Multimedia Lesson Plan, parabolas

check out the multimedia lesson plan

Digital Assessment

The following DIGITAL ASSESSMENT created in google forms is being used as a formative assessment to determine how well students understand the transformations of a quadratic function in graphing form.  This is meant as a review for students in my Pre-Calculus class and as the start of an investigation into the transformations in my Algebra 2 class. 
Students will be able to accurately sketch the graph of parabolas when quadratic equations are in graphing form.  Students will be able to accurately identify transformations from the parent graph.  Students will be able to determine a possible equation in graphing form of a parabola from a given graph.
The media presented in this lesson will allow students to revisit the base idea of the equation in the podcast, see how it is done on desmos using screencastify, and also be assessed on their understanding using google forms.

Article 3 Media II

This article describes the positive effect of instant feedback techniques on Computer Science students at the University of Nottingham.  Students from the previous school year did not receive the feedback, while the following year students did receive immediate feedback mechanisms.  These students made 35% fewer common mistakes on a subsequent exercise than the previous cohort.  ‘The Marker’s Apprentice’ (TMA) produced the feedback which was instantly generated for student submissions.  The TMA used in the study pointed out the lines of bad code in a particular program and offered a link to a short tutorial of the concepts missed.  The feedback was of high quality and purposely not specific to the exercise so there is some effort needed by the student to complete their code.  The author points out that students need high quality feedback which should be: timely, informative, reliable and consistent, clearly communicated, specific, and useful for teachers.  

Submissions made using TMA did not count towards student’s grades and were used as formative assessments.  There was a pre-submission of work and a post-submission of work which averaged to about a 24.6% improvement in student scores which averaged in the mid 80%’s.  Great results, but it does not show that a deep understanding has taken place of the material.  Students who engaged in the feedback had work that led to improved performance compared to students given feedback on drafts.  The author also points out that automated assessment is not a replacement for staff-student interaction, or just a way to save time.

I think this article verifies a couple of key points about providing assessment.  First it points out how beneficial it is to students to receive immediate feedback and resources while the material is fresh in thought.  When feedback is not timely students will often forget where they may have been in their thought process and it does not entitle them to closure in their understanding of a particular concept.  Using digital tools for formative assessments can greatly benefit students to receive this immediate feedback and aide in their understanding.

The second point I wanted to make was that the feedback needed to be meaningful.  It doesn’t do a student any good if their feedback does not make any sense or provide a resource to aid in understanding.  The feedback should be informative, reliable and consistent, clearly communicated, and specific.  Students should not be trying to play a guessing game when trying to figure out where they may have gone wrong on a particular problem.  It should be clear cut and provide useful, productive explanation.  I think the use of a digital tool like google forms helps make this much easier for teachers when providing formative assessment feedback.  

Nutbrown, S., Higgins, C., & Beesley, S. (2016). Measuring the impact of high quality instant

feedback on learning. Practitioner Research in Higher Education, 10(1), 130-139.

Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1129863.pdf

Article 2 Media II

This article describes research on student (collegiate level) produced screencasts to explain concepts in year 4 to 9 level of mathematics and their impact on the students own teaching and learning.  The screencasts are meant to stay away from the procedural like Khan Academy and be used as a tool for reflective learning.  A student pointed out that it would be a great advantage to send their professor or tutor a podcast of where they were getting stuck so the professor could help them from where they were stuck.  

Students didn’t all have the readily available resources to do this and were not all willing to expose their incomplete knowledge so the researchers provided the material to the students.  Participants were asked to use the borrowed digital device to create a screencast about a troublesome mathematical concept, discuss the development of the concept, and include video of them actually solving the problem.  Students commented how screencasts were not very personal and you miss the interaction of the class with things like facial expressions which also communicate information.  When the students first created their screencasts they noticed their misuse of terminology when explaining their work.  Through their reflections on the screencasts, students pointed out how much more comfortable they were when the recorder started with admitting that they struggled through the concept at first.  It helped them not feel inadequate.  When making the screencasts, they point out how it was very different when they had to speak the math out loud instead of just reading it.  Students who did not participate in the screencast noted that they were afraid not of the math writing part but the talking part.  The researcher is hoping to redo this study in the future and provide more instruction and a rubric to the students to help them with their work.

