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.