# Editing Khan

Let's be clear - I don't have a problem with most of the content on Khan Academy. Yes, there are mistakes. Yes, there are pedagogical choices that many educators don't like. I don't like how it has been sold as the solution to the educational ills of our world, but that isn't my biggest objection to it.

I sat and watched his series on currency trading not too long ago. Given that his analogies and explanations are correct (which some colleagues have confirmed they are) he does a pretty good job of explaining the concepts in a way that I could understand. I guess that's the thing that he is known for. I don't have a problem with this - it's always good to have good explainers out there.

The biggest issue I have with his videos is that they need an editor.

He repeats himself a lot. He will start explaining something, realize that he needs to back up, and then finishes a sentence that hadn't really started. He will say something important and then slowly repeat it as he writes each word on the screen.

This is more than just an annoyance. Here's why:

• One of the major advantages to using video is that it can be good instruction distilled into great instruction. You can plan ahead with the examples you want to use. You can figure out how to say exactly what you need to say and nothing more, and either practice until you get it right, or just edit out the bad takes.
• I have written and read definitions word by word on the board during direct instruction in my classes. I have watched my students faces as I do it. It's clearly excruciating. Seeing that has forced me to resist the urge to speak as I write during class, and instead write the entire thing out before reading it. Even that doesn't feel right as part of a solid presentation because I hate being read to, and so do my students. This doesn't need to happen in videos.
• If the goal of moving direct instruction to videos is to be as efficient as possible and minimize the time students spend sitting and watching rather than interacting with the content, the videos should be as short and efficient as possible. I'm not saying they should be void of personality or emotion. Khan's conversational style is one of the high points of his material. I'm just saying that the 'less is more' principle applies here.

I spent an hour this morning editing one of the videos I watched on currency exchange to show what I mean. The initial length of the video was 12:03, and taking out the parts I mentioned earlier reduced it to 8:15. I think the result respects Khan's presentation, but makes it a bit tighter and focused on what he is saying. Check it out:

The main reason I haven't made more videos for my own classes (much to the dismay of my students, who really like them) is my insistence that the videos be efficient and short. I don't want ten minute videos for my students to watch. I want two minutes of watching, and then two or three minutes of answering questions, discussing with other students, or applying the skills that they learned. My ratio is still about five minutes of editing time for every minute of the final video I make - this is roughly what it took this morning on the Khan Academy video too. This is too long of a process, but it's a detail on using video that I care too much about to overlook.

What do you think?

# The post where I remind myself that written instructions for computer tasks stink.

It's not so much that I can't follow written instructions. I'm human and I miss steps occasionally, but with everything written down, it's easy to retrace steps and figure out where I went wrong if I did miss something. The big issue is that written instructions are not the best way to show someone how to do something. Text is good for some specific things, but defining steps for completing a task on a computer is not one of them.

Today I showed my students the following video at the start of class.
GEO-U6D2.1-Constructing Parallelogram in Geogebra

I also gave them this image on the handout, which I wrote last year, but students only marginally followed:

It was remarkable how this simple change to delivery made the whole class really fun to manage today.

• Students saw exactly what I wanted them to produce, and how to produce it.
• The arrows in the video identified one of the vocabulary words from previous lessons as it appeared on screen.
• My ESOL students were keeping up (if not outpacing) the rest of the class.
• The black boxes introduced both the ideas of what I wanted them to investigate using Geogebra, and simultaneously teased them to make their own guesses about what was hidden. They had theories immediately, and they knew that I wanted them to figure out what was hidden through the activity described in the video. Compare this to the awkwardness of doing so through text, where they have to guess both what I am looking for, and what it might look like. You could easily argue this is on the wrong side of abstraction.
• I spent the class going around monitoring progress and having conversations. Not a word of whole-class direct instruction for the fifty minutes of class that followed showing the video. Some students I directed to algebraic exercises to apply their observations. Others I encouraged to start proofs of their theorems. Easy differentiation for the different levels of students in the room.

