My husband has gained national attention by drawing on Starbucks coffee cups. Although drawing on a curved surface is tricky, he finds the smooth white surface “just aching to be decorated.”
I know what he means. In college, I regularly used a large whiteboard to study in the basement of my sorority house. I remember calling one of my friends down, so that I could use the whiteboard to “teach” her about the cases from my undergraduate Con Law class. Many study rooms today still have whiteboards, and there are over 10,000 results for “dry erase whiteboard” on Amazon. Thus, all kinds of students are still working the whiteboard.
Some law students (in fact, I had one in my office this morning) swear that using a whiteboard is the key to their success. For law students new to the whiteboard, here are some ideas on how you might use it:
to diagram the big picture for an entire course
to diagram a specific topic within a course
to give mock lectures on a particular topic (audience not required)
to write answers to hypotheticals
to formulate rule statements
to answer flashcards
to create a list of questions to answer without the assistance of notes
to plan a practice exam answer
Hence, a whiteboard can help you to memorize rules and practice applying them. You can also use the whiteboard to jot down ideas if your mind wanders (freeing up your brain for the task at hand) or to post inspirational words or quotes. And if you have an “aha” moment on the whiteboard, you can use your phone camera to save it. That would have come in handy in college (had it been invented). Why not give it a try?