As part of my classroom curriculum, I would require my students to create a digital story detailing a concept in mathematics. The stories would include details of methods which lead up to a new concept, and then the students would be required to introduce the new concept on the video.
Some concepts which would be appropriate for digital stories are:
- using the zero property
- graphing non-linear equations
- solving linear systems using substitution.
After the digital stories were complete, I would post the stories onto the class website for other students to view as a reference guide or resource for out-of-class tutoring.
Click the Link to view my story map.
Putting Everything Together
For an example video, I chose to use the quadratic formula as my mathematical concept. Since my students recently learned the quadratic formula, I thought it would be very appropiate. Plus, I was confident that the students would want to help me out because they love singing "the song." So I enlisted some students' help for the video. I explained what was going on and let them take charge under my supervision. Soon we had a working recording.
Without myself taking an extreme executive role in the recording process, there were a few minor glitches with the recording. However, after recording the video more than 5 times over a two day period, I could see the students getting frustrated. So the students and I settled on our best recording before the desktop of the computer was completely covered in videos. Then, I took the video home to do some minor editing and added in some credits.
After completing the digital story, there were some key mistakes that I made sure to accommodate for in my grading rubric. Some of these points included:
- Educating students on how to clearly speak into a microphone
- Requiring students to use a contrasting color of pen with their background so that the content is easily followed and visible to the viewer.
- Rehearsing lines if necessary so that silly mistakes aren't made during recording.
- Being very organized before starting the recording process.
Overall, the digital storytelling project was so much fun. Depending on the resources I have in the future, I would love to incorporate this into my curriculum. I think it would be a great opportunity for alternative peer tutoring.
Check Out the Final Product:
Click on the link to view the grading rubric which would assess future students' digital stories.
Grading Rubric
