Students as Teachers in a Youtube World (AKA "How to Help Even the Shy and Quiet Students Transform to Brave and Confident Peer Teachers")

Every class has students who struggle. My class has two students in particular who struggle in math more than the rest of the class. The third grade has learned to add and subtract within 1,000 and one of those girls still struggles to even read three digit numbers. Both girls have been staying after school with me for one-on-one tutoring for a while now. Today was the first time I combined their tutoring sessions to work with the both of them together at the same time. The girls were with me for an hour, and we solved 3 equations total. Solving only 3 equations in that length of time may sound preposterously unproductive for a teacher and 2 third graders, but that was probably the most productive hour we have had yet. In one hour, my students were self-motivated to figure out how to explain their work with perfect clarity. In one hour, my students gained the confidence to show off their work to the principal, vice principal, and both of their moms. In one hour, those girls agreed to let me show their work to the rest of the third grade. That may not seem like much but neither of these girls participate much in class. It is hard to be brave and confident sharing what you think might be an answer if you are not even confident of what a number says.

But lets back it up... what did I actually have my students do?

After researching several platforms for screen casting and presenting (such as "Go Record:Screen Recorder," "Record it! :: Screen Capture," "VoiceThread" and even a sadly disappointing green screen app) I ended finding Explain Everything. One of the draws for that particular app is that I can use a free 30 day trial, I can access Explain Everything on a computer or a portable device, the app is user friendly, and I was able to download the app without updating my iPhone to iOS 11.0 (which for trivial and complicated reasons, I am unwilling to do at the moment).

Explain Everything is an app that allows users to record their own screen cast videos. When using the app, I was able to record audio while drawing on a screen (think Khan Academy).  I explored the wide variety of features that Explain Everything has such as the ability to customize backgrounds, options for changing pen type and color, the ability to add your own files and more) but for my purposes, only its most basic features were necessary.

I focused on the pen and highlighter tools the most but students who are more adept at multitasking could use other features as well. The arrow in particular could be helpful for students who want to point to the spot on the screen they are talking about in their voice over. The main function I am exploiting the app for is its usefulness in recording student explanations and visuals as they show how to solve a math problem.

I made an example video to make sure I was confident in how to use the app, and showed my students so they could get an idea of what they were going to be doing. They were instantly intrigued. I then asked them what topic they would like to hear an explanation on. Both girls said division. I then wrote a division equation on a piece of paper, solved it then modeled how I could reflect on the steps I used to solve. I modeled writing down notes on what I want to talk about when I explain my work. I then showed the girls how I could use Explain Everything on an iPad to create my own division tutorial. I even showed them that I should watch my video, think about what I would fix, and then actually record the same thing again, but without the mistakes. They were super excited to try their own.

Since my two students had been working on adding three digit numbers using drawings of base ten blocks, I gave them an equation and asked them to solve it. I then asked each girl how she solved it and we compared methods. Then the girls then worked together to figure out what they would say to explain their work and scripted what they would say. Their first recording was completed by the two of them together with an excessive amount of confusion, stammering, and embarrassed giggles. They were then very motivated to try again. This time, they requested each using their own iPad and recording independently of each other. They then sat at opposite ends of the room, hunched over iPads, explaining and reexplaining how to add with regrouping using a visual model. With each attempt I could hear excitement and a rapidly growing confidence in my students' voices. When the girls were finally content with their work, I asked them if they wanted to show it off. At first they seemed hesitant but then they looked back at their iPads and excitedly smiled and said yes. We then brought the iPads to the principal's office where she and the vice principal patiently watched both videos (despite the fact that they were nearly identical). They could see the pride on the girls' faces. both administrators loved the videos and gave specific positive feedback (such as, "I love that I could hear you go back and check your work!" and, "You did such a great job breaking the problem down into steps that are easy for people to follow!" and even, "It's just like the Khan Academy videos!"). The principal even asked the girls if she can share the videos with the second graders and put the videos on the school website to parents can learn how to help their students at home. When the girls' moms saw the videos, both moms just as enthusiastic in their praise. One of the moms kept telling her daughter, "I'm so proud of you" over and over again.

These girls are so used to receiving failing test grades and having wrong answers despite receiving special attention and extra help. For them to have such a positive experience with math was extremely powerful for them. I do not doubt that they will have much stronger memories of how to add using drawings of base ten blocks.

My goal had been to do this activity with the entire class today. It was supposed to be our last review before the math state test. I was going to break the class up into pairs and assign each group a different topic. When a group finished, they would upload that video online so that at the end of class, we could watch each group's video and review all of the year's topics. Sadly, due to a meeting during the school day, I was unable to do this. Despite that disappointment, I am glad that I was able to try it out with a smaller group of students first to help figure out (in a less stressful situation) what kinds of supports would be necessary for students to be successful. When I carry out my original plan next week, I will have students solve on their own on paper first, just like today. That really allowed both students to engage in the planning of the videos today, and might prevent certain students from taking over their groups next week. I am going to try using cardboard privacy barriers to help control background noise in the videos to block out the voices in the tutorials. Even with only two students in the room, the iPads picked up on the other girls' voices from across the room. Having completed those videos first, I now have student examples to show the class, which are probably much  more exciting for the rest of the class to view than my example. Additionally, I now have two student app experts that can help their groups to understand how to work the software.

Transferring the videos on unreliable
internet has proved trying.

The biggest problems that I have encountered so far relate to the internet and logins. For whatever reason, the school WiFi (with its obnoxious blocking and censoring) would not let me use a login on the Explain Everything app. Instead, I needed to have each iPad sign on as a guest. While that was a simple way around the problem, it created more complications. When signed on as a guest, it is impossible to save videos to the account. Each video saves to the iPad but cannot be transferred to the SMART Board computer easily. Since my goal is to have the students watch each video, that is a major problem. I eventually figured out that I could save the videos to the third grade Dropbox account. I will be able to have the class save their work to Dropbox in the Explain Everything app and access my class' videos easily online when we make them next week. If something goes wrong and I am ultimately unable to get the videos shared to a computer, I have a plan b. Plan b is that each iPad will be a viewing station for a specific video. Students will stay with their groups but rotate around the room, watching each video at its viewing station. I could even put a piece of paper at each station where students can write comments if they finish early (as if it were a YouTube video but with a stricter policy for kindness and appropriateness). In fact, being able to walk around the room could prove to be more engaging for my antsy third graders.

If my class is successful in making these videos, I can save the videos from year to year and add on to my video collection. I can play videos within units for an engaging form of review. I also really liked the principal's idea of using the videos to engage parents. If student videos can be put on the school Facebook page or website periodically, then parents can see what their children are learning in math and can have a better understanding of what their child is expected to be able to do.

I think that these student led tutorial videos are a great way to scaffold the skill of writing to explain their work in math class. It engages them in breaking down their work and communicating it in a clear and concise way. This incorporates many of the UDL guidelines such as self-reflection and engagement.

When the 30 day free trial has ended, I just may decide to spend $9.99 on this app. I can already imagine starting next school year with a similar day of group video presentations to review second grade skills before moving on to third grade skills. Those videos could even be shared with the second grade teachers in case they are looking for videos to incorporate into their lessons. As we continue the school year, students who finish work early can make tutorials on what we had learned that day. This can be helpful for students who are struggling because they can then watch those videos for an extra example.

In case it wasn't completely obvious, I am in love with the potential that this app has for encouraging students academical and emotionally. The possibilities for academic application are numerous.
 I highly recommend that teachers everywhere try it out.

Have you tried Explain Everything or a similar app? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!