Considering how long I sometimes spend writing unambiguous instructions for an exploration, and then the heartbreak involved when I inevitably leave out a crucial element, I could easily be convinced not to try anymore.

One student on a survey last year critiqued my use of Geogebra explorations saying that it wasn't always clear what the goal was, even when I wrote it on the paper. These exploratory tasks are different enough and more demanding than sitting and watching example problems, and require a bit more selling for students to buy into them being productive and useful. These tasks need to quickly define themselves, and as Dan Meyer suggests, get out of the way so that discovery and learning happens as soon as possible.

Today was a perfect example of how much I have repeatedly shot myself in the foot during previous lessons trying to establish a valid context for these tasks through written instructions. The gimmick of hiding information from students is not the point - yes there was some novelty factor here that may have led to them getting straight to work as they did today. This was all about clear communication of objectives and process, and that was the real power of what transpired today.

# What do I have wrong here? Computational thinking obsession continues

Another installment of my Hong Kong presentation titled 'Why Computational Thinking matters.' This is where my head is these days in figuring out how computers relate to what we do in class. My view is that activities like the one I describe in the video is more active than the way we (and I include myself in this group) usually attack word problems as part of our sequence.

Help me flesh this out. I think there's a lot here.

# Angry Birds Project - Results and Post-Mortem

In my post last week, I detailed what I was having students do to get some experience modeling quadratic functions using Angry Birds. I was at the 21CL conference in Hong Kong, so the students did this with a substitute teacher. The student teams each submitted their five predictions for the ratio of hit distance to the distance from the slingshot to the edge of the picture. I brought them into Geogebra and created a set of pictures like this one:

After learning some features of Camtasia I hadn't yet used, I put together this summary video of the activity:

I played the video, and the students were engaged watching the videos, but there was a general sense of dread (not suspense) on their faces as the team with the best predictions was revealed. This, of course, made me really nervous. They did clap for the winners when they were revealed, and we had some good discussion about modeling, which videos were more difficult and why, but there was a general sense of discomfort all through this activity. Given that I wasn't quite able to figure out exactly why they were being so awkward, I asked them what they thought of the activity on a scale of 1 - 10.

They hated it.

I should have guessed there might be something wrong when I received three separate emails from the three members one team with results that were completely different. Seeing three members of one team work independently (and inefficiently) is something I'm pretty tuned in to when I am in the room, but this was bigger. It didn't sound like there was much utilization of the fact that they were in teams. I need to ask about this, but I think they were all working in parallel rather than dividing up the labor, talking about their results, and comparing to each other.

• I need to be a lot more aware of the level of my own excitement around activity in comparison to that of the students. I showed one of the shortened videos at the end of the previous class and asked what questions they really wanted to know. They all said they wanted to know where the bird would land, but in all honesty, I think they were being charitable. They didn't really care that much. In the game, you learn shortly after whether the bird you fling will hit where you want it to or not. Here, they had to go through a process of importing a picture, fitting a parabola, and finding a zero of a function using Geogebra, and then went a weekend without knowing.

While it is true that using a computer made this task possible, and was more enjoyable than being forced to do this by hand, the relativity of this scale should be suspect. "Oh good, you're giving me pain meds after pulling my tooth. Let's do this again!"

• A note about pseudocontext - throwing Angry Birds in to a project does not by itself does not necessarily engage students. It is a way in. I think the way I did this was less contrived than other similar projects I've seen, but that didn't make it a good one. Trying to make things 'relevant' by connecting math to something the students like can look desperate if done in the wrong way. I think this was the wrong way.
• I would have gotten a lot more mileage out of the video if I had stopped it here:

That would have been relevant to them, and probably would have resulted in turning this activity back around. I am kicking myself for not doing that. Seriously. That moment WAS when the students were all watching and interested, and I missed it.

Next time. You try and fail and reflect - I'm still glad I did it.

We went on to have a lovely conversation about complex numbers and the equation $x^{2}+4 = 0$. One student immediately said that \$ sqrt{-2} \$ was just fine to substitute. Another stayed after class to explain why she thought it was a disturbing idea.

