May 18, 2016
For many schools, the end of the school year means that the pace of homework and assignments begins to wind down. Not so at City Academy. One thing I love about our rigorous program is that we go full throttle until the end. Many times this means contending with bumps and conflicts with the schedule which turn into opportunities for thinking outside the proverbial box.
Although fifth grade students have spent the past two weeks out of the math classroom visiting secondary schools, such as John Burroughs and MICDS, their math assignments continue. So how exactly do fifth graders receive instruction outside of the classroom? Well, we just tap into 21st century learning! My solution was to create video tutorials. I used this option sporadically throughout the year, but wondered how students would fare completing entire assignments outside of the classroom. Initially, I came up with a number of obstacles and cons of teaching this way, but then said, “Self, aren’t there obstacles and cons of every teaching method?” So I pressed on.
In our classroom, we use the online tool Edmodo which requires the students and me to have login passwords and group connections. During the past two weeks, I have posted daily notices – similar to what one does on Facebook – and attached video tutorials. In the videos, I’ve included a number of possible components including introduction, instruction, guided practice, and independent work. Of the four, the first three could be done via video. Although independent work was completed by the students, I wanted to check the students’ understanding so I ensured proper attention to the homework before proceeding to the next topic.
To my surprise conducting a video unit was easier and more successful than I thought! Surprise, surprise some students didn’t complete their work. Others said their electronic device malfunctioned in some way. But even in the regular classroom, we teachers hear non-tech equivalent reasons like, “My dog ate my homework” or “So-in-so borrowed my book and…”
Of course there are other drawbacks to teaching this way. To be honest, I did miss the human interaction. I love my kids and enjoy the back and forth discussions during instruction. Plus, I know that my videos can be, ahem, dry. This may be dating myself, but at times when I watch my videos, I feel like the teacher in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
I also missed that my students couldn’t ask me questions directly. With the videos, students emailed me with questions or posted them on Edmodo. But it’s just not the same. However, all of our students have iPads and internet access at school along with ample time to complete their assignments so I knew this was one solution to our scheduling conflict.
These past two weeks have reminded me that those rare times when students still need to receive instruction but are out of the classroom, video tutorials are the way to go!
Written by Stephanie Oteng, Upper Grade Math Teacher