Video Bellwork:
Bellwork can be an issue for many teachers. For some it is a classroom management strain. For others they have a habit of having the bellwork take too long (I have been caught in this trap before when working out questions on a bellwork).
Video bellwork does not solve those problems completely but it can help with each of them. What you do is create a short video and in the video you tell your students the bellwork problem, typically repeating the question twice so they can get it. Because you are doing this on video you can use real world examples and make the videos in different locations. I made a fun systems of equations problem by ordering food at Wendy’s (the cashier loved being in the spotlight). When the bell rings you can hit the play button or designate a student for that task, then have the students watch the video and do the work. Here are a few additional things you could do:
·
Continue the video and show a countdown clock
giving the students a specific time limit, then go over the bellwork on the
video also. Doing this would eliminate
the “long” bellwork and works well at the beginning of the year to get students
used to doing their work promptly.
·
Stand in the hallway during the video and
stop/talk to any tardy students. Don’t
let them complete the bellwork and thereby create a necessity to be on time.
·
Do this once or twice a week for a change of
pace activity.
·
Use a similar technique at the end of class for
your closing activity or in class as an example problem.
·
Have other people on the video asking your
students questions including people in various professions relating to your
subject area.
Videos when you are
absent:
Over the past three years, every time I am absent I create a
video for my students to watch while I am away.
My students are not particularly overjoyed when they find out they have
to still learn new stuff when I am gone but I don’t miss days of instruction
when I am absent.
To create the videos I set up a PowerPoint or Flipchart (for
a Promethean Board) that I can record. I
am a math teacher so I write on my presentations a lot. Because of this, when I record at school I
actually write on my Promethean Board and if I am at home I use a program
called Splashtop which allows me to connect my tablet to my computer and then
use my tablet as a writing surface. I
have used several programs to create these video but most recently I have been
using www.screencast-o-matic.com. This program allows you to save the video to
your computer, upload it to their website, or upload it to YouTube. I typically upload it to their website, put
the website in my sub plans, and ask a fellow teacher to set everything up in
the morning so the video is ready to play.
Short Video tutorials
(work great for computer lab time, iPad or laptop carts):
http://geoconstruction.weebly.com/ If you can find ways to split up a lesson into smaller parts you can create a video tutorial lesson. My example of this is a geometric constructions lesson. I had my student do different constructions and I would start each construction with a video demonstration, then my students would work on their own constructions after each video. I recorded each of these videos using a document camera and www.screencast-o-matic.com because I needed to physically do the construction example but many lessons could be created just using screen capture software. Once the videos were recorded I created a website and put links to each of the videos on the website so students could view them one at a time.
After everything was done, students in class each got an
iPad and used it to watch the videos then do their work. During this activity, students were very
engaged and they could work at their own pace.
Students who got it the first time could move on while students who didn’t
understand something could go back and watch parts of the video again. This was one of my favorite lessons of this
past year.
Preparation for
college, for when you are absent, or for a flip:
I think it is wonderful that students have the opportunity
to learn in so many ways and that we have resources that can show students what
their learning style is. When a student
is taught in a way that fits with their learning style new skills often come
easily. The concern I have with this is
if students always get taught in the way that works best for them, when they
get to college or get a job and suddenly are thrown in a situation where they
are forced to learn in a different style they could struggle greatly and
possibly fail completely. I like to use
different teaching styles, even boring, old school ones purposefully to help my
students realize they can learn in different ways. I have my students read textbooks, I teach a
lesson without talking, I teach a lesson without allowing questions, I give group
exercises where I refuse to answer questions, I make my students watch videos
(both mine and others from the internet) to learn topics.
Maybe difficulty with videos is a math specific problem but
when I ask my students to watch a video, by the end they have no idea what the
video was about or how to do similar problems even though they watched it
intently. I have to teach my students
the skill of learning by watching a video.
I start with short single example videos and work my way up to full
lessons on video. I often throw in
videos created by others so my students realize they can learn watching other
videos. Eventually my classes get to a
point where watching a video can be a successful learning exercise. Then I can use videos successfully if I am
absent, if I want to flip the class, or if I want my students to search for a
video about a specific topic at home. I
also help my students prepare for college where they can’t interrupt a lecture
every 10 seconds to ask a question (since they can’t interrupt the video with questions).
Become your own
teacher assistant:
I like to show videos while I am in class so I can walk
around and act like a teacher’s assistant, seeing if my students are following
along and answering questions when they need help. In these situations my students are getting
two teachers for the price of one. They
get me one the video and they get me walking around the class answering
questions.
Create a library of lessons (flip classroom, absent
students, review lessons):
This is one I have not yet done in full but would like to accomplish. You could create a library of all of your
lessons and use them in many different ways.
You could pull from this library for videos to assign for your flipped classroom. You could assign videos to students who were
absent so that they get to listen to the material even though they were absent,
You could suggest lesson for students to watch when they are reviewing for a
test or the final. You could put these
videos on DVDs for students to check out if they don’t have computer access at
home. I would like to get some portable
DVD players for my classroom and use a video library as a tool to help some
students during tutoring sessions. If I
had a full library of lessons I am sure I could find some more ideas as well.
That is it for this week.
I know this post was a bit long but I had a lot of material to cover and
when I started creating categories for
video uses I kept thinking of more things and my list expanded greatly from
what was originally in my mind.
Ryan Monson
