Project Based Learning with my students have helped them comprehend and retain the material better with the use of an iPad app of Explain Everything. The students will make their own video and explanation of an example. This has caused the students take their time to understand how to explain the processes they are showing on their iPads.
Most of my students' responses have been positive in working on those examples. Another benefit of student created examples is the use of the math vocabulary in their explanations which would show how much do they understand the uses of those words.
The students are able to upload the videos into a common Drop Box account so the students are able to watch other student's examples. I feel the students are going to be more attentive when they are getting an explanation from their classmates since the students have a better connection with student talk.
To have an accountability of their work, the students are assigned a different example from a different section of the chapter so they will get a review of another concept that was different from the one they made. The video checkoff sheet will have questions of 1) did they answer the questions, 2) did they do the proper procedure, 3) what terms did they use, 4) could they have used more terminology in their explanation, and 5) did they explain their example with confidence.
I believe this has challenged the overachieving students to go beyond the doing the math and getting the answer right. The students will have to show that they can communicated effectively with their writing down the example and also talking through the process of doing the math.
I have challenged the students to do one example from each of the different types of example in a chapter as a review. The students had more confidence in understanding the material for going into the test and did better. A few of my students who did take the time to do this made a remark to me of how much better they did on their test since they had to slow down the process of understanding the material.
This is one of the benefits of student iPad uses in the classroom I have seen when I changed towards a project based learning focused classroom. I hope to find other ways for students to show their creative side and make a product that other students can see and learn something from each other.
