Effective use of Blackboard Bansho

Objectives
What is Bansho?
Purposes of
Bansho
How to design a
Bansho Plan?

What is Bansho?

What is Bansho?
A technical word developed by the Japanese
education community
Effective use of the blackboard
use or organisation of blackboard
Literal translation board writing
A critical teaching skill in Japan
When conducting student-centred
discovery-oriented lesson in mathematics

What does Research Say?

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Third
International Mathematics and Science Study, Videotape Classroom Study, 1994-95.

What does Research Say?

Japanese teachers rarely erase what they
write on the blackboard. Everything they
choose to record has a meaning and purpose,
as it has been carefully planned in advance
(Yoshida, 1999)

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Third
International Mathematics and Science Study, Videotape Classroom Study, 1994-95.

How Do Japanese Teachers Use the

Blackboard?
1. Keep a Record of the Lesson

Problem
Questions
Pupil voices, opinion, things noticed
Pupils solutions
Pupil discussions
Important mathematical ideas

2.
Help pupils Remember What They Need to Do
and Think

Problem

Directions

Tasks

Questions

How Do Japanese Teachers Use the

Blackboard?
3. Help pupils see the connections of different parts of
lesson and the progression of the lesson
Summary of the entire lesson
Coherent flow of the lesson (how we reached the
conclusion)
How pupil ideas were discussed and evolved in
order to reach the conclusion
4. A Place to Contrast and Discuss ideas pupils
presented
Recording various ideas
Discussing similarities and differences in
ideas
Discussing merits of certain methods
Discovering/developing new ideas and
questions

How Do Japanese Teachers Use the

Blackboard?
5. A Place to help organize pupil thinking and discover

new ideas
Manipulating (sorting, lining up, categorizing,
moving directions, etc.) objects on the board and
thinking about or discovering mathematical ideas.

6. Fostering pupils organized note-taking skills by

modeling good organization

Why?
To help organise pupils thoughts & thought
processes
To model good organisation & foster organised notetaking skills
To give structure to pupil discussion
To provide a place to record pupil discussion
To record the collective pupil ideas that evolve from
the discussions
To impart a mathematical idea through collective
pupil ideas
To provide a visual summary of the entire lesson
To enhance pupils learning experiences and
understanding
To help pupils see the progress of the lessonYoshida,

Other impacts
Pupils can learn how to organise their own
thinking and to take notes in an organised way
Handouts that are based on the blackboard
organisation plan further encourage good note
taking
A well organised lesson plan and blackboard plan
lead to a well constructed and focussed lesson,
which in turn helps pupil understanding

Blackboard from Actual

Lesson

A Blackboard Plan

Subtraction

The Blackboard
Plan

Multiplication

The Blackboard
Plan

Volume

The Blackboard
Plan

Parallel Lines

The Blackboard
Plan

Division with Fraction with

Fraction

The Blackboard
Plan

Permutation

The Blackboard
Plan

A Blackboard Plan
Problem
clues
previous
knowledge
methods to
solve

Students
Idea

Task

Summary

exercise

exercise

exercise

Students
Idea

What has
been
learnt?

Steps
(1) Showing the
problem

(2) Showing the

task

(5) Summarizing the

ideas
(6) Doing
the
exercises

(4) Arranging the

ideas

(3) Showing students

idea

(7) What has been

learnt?

Activity 3: Design a Bansho Plan for your

lesson planned in Activity 2

Present your group

Bansho Plan

References
Becker, J. P., & Shimada, S. (1997). The open-ended approach: A new
proposal for teaching mathematics. Reston, Virginia: National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Leong, C. K., Teoh, B. T. & Warabhorn, P. (2012). Introduction of the
Bansho Plan to Primary School Mathematics Teachers: A Case Study.
In A. L. White & U. H. Cheah (Eds.), Transforming School
Mathematics Education in the 21 st Century (pp. 33-44). Penang,
Malaysia: SEAMEO RECSAM.
Stevenson, H., & Stigler, J. (1992). The learning gap. New York: Summit.
Stigler, J., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap: Best ideas from the
world's teachers for improving education in the classroom. New
York: Free Press.
Stigler, J. W., Gonzales, P., Kawanaka, T., Knoll, S., & Serrano, A. (1999).
The TIMSS Videotape Classroom Study: methods and findings from
and exploratory research
project on eighth-grade mathematics
instuction in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Educational
Statistics Quarterly, 1(2), 109-112.
Yoshida, M. (1999). Lesson Study: A case Study of a Japanese Approach to
Improving Instruction Through School-Based Teacher Development.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Chicago.