Allow me to explain that statement below.
This post was inspired after I had the class create tutorials with the ShowMe app on the iPads and what I learned was a quite a surprise! Here is how it all started.For the past several weeks my class has been on a journey to understand fractions. It is has been a rocky road where according to the CCSS, expectations have been (along with other indicators) that my students will be able to:
Compare two fractions with the same numerator or the same denominator by reasoning about their size. Recognize that comparisons are valid only when the two fractions refer to the same whole. Record the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, or <, and justify the conclusions, e.g., by using a visual fraction model.
Now we are at the "end of the unit" and I will assess the class in the coming week with a paper and pencil test. Before we move on to a formal review of the concepts learned thus far, I thought why not have the class create tutorials so that we have them to use while studying. Next year's kids would greatly benefit!
Friday morning the scene was set for a collection of awesome tutorials that explained comparing fractions. I had eager students and enough iPads equipped with the ShowMe app for them all to create their tutorials. After showing the students a tutorial I made for teachers wanting to use the app (shown below), the students were off in different parts of the room writing scripts. Once finished, each child was encouraged to create a tutorial. Enthusiasm about fractions was at an all-time high as I walked around helping students who were "stuck."
Later on, I started to watch the videos to see how they did. Initially my reaction was a lot groaning and wincing as I watched student after student cheerfully explain the opposite of the concepts we had been discussing (I won't say teaching, because there clearly was not a whole lot of understanding). I started to beat myself up and think, "What have I been doing wrong!"
Instead of drowning in my fraction sorrows, I thought about the situation in a new light. Perhaps these tutorials were an opportunity, and not a failure. These tutorials did what paper and pencil tasks or class discussions did not always reveal... the actual thought processes of my students while they were working through the mathematical problem. After watching them, I created a spreadsheet of observations that will help me strengthen my instruction this week. I plan on sharing some of the most accurate ones and then ask the students to be self-reflective of their tutorials. Perhaps they will see the errors themselves... and perhaps I will have to be more direct. They will have another opportunity to develop a second tutorial after they recognize possible improvements.
This made me think about how we assess. Ninety-nine percent of the time, kids are asked to explain their mathematical thinking in "numbers, words, and pictures." When you look at that paper, what you see is what you get. The teacher still has to interpret what the child was thinking. The students still could write an explanation down but have absolutely no idea what the strategy works.
When creating the tutorials, my students' understanding was front and center. There is less room for interpretation if they themselves have to do the explaining. Think-aloud protocols are nothing new to the educational research community, but I think it is more foreign to the general teaching community. Recording our students thinking, I believe is a valuable tool (I did use this as a data collection method for my dissertation). Even better is asking our students to teach someone else. We all know to truly explain a topic to someone else, one has to understand it themselves.
Those who CAN, teach!
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