🗑 My favorite non-tech teaching tool

🎙️ In-person workshop: Student Writing in the AI Age

I’m trying something new: an in-person workshop down the street from my school!

Title: Student Writing in the AI Age
Description: When ChatGPT can do the writing, how do we keep students thinking? Get plenty of real talk and practical strategies here.
Date: Monday, November 17, 2025
Time: 8:30am to 3:30pm
Place: The Inkwell, 114 N Jefferson St, Rockville, IN 47872
Cost: $99 (includes lunch on-site)

If you’re from Indiana or Illinois (or the Midwest): You might be close enough to consider this! Would love to share the day with you working through this topic.

If you’re NOT from Indiana or Illinois: I’m planning on turning this workshop into an asynchronous online course in 2026. I’ll keep you posted!

Note: Please only register if you’re planning on attending in-person.

PS: Are you interested in bringing me to your school, district, or even to run this workshop? Hit reply and let’s discuss!

💼 FREE RESOURCE 💼

🔉 Free audiobook on student engagement

Engagement in the classroom is tough these days. With all of the distractions, it’s hard to capture student attention and get them inspired to learn.

If you’re looking for solutions, you won’t want to miss this free resource from the very generous A.J. Juliani (a friend of mine who is a fantastic speaker).

A.J. has written The 27 Principles of Engagement, his upcoming yet-to-be-published book. But he contacted me, wanting to give away the audiobook version of it for free to you!

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

✍️ I LOOOOOOVE my mini white boards

I’m a doodler. I love adding little rectangle people to notes. (Instead of stick figures, I use rectangles. Makes the proportions seem a little more human.)

I’ll doodle on the white board in front of my class to illustrate stories in Spanish.

Years ago, I realized that doodling on the white board shouldn’t just be a teacher thing. So I got a set of mini white boards for my students.

At first, I didn’t have budget for them … so I used sheet protectors and paper. It wasn’t ideal, but it got the job done.

(Read about my favorite cheap mini white board options here.)

Today, in my classroom, I have the Show-me “starter pack” — 35 mini white boards, erasers, and markers. (I’m impressed at how durable the markers are — and how lightweight the boards are.)

The boards themselves aren’t what makes learning amazing.

It’s how you use them.

Here are some of my favorites …

1. Let’s make sure your marker is working …

Whenever students grab their white boards and head back to their desks, I’ll have them draw something fun on it.

At first, I used to say, “Let’s make sure your marker is working.” (Because we had junk dry erase markers and we used them until they quit working … so it was a real issue!)

Outwardly, I said the picture drawing was to check the markers. But inside, I knew it was a little opportunity for students to show their creativity … have a little fun … and show their friends their drawings. It was a moment for joy.

Nowadays, I still have them draw on their white boards when we start. But sometimes, I’ll also have them swap boards with a classmate and …

• add something to their classmate’s drawing

• rate their classmate’s drawing on a 1-10 scale

• write something they like about their classmate’s drawing

Little things like that build community and get class started on the right foot.

2. Quick repetitions — and quick feedback

We assign students worksheets and homework, and when they do it, it takes them a day or more to get them back with grades and feedback.

Research points to the importance of quick feedback — and the benefits of regular quick quizzes.

When I have students do quick practice on their mini white boards, it’s like giving multiple low-stakes quizzes in one class period.

• They answer the questions with support (i.e. our study guides, notes, etc.) or without (simulating a quiz).

• Afterward, they can correct them themselves — or swap with a classmate to grade.

• Everything’s written on a white board — which, by nature, is impermanent — so if they make mistakes, they erase it and it’s gone forever. Super low-stakes.

I often shoot for as many repetitions as we can squeeze into a practice session. I don’t give my Spanish students homework, so these repetitions serve the same purpose as traditional homework — and because they get immediate feedback, I think they accomplish more and lead to better results.

3. Checking each other’s work

It may seem small, but I like to have them check each other’s work.

• It puts them in the position of assessing work — a perspective they might not get often.

• It helps them to see work in a different light. It’s a little different when you’re correcting someone else’s answers.

• When they’re getting corrections from their peers, it shows that their peers can correct and show guidance — not just the teacher.

• Also, it normalizes mistakes as part of the learning process.

4. Making visuals part of learning

When we learn vocabulary, I’ll have students draw pictures and label the vocabulary words in them. When we get done with a story in Spanish, sometimes I’ll have them draw a picture or comic strip of the story to show what they remember and understood about it.

In other subjects, drawing charts, graphs, maps … it all gets at an important concept: verbal visual learning.

This fits with dual coding theory, which states that the mind processes information along two different channels: verbal and nonverbal. Verbal deals with words (spoken, written) … but nonverbal? It can certainly be images (as I mentioned above). But it can also be movement, music/sounds, etc.

This is why I still have a big set of Crayola markers in my classroom and have students do vocabulary pictures. (Yeah, they’re high schoolers, but in some ways, teenagers are like little kids in big bodies.) 😂

Little visual representations mixed with words? They can lead to stronger long-term memory.

5. Mini white boards = research-backed learning

Some of the things I ask students to do with mini white boards are fun. But they’re also serious learning backed by research.

Dr. Janell Blunt, an associate professor at Anderson University, specializes in concept mapping and retrieval practice — two cognitive science concepts related to memory and learning.

She has students in her own class “retrieve” (recall from memory) things they’ve learned in previous classes. Some tips she shared in this post from RetrievalPractice.org —

• Start early — as soon as the first day of class.

• Emphasize the importance of not using notes while retrieving. (Difficult learning lasts.)

• Do “brain dumps,” with students retrieving as much as they can about a topic in a set time (i.e. 2 minutes).

• Have students reflect on learning (i.e. write something that was challenging today).

6. A free guide on using mini white boards

I loved looking over Jamie Clark’s email newsletter issue about mini white boards — and his downloadable one-page guide.

Some takeaways:

• Plan some questions for mini white board practice ahead of time (but be ready to use spontaneous ones that come up, too).

• Teach and check. Teach and check. Instead of doing marathon lecture, do a little direct instruction — and then have students do some quick practice.

• When students show you their answers, have them raise their boards row by row — instead of all at once. It helps you process them quicker — and minimizes students changing their answers at the last minute!

7. A techy white board I really, really like

Snorkl (snorkl.app) takes the concept of the white board and adds layers that really give learning a new dimension.

• Students draw on the digital white board with a touch screen (or mouse/touch pad).

• Students can start with a blank page — or a template provided by their teacher.

• Snorkl records as they draw — and uses the microphone to record their voice as they explain what they’re doing.

• Afterward, Snorkl takes the drawing and the transcript of the audio and uses AI to provide instant feedback.

• After receiving feedback, the student can attempt again.

Want to learn more? We wrote a post — 10 ways to provide instant feedback to students.

Want premium Snorkl for free? Use my link here to get unlimited premium access through January 2026. That’ll let you use Snorkl with no limitations through the entire fall semester.

More white board ideas

I wrote a 💡 Big Idea section in a newsletter last year called “The joy of dry erase boards.” In it I wrote about:

• Why I love using them

• How I use them to teach

• The fun “rotating stories” activity we did with white boards

• What we add to stories for fun and community

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!