In a recent maths teaching and learning meeting, I led a session on using videos in maths lessons. We talked about how there are different types of videos out there and when it would be appropriate to use each type. Although they are great for independent learning, I’m personally not a fan of using “explanation” type videos in lessons but am happy that there may be times when these might be suitable. We also talked about using videos designed to help pupils remember mathematical formulae and decided that this may work well with some groups, but not so well with others.
We broke off into pairs to try and plan a lesson or an activity that made good use of videos. The colleague who I was working with said she was struggling to get one of her classes to understand converting between improper fractions and mixed numbers so we decided to create our own videos, demonstrating the link using chocolate cakes. We chose to make the videos silent as we felt it would be more powerful and engaging. It would also allow for the teacher to ask questions either over the video, or by pausing it at particular points.
The videos were used today and I was told that it worked particularly well so I thought I would share it.. I hope this inspires you to make your own!
We also took a couple of photos which could be used to ask further questions.
photo credit: Paul Mison cc
