Talking It Through

There is a Chinese proverb that is often mentioned in education that goes along the lines of "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."  My quest to find a good inking and screen casting combination has really been about trying to get students to be involved in the process of doing math and demonstrating to others that they have a deeper understanding then what I can see by looking at a test or a homework assignment.

Our first foray into having students put together a podcast demonstrating their understanding of equation solving was interesting for a number of reasons:

First of all, it took longer than I expected (although this has been somewhat of a constant this year) as students not only needed to think about the math, but they also needed to learn how to use a new piece of software as well as get familiar with their Bamboo pads.  

Secondly, while students worked, they had the challenge of needing to talk about the equation solving process while they worked out their particular problem.  Afterwards, many students commented that this was the hardest part as it forced them to really know what they were doing.

Thirdly, students did many more takes than I thought they would.  Naturally, some of this was due to the awkwardness of sitting in a hallway seemingly talking about math concepts such as the "property of equality", "coefficients", and the "distributive property" to one's self.  However, there were a number of students who really wanted to get it "just right", and I was proud of them for that.

Finally, after it was all done, I asked kids what they thought of the process.  While some of them talked about the challenges of new software etc., many students immediately looked to suggest ways that we could incorporate this type of learning into our class more often.  One student even commented that he felt that he really understood the material better because he had to know "why" he was doing certain math steps as opposed to just going through the motions on a piece of paper. 

If you are interested in seeing a couple of examples, feel free to check out the videos below