First Math Video
Last week the first video for HS geometry went better than I expected. I’m quite happy that the student who was sent to do the video was more adept at using the iPad than I was and had great ideas which I will be stealing for next week. Their math teacher’s aim is to have about three videos done per week, one for each of the different levels of math she teaches.
First off, here is a bit of what I did for my fifth grader’s last year:
It was helpful for students who transitioned from the Vietnamese side of our school into my ‘international’ class. The biggest change was that I wanted and insisted that they show their work and put down every bit of thinking on paper. Long Division was one of their hurdles since the ‘Vietnamese’ way that they were taught, and had used up through fourth grade involved doing as much mental math as possible and writing down work on paper was a sign of weakness. The other was just for homework help, mostly as a way to teach parents to solve problems the way we were doing them in class and not using algebra to help their kids.
My videos were a one way push of information, helpful, but just another re-hashing of what I taught in class. Not a bad thing, but they didn’t add much to the learning process.
Here is what was produced last week:
We started off with blurry pictures of the book and the student had the idea of writing out the problem on the whiteboard tables that I’m lucky enough to have. Most of the process was introduced and perfected by the student, I became simply a system of moral support. What she added to the Apps initial appeal as a record able whiteboard were:
– Photos
– Import photos from camera roll
– Screenshots
– Use the screenshot to move onto the next step/slide.
The gap between HS math teacher and a former 5th grader teacher(me) was that I thought it was important to review the algebra part, apparently it wasn’t. I still disagree, but us teachers need to get together and focus on where her students need the review, both the student-teachers and students who need the videos as review.
ShowMe has a pause option, but not a rewind/re-do one. One of the perks was being able to share the video file url without involving youtube (blocked in Pakistan) or Vimeo (limited space per week until I upgrade to a pay account). We lost that perk as we left the video recording as we discussed how to do the next slide and worked out a few algebra problems before hand so that it would make for a smooth video. ShowMe let me download the video, edit it in kdenlive and then host it on Vimeo.
The student had gone through the problem in class and had presented it to her class and again to her math teacher. After she produced the video she ran back to math class and said “now that I’ve really taught it, I think i actually understand the problem and understand why we are learning this.”
My role was the ESL/ICT teacher with the iPad, and now I’ve got a high school crowd of kids who can’t wait to master their work and make their own videos. Of course enthusiasm for the newness is part of it, and that may wane. Time for everyone is limited so we are doing going for three a week, but this will be a nice year long experiment to see how it helps in HS math classes.
We all know that teaching is a great way to cement learning, flipped class rooms are interesting, i haven’t tried it enough to write about it, but this falls somewhere between.
This is a good COETAIL blog, check out the sub-section Learning in the Modern Classroom. Am I just doing something flashy and fun, or am I actually enhancing student learning. I can call on my one anecdotal piece of evidence that the student felt she had gained a better understanding of the subject. I have a lot more work to do to see the positive effects, or to just have fun making videos. How do we assess this? I’m not their math teacher so I don’t get to see them in class every other day, and tests still rule the roost, so I’ll just keep stacking up the anecdotes and student comments as new ones work with me each week.
I was also reading this blog – “Lesson #1 – Plagiarism” I took out the idea of identifying what plagiarism is and thought about replacing the teacher with one of the students. Can we plagiarize (borrow) their understanding of a topic and let them teach it. It takes away the task of introducing material at a students level, trying to remember what it was like when something was new and trying to meet them where they are. Can we just ‘plagiarize’ them into being the teachers? The cited source – the student has full credit on their classes moodle and if they have signed the photo release, we will be adding a quick intro to the video with their picture and in-video credit.
I love when students take over the teaching, usually as review, but I want to do moreLearning through Teaching.
How must of our teaching load can we pass off to our students and how much will that help them learn? I think that is part of the reason I’m here in COETAIL.
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