Using the Blackboard
A comment from Maureen Bell at HERDSA led to an impromptu list of things teachers once learned:
- Divide the board into sections
- Hold the chalk at the horizontal
- Use the same colours for headings and subheadings each time
- Underline with a squiggly line rather than a straight line (because nobody can draw a straight line)
- Keep a section for first appearance of terms, vocab
- Throw the blackboard duster at a student
- Rub off section by section so slow scribblers can catch up on copying what you wrote 10 minutes ago
- Have blackboard monitors or helpers, beacause kids love erasing and clapping out dusters
- Colour in a new blackboard with side of a piece of chalk, then erase normally to ³prime² it for use
- Fun fact: chalk is not actually made from chalk rock (calcium carbonate), but from calcium sulfate in its dihydrate form, gypsum.
From an e-mail Mike Dickison http://www.giantflightlessbirds.com/