Using Video to Convey Information

Evaluating a Video

Teaching math can get very dry.  Students can be easily driven to boredom with skill and drill style practice but they can also get very bored with activities.  It seems like anything that is done consistently can result in a response of "I'm tired of _______!"  The use of the occasional video will shake things up and help refocus students, especially visual learners.  

I am reviewing a video that I have used in my classroom.  The video can be found here: Scientific Notation.  The video offers an introductory overview of Scientific Notation.  This concept falls within our unit on exponents and operations with exponents in 8th grade math.  This video is available through PBIS media and available on YouTube.  My school does not block YouTube but it does flag videos as either appropriate or not appropriate.  When using this video, it is best to use it as a way to begin the unit on scientific notation.  Students will need to be taught the operational rules of exponents prior to this as well as have an understanding of decimal numbers.  The majority of 8th grade math students are comfortable with using decimal numbers and can perform operations with them.  We also teach operations with exponents before tackling the topic of scientific notation.  

As I said before, I used this video as an introduction to the topic of scientific notation.  I picked this video because the video was long enough to cover the concepts without getting too long and bogging students down with unnecessary information.  The length being very important because it holds their attention pretty well with animation and covering useful information.  If it was any longer, I might have seen some students begin to lose focus.  It seemed to discuss the concepts in such a way that the students could grasp and it even answered the question of "Why does the decimal number need to be less than 10?" that I get so often from students.  The video does quickly touch on the concept of multiplication near the end which is a much more complicated concept.  I think the video could be just fine without that piece added in.  The video comes with supplemental activities that can be found at the bottom of the page.  I paired students up and gave them a white board and markers.  They were tasked with shortening a text message without changing the meaning of the message.  Then, I had the students do the same with the numbers provided.  The students then watched the video.  After watching the video, I allowed them to attempt rewriting the example numbers into scientific notation.  I was happy to see several groups doing so successfully.  It made for a much smoother transition into the new unit.  I feel that the video was a good addition to this lesson but I honestly feel the activity of shortening a text message to be the most meaningful.  We constantly returned to that in our discussions.  The students seemed to gain some introductory knowledge about the subject via the video but the video was not entirely necessary and I could see someone utilizing the attached activity without the video if they chose to do so but the video does help break up where students are focusing their attention.  Since the video can be found on PBIS media, it is free to download, stream, and share and comes from a credible source.  It was also in a format that was easy to use and I could post it to my webpage if necessary.   

All in all, this video and the attached supplemental activity was very useful.  My students enjoyed the activities and, as always, enjoyed the chance to watch a video in class.  I was happy to oblige as this video is informative, timely, and interesting.

Video Creation

I have toyed with the idea of using a screencast to capture the lesson along with the discussion to post to my website.  I currently use CutePDF to convert any file we use electronically to a PDF and upload to my class webpage for the benefit of the students when they are absent.  A screencast would take it to the next level and allow them to hear what we had to say about the learning as well.  The only issue is that it requires the students to have both the technology at their disposal at home as well as the initiative to watch the videos at home.  With middle schoolers, that initiative is not always there.  Moving to a 1:1 school with every student having a chrome book at school could make using a screencasted video more of a reasonable possibly for in class activities.  Students could watch the video and complete an activity such as practice problems or a task that utilizes the skill displayed in the video.  This frees up the teacher to be more mobile around the room helping students who need the extra support.  Another option is allowing the students to be the creators of the video.  Using animation tools, students could create their own video to be used as a tool to teach others about a mathematical concept.  When I taught honors Geometry at the high school level, I gave the students a project that spanned the duration of the whole class that required them to write a song about a geometrical concept and then create a music video.  Most students opted to shoot a video rather than animate but the results were still fantastic.  My favorite being a group who acted out scenes from the classroom with one of the students playing the role of me complete with fake facial hair.  A learning target written for these tasks would obviously fall under the creativity section:

-Design and produce an animation to effectively describe _____________ (insert specific concept here)

-Write a song that could be used to teach a geometric concept, produce a music video to go along with the song, and perform the song in the music video.

Students went into the music video activity with the knowledge that their video would not be displayed for the class unless they wanted it to be shown.

I like the idea of giving students a "blank slate" and allowing them to create a video to explain a concept in their own words.  It forces them to be a "teacher" while stimulating their creativity.  When a student is allowed the opportunity to be creative in their explanations or told to put it in their own words, they develop ownership of the learning.  It gets embedded deeper and they develop understanding rather than learning.  Students learn better when they are allotted time to discuss their learning with one another but giving them the chance to create something like a video checks off multiple developmental boxes.

Here is the video I created.

When I made my own video, I elected to make a screencast.  I did a quick demonstration of applications on Pythagorean Theorem.  In my video, I tried to keep in mind the same design elements discussed from week 1.  I mainly focused on displaying relevant information without any extraneous concepts plus keeping the words written on the screen to a minimum, electing to rely on the voice-over for the bulk of the discussion.  Students, of course, were shown the word problem and the math involved.  My main goal with this lesson was to explore the concept of utilizing the screencast software.  As I said above, I have thought about using it in a "flipped classroom" concept.  I kept my video as close to the 2-4 minute length as I could but I would probably utilize a slightly longer version for my classroom if needed.  It was a much easier process than I had imagined but the issue comes in with making sure you are prepped and ready for the video.  I found that I had to re-record the video 4 times as I continuously made errors while focusing on the recording portion while simultaneously focusing on the lesson.  I am sure that with practice, this could be something I could use routinely.