I had to be absent a couple days last week, and I wanted to the class to learn some new material. We had just spent two days simplifiying radicals, and I wanted them to move onto adding and subtracting. So I decided to make a quick video of myself explaining how to do it.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ6j4ZrMMBY]
The next day basically every single student I have told me how much they loved the video. The sub-report talked about how great it was. A couple teachers and a teachers aid all told me at various times throughout the day that they heard I made some great video. Then yesterday a student told me that she learns better from my videos than she does from me (thanks… I think?). And after multiple students asked if the video was online, I figured I should put it online.
And it’s kind of funny because they are nothing special at all – straight up direct instruction. But it seems like some students got something out of them, so who I am to judge? And just like Khan I suppose, I did them in one take so they are not time consuming to create. I ended up making 1 for geometry, and 2 for algebra.
Oh yeah, and I am certainly not going to post them all to this blog.