kitchen table math, the sequel: Audacious Idea #1: Illustrate Every Math Standard

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Audacious Idea #1: Illustrate Every Math Standard

Megan Golding is a 10th grade math teacher in Georgia. She has come up with an audacious idea:

I have a simple, if huge, goal: I want to publish a podcast for every single [Georgia Performance Standard] standard and element.


Sure, I’ve seen Khan Academy. It’s great! My addition is real state standards correlation (most of what I’ve seen that’s supposedly correlated to Georgia’s math standards is of shallow, if at all, relevance).

I’ve found that in math, my students want me to repeat the same explanation several times until that light bulb comes on. The podcast allows me to put an explanation in a kid’s hands and let him rewind & replay as much as he needs. Build in a little practice, and you have a nice little remediation tool.


Go look at her first post & do leave comments there.

Wouldn't it be great if every state had a video library like that?

[Cross published at Academic Remediation]

5 comments:

orangemath said...

This is a variation on Lesson Study, which is the most valuable and easy activity that we could develop in helping students attain standards. Why we don't is a complete mystery to me.

lgm said...

>>>my students want me to repeat the same explanation several times until that light bulb comes on


OK...so what's the real problem? Students have no text to refer to? Don't know how to take notes? Explanation too complex? Missing material? Facts in isolation? Don't know how to study? Need more scaffolding??? This is a time consuming way to learn.

Somebody in NY has a similar idea:
http://www.regentsprep.org/...we found that replaying the explanation wasn't enough in some cases because material was missing , just like in class.

Anonymous said...

If the explanation given is built on material for which the student has poor understanding, it won't help. You need to go back to the last place that they understood everything correctly--and then you must assiduously teach it correctly without introducing any errors or confusions. The textbooks can't do that since they have errors, confusions, misdirections, and lack of explanations. Teachers can't do that if they don't know what's wrong with their books or their explanation. Students can't help them because most students don't know what they don't know.

Small videos and podcasts help when they are the right material in the right sequence. How can a student or teacher assess to know if the presentation is correct? Who will grade the graders, so to speak?

Anonymous said...

I'm the creator of this project.

> OK...so what's the real problem?
> Students have no text to refer to?

Not a useful one, anyhow. We're in Georgia, which switched to an integrated curriculum several years back. I teach Math 1, which is some algebra, some geometry, and some statistics. The text is poorly aligned and does not cover the depth my kids need to be successful.

> Don't know how to take notes?

Sometimes. My classes are nearly 50% English Learners who have been in the US under a year. They need additional time to process what I'm saying.

The other half are the Achievement Gap. They've been under-served, under-challenged, and most importantly, under-educated.

> Don't know how to study?

Definitely yes for the Achievement Gappers.

> This is a time consuming way to learn.

Agreed. Keep in mind, this is not a learning tool -- it's a remediation tool.

You bring up great questions for me to reflect on. In particular, I am chewing on "don't know how to study?" Does my video series help or hurt my teaching kids how to study independently? Definitely one to consider.

Anonymous said...

> Small videos and podcasts help when they are the right material in the right sequence.

So true. This means my video series probably needs a sequencing chart. Maybe that could look like a "lesson plan" of sorts.

> How can a student or teacher assess to know if the presentation is correct?

How do you mean this?
My take: how will the learner know *this* video covers the exact material where his understanding is breaking down?

In my classroom, all our assessments are standards-based (as are the videos). When a student fails to master something, he knows the standard. Hit the video library for that standard, and, bingo! it's the right content.