I found it great to see some very introductory research on the use of screencasts.  It was good to hear a lot of the student’s reactions to creating the screencasts in the research.  This made me realize that having students create their own screencasts or videos of mathematical concepts can help greatly in their understanding.  Many students can Nike ‘just do it’ the math but have a very difficult time verbalising what they are doing.  Here is where the students gain the most recognition and understanding of concepts they thought they understood well enough.  

This research has encouraged me to move forward with having students create a screencast of some sort to explain concepts they have learned from a particular unit.  I can split the class evenly amongst the units and have them do one screencast for one topic in the semester to start.  Once these are created, I hope to create a student-created database of ‘how to’ screencasts so they can hear them from the words of their classmates.  I think this can be very powerful, we shall see.

Galligan, L., & Hobohm, C. (2013). Students using digital technologies to produce screencasts

that support learning in mathematics. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the

Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA), Retrieved from

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED572864.pdf

Screencast

The following screencast is used to demonstrate the transformations of a quadratic function in graphing form.  This is meant as a review for students in my Pre-Calculus class and as the start of an investigation into the transformations in my Algebra 2 class. 
Students will be able to accurately sketch the graph of parabolas when quadratic equations are in graphing form.  Students will be able to accurately identify transformations from the parent graph.  Students will be able to determine a possible equation in graphing form of a parabola from a given graph.
The media presented in this lesson will allow students to revisit the base idea of the equation in the podcast, see how it is done on desmos using screencastify, and also be assessed on their understanding using google forms.

Podcast

The following podcast is used to describe the general equation of a quadratic function.  This is meant as a review for students in my Pre-Calculus class and as the start of an investigation into the transformations in my Algebra 2 class.
Students will be able to accurately sketch the graph of parabolas when quadratic equations are in graphing form.  Students will be able to accurately identify transformations from the parent graph.  Students will be able to determine a possible equation in graphing form of a parabola from a given graph.
The media presented in this lesson will allow students to revisit the base idea of the equation in the podcast, see how it is done using desmos using screencastify, and also be assessed on their understanding using google forms.

Article 1 Media II

This article describes the use of three forms of podcasts in a distance learning setting.  Podcasts created by the instructor that are recorded lectures and also used for specific functions, and podcasts created by an external source.  Some of the positives about the recorded lectures that the students liked were the fact that they could revisit the content easily and as many times as they wanted to make sure they understood it.  Many also liked it as a quick review before taking the exam.  About 75% of the students in the study utilized the podcast in the lecture format.  

Using short podcasts as a lead-in to a lecture to prepare students for lessons can also be beneficial.  Instructors can provide these short podcasts for additional explanations, student feedback, exam prep, interviews with experts, and just to make students active while learning.  The final use is for external podcasts that are readily available and provided by outside sources on TED talks or youtube.  

Results of the study noted the problem of students feeling connectedness and thus motivation to learn when in an independent setting such as distant learning.  They don’t have the sense of belonging to a group.  Participants noted that podcasts should introduce no new content, only same content in another way.  They also noted that they should get to the point.  Instructors pointed out that creating these podcasts tailored to the needs of students is very time-consuming and usually easier if their lecture is recorded instead.    

I think that these podcasts have a strong possibility of being a valuable resource for

students who are absent from class due to a variety of reasons that are usually completely out of their control.  It can help provide a guideline for the student and help provide them questions to discuss when they return to class so they do not get too far behind.  I don’t think these should be used as a replacement of teaching course material, especially at the secondary level, but primarily as a supplement for struggling students.  There are many times students can get distracted and miss material so it is nice for them to have this resource available to them for extra help.

I am also interested to see how students would react to student-created podcasts on particular mathematical topics.  I have tried some things like this before and students mentioned how they preferred to see other students in a video instead of a boring old guy talking about math.  Students can be much more engaging and creative when given the opportunity.  The article mentioned how there has not been much research done on student-created podcasts yet which is why he didn’t include it in his research.  I am curious to see what students would think of learning more from each other than an expert.

Koppelman, H. (2013, July). Using podcasts in distance education. Paper presented at the

International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS)

International Conference on e-Learning, Prague, Czech Republic. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED562304.pdf