A Fun Way to Increase Math Test Scores

Why You Should Have Students Teach Math

Let me start by saying improving math test scores is a by product of great teaching practices and not the goal.  In the typical math classroom, the teacher starts by teaching a math standard.  Then the students practice that standard.  Finally the student is assessed to see if they understand the standard.  The learning should not end there.  Students should then have to teach that math skill to others.  There is a plethora of research that shows we learn deeper by teaching others.  Here are a few reasons why you should have your students teach math standards.  

• Students have to really understand a concept to teach it to others.  They must recall information they have learned, choose the best way to organize it and redeliver it for others learning.
• Teachers can quickly observe any misconceptions that students have by watching how they teach a concept and then reteach to clear up those misconceptions.  
• In designing a way to teach a concept, students are working on becoming more creative.
• Students can make up characters to star in their math video lessons and do silly things like wear wigs or talk with accents and this can make creating videos fun.  

How You Can Have Students Create Video Tutorials

In my math class, I flip the instruction.  Read that post here: Flipping the Classroom. I create video tutorials of the math standards that I'm teaching.  The videos are created on Edpuzzle because that allows me to add questions to monitor their understanding as they are learning.  Students become very familiar with these math tutorials, so I teach them to create their own math video tutorials.  The students use Google Slides or PowerPoint to make their presentations.  They then use Screencastify from the Chrome Web Store to record their screen while they teach the standard.  The video tutorial is automatically saved to their Google Drive and they share that video with me.  You can even show the videos in class or share the videos with the student's classmates if they want you to.  It's an even more valuable and deeper educational experience for students to watch and evaluate their classmates videos.  Mind you Screencastify is not the only screen recorder but it is the only one available in the Google tools for schools.  Some students choose not to use a screen recorder and instead stand in front of a board and teach like a traditional teacher would.  They typically have a classmate video tape them with an Ipad or a cell phone. 

Here is an example of the directions I provide for the students.  Creating a Math Tutorial
Below is an example of a student created video lesson.
   

My Favorite Tool for Flipping the Classroom (Edpuzzle)

Let me tell you about an educational website that I love, love, love. The website is
called Edpuzzle. Many of you might be familiar with the idea of “flipping the classroom”.  
This is where you create and assign video lessons for students to watch for homework and
then have students do what typically would be homework practice in the classroom.  
When I started flipping my classroom, I was creating videos and uploading them to YouTube.
I required my students to take notes while watching the video, so they could use the notes in
class if needed.  Edpuzzle takes “flipping the classroom” and video tutorials to a new level.
It’s a free website! You have different options on how to create and assign a video lesson.
It has YouTube, Khan Academy, LearnZillion and many other resources integrated, so you
can copy a video from one of those sites.  You can use the video you copy as is or you have
options on how you can edit it to fit your needs. For example, you can record your voice over
the video and you can also take a clip of the video if you don’t need the whole video.

Now let me tell you about the best part of Edpuzzle.  You can create quiz questions, or

give directions directly in the video.  This means you can assess students' understanding
of the video lesson as they watch the video.  The video automatically pauses and requires
the student to answer the question before it moves on.  You can make your questions open-ended or multiple choice and the program calculates and organizes the grades for you.  
Notice on the picture below I have pointed out the five questions I created on this video.
You can also see the options you have for editing, duplicating, or assigning the video.
I made this video but as I mentioned, you can use videos others have shared and edit them
to your liking. Now I just realized the very best part is that it is FREE for teachers.

I can see this tool not only being valuable in the classroom for a teacher but also it could be
used by an instructional technologist or a media specialist.  I can see a media specialist
creating video tutorials for teachers or for students. Recently, I was at a practice and ran
into my son’s high school Spanish teacher.  She just happens to flip her Spanish class.
I told her all about Edpuzzle and showed her how it works. Now my son gets video
homework from EdPuzzle and she told me that she loves it and is going to train her faculty
on how to use it.  She mentioned an idea that I thought was wonderful. She said the
integration of YouTube allows her to assign Spongebob videos in Spanish and she creates
questions to go with the videos. Below I provided a picture or what Edpuzzle looks like and
I did a search for a video on “dividing decimals".