Mind the Gap: Student Paced Video Lessons

I teach 7th grade math at a junior high. At this school, we have two options for the "sevvies" as they join us from their cutesy elementary worlds: 7th Regular Math, 7th Pre AP math. Your higher-achieving students (or those with high achieving parents) opt for Pre AP and everyone else is slotted into regular. I don't mean this to say that those students in my regular classes aren't high-acheiving, quite the opposite for some. In a gentle way, some students who are in my class should be in Pre AP, but they may not have someone at home encouraging them to try for more or to challenge themselves, so they take regular math and it's a breeze for them.

I have other students who are, let's say, less than motivated; and who have been less-than-motivated for quite a while and are now drowning in the wide gaps in their math knowledge. Also throw in the mix students who work really hard and want to be successful, but just struggle with numbers. Next, add in a dash of  students who are new to the country and are just trying to keep their head above water as they are learning a new culture, language, education system and more. 

With all of that, I have a class with a wide range of ability, motivation, and knowledge and, as the Brits say, I need to mind the gap (I'm pretty sure that's meant in a very different context, but it sounds great in a British accent in my head, so I'm going with it). 

There is a wide gap between my high-achieving and my low achieving students. Between my native speakers and my language learners, between my motivated and my "ehs." I have one class in particular that is all over the place and I have been struggling with how to get a lesson to them...to ALL of them. 

So, I tried something that worked...pretty well. I used two pieces of tech for this to work: an app called ShowMe and QR codes.

If I am going to be out for a personal day or training, to make sure my kids get the lesson, and to make it easy on the sub, I will record the lesson using the Show Me app. I am cheap, so I use the free version of the app which is very limited in what it can do, but it gets the job done. Usually, I will take screen shots or pictures of the worksheet I am doing and will insert it in as a photo so I can model and write on it. Feel free to play around with it and I will work on a post with the ins and outs of Show Me because it has one feature I love. What I love about Show Me is that, when you make a video, you can host it through Show Me. That means, when you create a video, you get a link to that video you can send to others or, as I'll show in this post, attach to a QR code. Why is this great? With other programs, you will have to upload and host your video to another site, like YouTube. That's fine and dandy if you want your voice all out there on the internet, but not me, no way. And also, our school blocks YouTube which means the kids, the people who need the video the most, can't get to it. So, yeah, that won't work. 

First things first: Make your video. This day's lesson was learning to find the surface area of pyramids from nets. We had already learned how to find the surface area of prisms so it was kind of a review, or at the very least, most students could figure it out without a lot of extra instruction. So, I had 5 questions I wanted them to know how to solve, so I made 5 videos, one for each problem that showed me working them out and the steps to solve. Each video was 1:30 to 2 minutes long. After I made the videos, I emailed the link to myself and created a QR code for each link (if you don't know how to make a QR code, read here).

Choose your video from your dashboard on Show Me.
Click the arrow-box thing to share your Show Me video.
I usually email it so I have the link for QR codes or putting on class website.  

I then made a text QR code that when scanned would show the correct answer to the problem. 

Finally, I put it all together using Powerpoint (I wasn't making a presentation, I just find things are easier to manipulate on Powerpoint instead of Word). I included the text of the question, an image (if needed) and the two QR Codes, one for the answer, one for the video. 

I made one card for each question, each a half page and printed them out on color paper (because that's more fun...but certainly not necessary). I printed enough for students to work in partners. After introducing what we were going to do, I gave each pair a set of the 5 cards and an iPad (we only have enough iPads for pairs, at best). Students worked out the problem on their own worksheet instead of writing on the cards (ain't nobody got time to make sets for each class). 

When they got their answer they scanned the Answer QR code. 

Scanning the QR Code
(Have you tried to screenshot before the reader grabs the code? Not easy)

What will appear after scanning "Video Help" QR Code

If they got it right, they moved on. If their answer was incorrect I asked them to compare their work with their partners, see if they made a calculation error and try and figure out what they did wrong (I like a little self-discovery in math). If they still couldn't figure out where they went wrong, they scanned the code and watched the short video of how to solve. 

Guys, this was amazing. 

The more advanced students paired together, solved the problems, then got to business on their homework. They weren't bored and shouting out as we slogged through at a pace that wasn't good for them. 

The shy students who are scared to ask for help had the help in their hands. I could literally help 15 groups of kids at one time through the videos. 

Students who knew most of the problems didn't have to hear their teacher prattle on about how to solve, instead they got help on exactly what they needed help on. 