No harm done.

P.S. - Anyone who uses this post as a reason not to try these ideas out with their class and to instead slog on with standard lectures has missed the point. I didn't do this completely right. That doesn't mean it couldn't be a home run in the right hands.

# Why computational thinking matters - Part I

My presentation at 21CLHK yesterday was an attempt to summarize much of the exploration I've done over the past year in my classroom into the connection between learning mathematical concepts and programming. I see a lot of potential there, but the details about how to integrate it effectively and naturally still need to be fleshed out.

After the presentation, I felt there needed to be some way to keep the content active other than just posting the slides. I've decided to take some of the main pieces of the presentation and package them as videos describing my thinking. I'm seeing this as an iterative process - in all likelihood, these videos will change as I refine my understanding of what I understand about the situation. Here is the start of what will hopefully be a developing collection:

I want to express my appreciation to Dan Meyer for his time chatting with during the conference about my ideas on making computation a part of the classroom experience. He pushed back against some my assertions and was honest about which arguments made sense and which needed more definition. I think this is a big deal, but the message on the power of computational thinking has to be spot on so it isn't misunderstood or misused.

With the help of the edu-blogging community, I think we can nail this thing down together. Let's talk.

# Why SBG is blowing my mind right now.

I am buzzing right now about my decision to move to Standards Based Grading for this year. The first unit of Calculus was spent doing a quick review of linear functions and characteristics of other functions, and then explored the ideas of limits, instantaneous rate of change, and the area under curves - some of the big ideas in Calculus. One of my standards reads "I can find the limit of a function in indeterminate form at a point using graphical or numerical methods."

A student had been marked proficient on BlueHarvest on four out of the five, but the limit one held her back. After some conversations in class and a couple assessments on the idea, she still hadn't really shown that she understood the process of figuring out a limit this way. She had shown that she understood that the function was undefined on the quiz, but wasn't sure how to go about finding the value.

We have since moved on in class to evaluating limits algebraically using limit rules, and something must have clicked. This is what she sent me this morning:

Getting things like this that have a clear explanation of ideas (on top of production value) is amazing - it's the students choosing a way to demonstrate that they understand something! I love it - I have given students opportunities to show me that they understand things in the past through quiz retakes and one-on-one interviews about concepts, but it never quite took off until this year when their grade is actually assessed through standards, not Quiz 1, Exam 1.

I can determine the perimeter and area of complex figures made up of rectangles/ triangles/ circles/ and sections of circles.

...followed by an explanation of how to find the area of the figure. Where did she get this problem? She made it up.

I am in the process right now of grading unit exams that students took earlier in the week, and found that the philosophy of these exams under SBG has changed substantially. I no longer have to worry about putting on a problem that is difficult and penalizing students for not making progress on it - as long as the problem assesses the standards in some way, any other work or insight I get into their understanding in what they try is a bonus. I don't have to worry about partial credit - I can give students feedback in words and comments, not points.

One last anecdote - a student had pretty much shown me she was proficient on all of the Algebra 2 standards, and we had a pretty extensive conversation through BlueHarvest discussing the details and her demonstrating her algebraic skills. I was waiting until the exam to mark her proficient since I wanted to see how student performance on the exam was different from performance beforehand. I called time on the exam, and she started tearing up.

I told her this exam wasn't worth the tears - she wanted to do well, and was worried that she hadn't shown what she was capable of doing. I told her this was just another opportunity to show me that she was proficient - a longer opportunity than others - but another one nonetheless. If she messed up a concept on the test from stress, she could demonstrate it again later. She calmed down and left with a smile on her face.

Oh, and I should add that her test is looking fantastic.

I still have students that are struggling. I still have students that haven't gone above and beyond to demonstrate proficiency, and that I have to bug in order to figure out what they know. The fact that SBG has allowed some students to really shine and use their talents, relaxed others in the face of assessment anxiety, and has kept other things constant, convinces me that this is a really good thing, well worth the investment of time. I know I'm just preaching to the SBG crowd as I say this, but it feels good to see the payback coming so quickly after the beginning of the year.

