Teaching with Educational Video's

Since attending a math conference several years ago I have increasingly been using video's designed for kids to help them understand and remember math.

The conference I attended was the NW Math Conference when it was held in Portland OR. The district I was then working for funded this adventure and it was well worth the money. Eventually I would like to go back, but cost and district support makes it difficult. It also rotates locations yearly, and the last time I sought to go it was denied due to international travel; however, it was markedly cheaper than other conferences the district sent scores of people to that had previously been lacking in learning due to district policy.

For many new units I use Mr. QUE educational math rap videos to introduce a subject.  The students try to catch as many math words as possible while watching it twice.  I emphasis that there are usually a few key words that are most important. This is essential as many kids would try to write down words that were irrelevant to the new topic, but that the recognized as math words.  After watching the video's we graffiti a word web of the most important words. I usually let them "pass the pen" and make it a race against the clock to log as many words as possible.  Most importantly students want to watch these videos and are caught singing them leaving class. I relate this to the 50 state song listing them in alphabetical order. If students can sing math to memorize math vocabulary that is a great start for teaching them eventually understanding.

Mr.QUE can be found here: http://www.musicnotesonline.com/ 

The next set of video's I have been using I might present at the end or middle of a unit so students can hear it differently or perhaps again, but not from my voice. These video's are stupid funny, but the students like them.  Here I usually just let them watch as they usually keep them pretty glued in.  Sometimes I will ask them to write a sentence summary or list 1 key point.  There video library has really expanded within the last year.  It covers basic math through advanced high school levels in cartoon format.

Here is a link to the videos:http://www.shmoop.com/video/math-videos/


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