Increasing Engagement through Video Story Problems Teaching Idea

My friend Ben Rimes has a great idea:

Increasing Engagement through Video Story Problems Teaching Idea

Description

Increasing engagement with real world problems is a lot easier if you bring the real world into the classroom. In collaboration with another teacher, I've created several math and science related video story problems for teachers to use when introducing a concept, or looking for a way to give students a more real world example than what's printed in the text book. From exploding jars of applesauce to calculating distance, problems related to content area are shared via Vimeo.

Education Level(s)

Pre-K/Kindergarten, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12

Subject(s)

Math & Science, Student Engagement & Development, Technology & Innovation

Learning Objectives

Students will be solve authentic problems, complete with distracting data and information that have to be carefully separated from the pertinent information. Both conceptual and procedural problems will be presented to the students in the areas of science and math. Students will view video story problems that take place around their school, community, in addition to problems from other schools and scenarios in order to make connections between school and real world problem solving.

Materials

Handheld camcorders, cell phones, and webcams will be used to capture video for the story problems, with iMovie, Movie Maker, and other movie making tools being used to produce the story problems. Vimeo.com will be used to host the videos for easy sharing and embedding of videos between school buildings and school districts.

Other Information

There are a few example videos already hosted on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/album/1545575). The quality of the videos changes from movie to movie, as the quality of the camera I have available to me is never a constant. Having a camera that could be dedicates to the project would be helpful. Vimeo is the choice for hosting the videos as it's easier to get schools to unblock it than YouTube. Getting a premium Vimeo account would mean the videos could upgraded to play on Apple mobile devices too.

PLEASE VOTE FOR BEN!