Vertical whiteboards are all the buzz in math circles -- and whether or not you subscribe to the whole BTC framework, the boards themselves? Golden!! The good news is, it works just as well in science as it does in math.

In this episode, Nicole breaks down exactly how she uses vertical whiteboards in both her math and science classroom: what they are, why they work, and the specific ways she uses them for everything from complex word problems to building food webs to analyzing data in real time.

In This Episode:

• why vertical whiteboards let you see everything — who's stuck, who's off task, who's making the same mistake — all at once, without hovering
• how the erasability of a whiteboard lowers the stakes and gets reluctant students actually participating
• Nicole's step-by-step math problem solving sequence at the whiteboard — and how it builds habits that transfer to independent work
• science applications for vertical whiteboards
• how to start without spending a ton of money and without overhauling your whole classroom

If you've heard of Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl, this connects to that — but we're not doing a book review here. This is Nicole's unique strategy, evolved over four years of figuring out what actually works for her upper elementary math and science students!

📝 Want to go deeper? Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl is worth your time even if you're primarily a science teacher.

📬 Grab the Vertical Whiteboards Expectations Poster to support positive behaviors at the boards in this week's Substack post:  https://iexplorescience.substack.com/

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