Chapter 3: Where Students Work

How I Understand This Chapter:

Students spend most of their time in school sitting at desks doing a variety of tasks in a traditional classroom. No matter the type of task, the environment stays the same, and so does the level of thinking. Liljedahl looked to increase student engagement and thinking by testing out different work environments such as doing work in notebooks, horizontal and vertical chart paper, and horizontal and vertical whiteboards, or “non-permanent surfaces”. He also tested out whether working while sitting or standing had any impact on student engagement and thinking. He found that the best results came from students standing and working at a vertical whiteboard, or “VNPS” (Vertical Non-Permanent Surface). 

Some of the benefits associated with standing at a VNPS were:

  1. Students were more willing to try and fail at a strategy since it was easily erased and they could move on quickly.
  2. Students were better able to read their peers’ verbal and non-verbal cues while standing.
  3. Students were more willing to share ideas since work on a vertical surface was more visible and easily shared.
  4. Students are more engaged and on task because they are less “anonymous” while standing up and working. It is harder to hide and do nothing in a classroom when you are standing and all of the work is visible to the teacher and their peers.

Liljedahl recognizes that many classroom are not equipped with enough vertical whiteboard space to accommodate an entire class, and suggests many alternatives or products that can be used, such as windows, shower curtains, or shower board.

Finally he recommends that groups are given only one whiteboard marker, rather than one for each student. This facilitates working as a team, rather than three individuals writing independently at the same board. 

Impactful Quotes (To Me):

“From taking notes to completing now-you-try-one tasks to doing homework, the notebook is where students do their work. All these activities, in and of themselves, are very different from each other. Yet, because they are all done by sitting and writing in notebooks, the students bring the same behavior and level of energy, engagement, and attention to all three activities.” (page 57)

If every task students do is completed in the same way, such as writing things in a notebook while sitting down, it stands to reason that they will bring the same energy to all of those tasks, no matter how they are structured. Also, this makes me wonder what percentage of the school day is spent by students sitting in a chair. For twelve years. 

“…we know that this workspace provides teachers with an ability to see everything that is happening in the room, and this enhanced their ability to know at all times where a group’s thinking is, how far they have progressed on the task, and when and where it’s necessary to provide hints and extensions…” (page 62)

I spent most of my teaching career wandering around the classroom while students were working at desks or tables, looking down at notebooks or worksheets, in an effort to see how they were understanding the task for that day. While I enjoy getting in my daily steps, the idea of being able to stand in the middle of the room and just spin and scan the room and know in under 30 seconds how every group is doing on a task…is enticing. 

“When coupled with random grouping, non-thinking behaviors like slacking, stalling, and faking, for the most part, fallaway. When coupled with the use of thinking tasks given early in the lesson the ability to mimic disappears. What is left is an environment that not only supports thinking, but also necessitates it.” (page 63)

Big if true. The prospect of mimicking behavior “falling away” is hard to walk away from. The biggest hurdle I face as a math teacher is students just mimicking what I am doing. If having students stand and work at a VNPS eliminates most of that behavior, then I think it’s at least worth an attempt. Right?

How Did This Go For Me?

After reading the book with two weeks to go before school started I immediately began trying to figure out how I could transform my classroom into a whiteboard paradise with the lowest cost possible. I brought my book and newfound passion to my principal and tried to explain to him what I wanted to try in my room. I probably didn’t explain it very well, but he found some money in the budget for me to buy a set of 10 heavy duty WipeBooks, which are large posters that you can use a dry erase marker on. Once they arrived, I tried to figure out the layout of the posters on the walls, and how my classroom furniture would need to be arranged differently.

My classroom has one wall that has three large whiteboards on a track, with storage behind them. I taped off these boards into three “Thinking Stations”, with a small rectangle for me to write on when needed. Then I mapped out the rest of my wall space and tried to evenly space out the WipeBooks for a total of 12 “Thinking Stations”, with the hope that I would not have more than 36 students in a class period. Here’s what that looked like:

Attaching the WipeBooks to the wall proved challenging, as the classroom walls have a textured wallpaper, and tape does not stick well to it. I ended up using double sided tape and pushpins in the corners. This did not prove to be a lasting strategy, so I need to find something better for next year, as students can pull and tear the posters in the corners where the pushpins are. I have ideas.

After completing a few Non-Curricular Tasks with my students in the first week I recognized the need for storage at each station, so I bought some really cheap red storage bins at Target, which you can see here:

Finally, I needed some cheap erasers to place at each station, so I bought some microfiber cloths from Home Depot and cut them into smaller squares and put them into each red storage bin, along with 1 black dry erase marker. So I ended up with 12 Thinking Stations total which I created with:

All told, I was able to implement VNPS in my classroom for a little under $250, all of which I was reimbursed for. Not bad.

As far as implementing this practice with students, the first few days required setting norms and going over procedures, such as how I randomly choose groups, and who does the writing and thinking in each group. The main norms we established were:

  • Make sure everyone in the group is heard and respected.
  • Trade the dry erase marker after each problem is complete.
  • Only erase someone’s work with their permission.
  • If you are unsure of what to do, ask another group before you ask me.

I will go into other strategies and outcomes in future chapters of the book, but here are my main takeaways:

  1. For the most part, students love working at the thinking stations. Any time I did a VNPS lesson, student engagement was much higher, student discourse was more focused, and students who would normally hide during a seated lesson were more willing to do math in public. This was a win.
  2. The ability to see all of the student work (and behavior) from one central location is a game-changer. I have never been able to receive formative assessment data so quickly in my career. At any point during the lesson I could see where each group was during the task, how they were thinking about it, and which groups needed assistance or an additional extension challenge. I was also able to see who was off-task and intervene quickly.
  3. When students entered the room and saw that we would be using the VNPS on the daily agenda they were instantly more excited for math that day.
  4. I loved how I could just walk around the room and listen to rich math discussion and most of the time not really have to say much. Students were in the mindset that they were required to figure out the math, and that I wasn’t going to do it for them (unlike in a direct lesson notes type activity). I had more time to have students explain their thinking to me, rather than spending time on correcting off-task behavior.
  5. Ending the lesson well (consolidation is covered in Chapter 10) is critical, and I am not very good at that part yet. This is my biggest area of growth.
  6. Converting lessons into this style of teaching takes a lot of time and effort. I had hoped to use VNPS a majority of the time, but ended up using them for about 20% of my lessons. Geometric constructions and accurate coordinate plane graphing proved to be difficult for me to transition to a vertical surface. This will be something I focus on for the 2023-24 school year.

My biggest takeaway is that I have never seen $250 spent more wisely in my classroom. After seeing this practice in action in my own room I can’t recommend it enough to any math educator. The effort is worth the change you will see in your students.

Up next: Classroom Furniture

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