteboards! Many professors put students in groups and send them to the board to solve problems. Did learning from group board work help students learn?

Group board work is a great way for students to communicate and problem-solve as a group. As some students struggle, they may glance at other groups’ boards to see what they are doing wrong and learn from the mistakes that they could’ve been making. There are many times when students do a worksheet for the day during the class period and later it is assigned as homework if it is not completed during the class time given. Giving students a worksheet for the day has many ways of doing more harm than good. From my experience when teachers did this, only a small amount of the class would take the work time wisely while the majority would get distracted with their peers and do other things to avoid doing the worksheet. Thus, the students that didn’t do the worksheet in class typically didn’t do it as homework either and would fall further behind in material. Pushing toward group board work keeps students busy and engaged in the material.

You may be thinking, “What if I prefer to work alone?” I’ll be honest, I definitely preferred to work alone on assignments. Whether it’s just what you prefer or if it’s because you had to pull the weight of your group members, working in a group would help prepare students for the future. Tons of jobs require communication with other people to get things done. Note, when doing board work, it’s easier for teachers to see who’s engaged and who isn’t because not everyone is at their desks. This improves the chances of everyone taking part in the problem on the board.

I have done some board work in the past, both in K-12 and in college. From what I have seen, many students and I have benefited from it. I would see what others did, right or wrong, and learn from it. Many times, the teacher would have group members alternate who had the marker, which helped make sure everyone was included. If some groups are confused about a problem, they reached out to other groups for help.

As Frank Oppenheimer once said, “The best way to learn is to teach, the best way to teach is to keep learning.” Students can teach their classmates, and students can learn from each other’s mistakes.

I’ve listed great things group board work provides, however, there are still areas that we as teachers or future educators would have to account for. What happens if only one person does the work even if they don’t have the marker in hand? How could we make sure each person is involved the whole time? How could we eliminate the common distractions for students to be engaged? How could we prevent students from doodling on the board?

To close, I firmly believe that having students do group board work would improve learning, student engagement, and communication skills. This provides a way for the teacher to keep their students active and productive. It allows problem-solving among students by having them demonstrate their knowledge to others. Also, who doesn’t like writing on the board?