And, an added perk is that I had to speak significantly less that day since my "lesson" was on the videos and could just be replayed. Instead, I walked around and corrected errors as I saw them and offered assistance exactly where it was needed instead of a blanket instruction to all. Students could work at their own pace and have their individual needs met, which I find is so hard to get done in a math classroom, especially one as diverse in ability levels as mine. 

I hope this was helpful. If you have tried other methods to solve this problem I would love to hear them! Until next time, happy tech-ing!

Goodbye Kahoot, hello Quizizz!

I’m tired. I’m tired of tests. I’m tired of quizzes. I’m tired of bubble sheets and booklets.

I’m tired of tired games. I’m tired of Jeopardy. I’m tired of Kahoot (gasp!).

I’m ready for the new Kahoot, the new informal assessment, the new game.  Enter quizizz.

Quizizz is amazing. It is easy to create, easy to use, and it comes with a little bit of snark from the memes it throws into the mix. If you’ve used Kahoot, then Quizizz will be a breeze for you and you will love it. There are a ton of great features:

• Quizizz lets you search public quizzes that have already been created and pick and choose questions from those to add to your quiz. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel and create all new questions, nor do you have to take someone else’s dumb question and include it in your quiz because you couldn’t delete it. Yay!
• Unlike kahoot, the answer choices appear on the student’s screen. No more trying to navigate shapes and color to get your answer!
•  Quizizz allows you more control over the time given for each question. It still isn’t enough time to solve a complicated math problem, but it’s better.
•  It’s cooler. Quizizz assigns each player (student) a creepy little monster to be their avatar. When they answer a question a meme pops up (you can turn this feature off, but don’t, it’s amazing – and they’re all appropriate), a snarky one if they got it right, a “good job” one if they got it right. There is also a score board bar that tracks who is in the lead that helps encourage some friendly competition.
•  The reports for each quizizz are amazing too, allowing you to take a grade when the kiddos thought they were just playing a game!

So, enough about how awesome it is, here is how to set it up!

First, you’ll need to create an account with quizizz and log in. 

Aft you login, you can begin creating your quiz. There are two ways to go about this. If you know the questions you want on y quiz, you can opt to Create Your Own Quiz. 

If you know the topic you would like, but can’t be bothered to create or type in your own questions (I feel you – it’s February. Survival mode) then you can type your topic in the “Search for quizzes” box. 

After you search, you can preview each of your results your results and see what the questions are like. If, as you’re looking through, you don’t see any you like, or see only a question here or there, you may want to create your own. To do that, go to the top bar and click “create”.

You will be prompted to name your quiz here. From there you add questions on the left hand side of the screen. Like Kahoot, all questions are multiple choice and you must include two answer choices and indicate which is correct.

You can add an image to your question as well. I often use this with math problems. I will take a screen shot of the diagram or shape I want in my question, save it, and insert it into the quizizz. 

For you math people, you can also use the options on the top bar to add in special characters. I haven’t figured out a fraction system (instead of just using super and subscript and a /) but if you’re smarter than me and figure it out, please let me know!

If you didn't want to type in your own questions, but wanted to use other's questions that were already made, at the top of the screen, type your topic into the "Search for Questions" box and click go. You will see the same quizzes you saw on the home screen search and the questions. Find the question you want and click the red plus sign that hovers on the photo. 

Once you have all of your questions entered, click “Finish”. You will be prompted to select the subject and topic. This is so others can find and use your quiz questions if they want.

Now it's time to play. At the top of the screen, click on "My Quizizz" and select the quiz your created. The screen below will appear. If you are playing as a class, click on "Play Live"

The next screen will allow you to set the settings. I always leave Leaderboard on to encourage a little healthy competition...your choice. I also leave the Show Memes on because memes are great and middle school kids (and their teachers) love them. I usually turn the Play Music off because my kiddos are using iPads with no headphones and the music will drive anyone insane. Depending on the activity I might leave the timer on or off. I usually turn it off because it's math and it takes a bit of time. I want them to not feel pressure to choose a random answer, but to take their time and work the problem. If this was a vocabulary game I would leave the timer on. Your choice!

After your settings are good to go, click play and your screen will show the code students use to access the game. Quizizz isn't an app (yet) so they will have to use the browser. On the iPads, I created a shortcut that I could leave on the homescreen to make it easier. Students will enter the game using the game code. 

When students enter the game, here are some things they will see....

Student screen after tying in code.

Their rank is shown after each question
 (I was testing this with one "student" (me)

An example of a meme that comes up
after an incorrect response.

Example meme after a correct response.

So, there you go, that's Quizizz. I hope you try it out. It is very user friendly and perfect for middle and high school students. Let me know how it goes! Happy tech-ing!