Drawing on the Board

Abstract

Students and teachers alike tend to think of drawing on the board as an old-fashioned teaching technology, and to prefer electronically mediated pedagogies even in the face-to-face classroom. In this article, I celebrate the chalkboard and whiteboard as potential sites of collaborative and open-ended teaching and learning. Arguing that technological choices are always also political choices, I suggest that the problematizing, slow-paced, and inconclusive teaching style encouraged by board-work is a style worth fighting for – especially in the Religious Studies classroom.