How can we make math lessons more fun and engaging? That’s a question math teachers ask themselves every day! One way is to let students use large, vertical surfaces in small groups to problem-solve together. Sedgwick Middle School Math teacher Alicia Almagro and Conard High School Math teacher Heather Russell each proposed to Build Thinking Classrooms with Vertical Non-Permanent Surfaces. This project was funded by two separate grants, the Crate and Barrel Grant and the Frank Webb Home Grant, and helped provide whiteboards that students used for thinking tasks in math classrooms at both Sedgwick and Conard. These whiteboards helped the students feel more comfortable problem solving in a way that promotes student thinking.
Ms. Almagro said the students not only enjoyed working on vertical surfaces, they also persevered in solving difficult problems as they were required to work collaboratively, review each other's work and offer constructive feedback. Ms. Almagro reported that other teachers borrowed the easels to try out the teaching strategy and were just as impressed as she was by the level of student engagement.
Ms. Russell said her students used the white board almost daily at Conard and the use aligns with a shift in the learning culture in math classrooms in which students are in charge of their own learning and do most of the thinking in the classroom, rather than mimic teacher notes and problem solving. | 