# Students #flipping class presentations through making videos

Those of you that know the way I usually teach probably also know that projects are not in my comfort zone. I always feel they need to be well defined in such a way to make it so that the mathematical content is the focus, and NOT necessarily about how good it looks, the "flashy factor", or whether it is appropriately stapled. As a result, I often avoid them like the plague. The activities we do in class are usually student centered and involve  a lot of student interaction, and occasionally (much to my dismay) are open ended problems to be solved.

Done well, a good project (and rubric) also involves a good amount of focused interaction between students about the mathematical content. I don't like asking students to make presentations either - what often results is a Powerpoint and students awkwardly gesturing at projected images of text that they then read to the group in front of them. In class, I openly mock adults who do this to my students - I keep the promise that I will never ask them to read to me and their peers standing at the front of the room. Presentation skills are important, don't get me wrong, but I don't see educational gold in the process, or get all tingly about 'real-world skill development' from assigning in-class presentations. They instill fear in the hearts of many students (especially those that are students of ESOL) and require  tolerance from the rest of the class and involved adults to sit through watching them, and require class time in order to 'make' students watch them.

I'm also not convinced they actually learn content by creating them. Take a bunch of information found on Wikipedia or from Google, put it on a number of slides, and read it slowly until your time is up. Where is the synthesis? Where is the real world application of an idea that the student did? What new information is the student generating? If there's very little substantive answer to those questions, it's not worth it. It's no wonder why they go the Powerpoint slide route either - it's generally what they see adults doing when they present something.

In short, I don't like asking students to do something that even adults don't typically do well, and even then without the self-esteem and image issues that teenagers have.

All of that said, I really liked seeing a presentation (a good one, mind you) from Kelly Grogan (@KellyEd121) at the Learning 2.011 conference in Shanghai this past September. She has her students combine written work, digital media, audio, and video into digital documents that can be easily shared with each other and with her as their teacher. The additional dimension of hearing the student talking about his/her work and understanding is a really powerful one. It is but one distilled aspect of what we want students to get out of the projects we assign.

The fact that it isn't live also takes away a lot of the pressure to get it all right in one take. It also takes advantage of the asynchronous capability that technology affords us - I can watch a student's product at home or on my iPad at night, as can the other students. I like how it uses the idea of the flipped classroom to change the idea of student presentations. Students present their understanding or work through video that can be watched at home,  and then the content can be discussed or used in class the next day.

It was with all of this in mind that I decided to assign the project described here:

http://wiki.hischina.org/groups/gealgerobophysiculus/wiki/57f0c/Unit_5__Living_Proof_Video_Project.html

The proofs were listed on a handout given in class, and students in groups of two chose which proof they wanted to do. Most students submitted their videos today. I'm pretty pleased with how they ran with the idea and made it their own. Some quick notes:

• The mathematical content is the focus, and the students understood that from the beginning. While the math isn't perfect in every video, the enthusiasm the students had for putting these together was pretty awesome to watch. There's no denying that enthusiasm as a tool for helping students learn - this is a major plus for project based assignments.
• Some students that rarely volunteer to speak in class have their personalities and voices all over these. I love this.

My plan to hold students accountable for watching these is to have variations of them on the unit test in a couple weeks. I don't have to force the students to watch them though - they had almost all shared them before they were due.

Yes, you heard that right. They had almost all shared their work with each other and talked about it before getting to class. I sometimes have to force this to happen during class, but this assignment encouraged them to do it on their own. Now that's cool.

I have ideas for tweaking it for next time, but I really liked what came out of this. I've been hurt(stung?)  by projects before - giving grades that meet the rubric for the project, but don't actually result in a grade that indicates student learning.

I can see how this concept could really change things though. There's no denying that the work these students produced is authentic to them, and requires engagement with the content. Isn't that what we ultimately want students to know how to do when they leave our classroom?