Professors at research universities prefer teaching with old-fashioned whiteboards

[eppur_se_muova]

9. "Old-fashioned" whiteboards ? Whiteboards SUCK. Blackboards are far more practical.

Whiteboards proliferated because school supply companies pushed the idea that chalk dust would damage computer hard drives (it doesn't). School purchasing agents fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and are now locked into the very expensive whiteboard supply chain. Try to compare the cost of keeping markers stocked vs the comparable cost of chalk -- the profit margin on chalk is nil, and chalk provides MUCH more writing for the same cost (without breathing VOCs, either). Whiteboards consume far more erasers as well, and can only be properly cleaned with a special solution, whose ingredients are pretty damned toxic. I hate the smell of that crap, but you can't NOT use it if you're stuck with a whiteboard. And you're constantly having to order more. So by "more practical" I mean "cheaper", "safer", and "greener" as well.

Whiteboards were invented so corporate suits wouldn't get chalk dust on their pricey manicures. They are ludicrously impractical for presentations to an audience larger than a small boardroom. I taught in a large lecture hall which had been stupidly switched to whiteboards and was instructed not to use the board AT ALL -- students beyond the first few rows couldn't read any writing made with markers. So I had to use an overhead projector exclusively -- restricting me to a very tiny area, while hundreds of square feet of whiteboard sat unused. At one Univ. where I taught, the Math Dept. had made sure that when they moved into a new building, all their classrooms had blackboards, even though whiteboards were the default for everyone else. It was a very good decision on their part. As far as I can tell the ONLY advantage of whiteboards is that colored markers work better than colored chalk, and that's not useful an advantage. Stick to the chalk colors that work well with the color of "black" board you have (they may be green or brown) and that advantage is insignificant.

Not every new technology is an improvement over the older technology it replaces. It may be MUCH worse, on multiple counts. But -- OOH, pretty, shiny!



ETA: Hardly surprised to read the comments in the OP coming from chemists. Teaching chemistry involves a lot of *manipulating* writing -- not just slapping it on the board to be read in strict sequence. Also, chemical structures are depicted in something that is a hybrid of writing and drawing. You need special apps for that, and the interface is much more tedious/awkward than freehand writing/drawing. Trying to present the same information through a GUI slows things down horribly. In chemistry, like math, the pencil/chalk becomes a tool for trial-and-error "experimentation", with lots of erasures and modifications (including using your fingers/hand as an eraser occasionally -- not a good idea on a whiteboard!). Students learn how to do this by watching their instructor do it -- they don't see just the finished equation or structure, they see how it was created. If they don't learn how to do that, they can't use those skills to solve problems with pencil and paper, and even on multiple-choice, online exams, you need to do some of that on scratch paper to get the correct answers. One shouldn't necessarily defend "tried and true" ways simply because they are well-worn and comfortable, but where they genuinely perform as well (if not better) than newer alternatives, one should not have to justify rejection of the new as if it were some kind of aberration. Sometimes the new is just new marketing of a bad old idea.