Multiplication and Educreations

 

Last Friday I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time in my friend Kim’s fourth grade class. She had been working with introducing multiplication and arrays. She expanded the students’ thinking and checked for understanding by having them create story problems based on arrays. I worked with the students to use Educreations to make videos to explain arrays, provide examples, and discuss their story problems.

To scaffold the work flow we had students begin by planning their videos with a partner. We went over the expectations and key components that had to be included. We conferred with each set of partners as they worked to make sure they were on the right track and redirected when they were not clear on the content. After receiving our approval, students used the Educreations app to create their videos. They were required to include real photos, drawings, and explanation. The completed videos were shown to the class and it was easy to assess the level of thinking based on the products. Using Educreations as an assessment tool is very powerful. It truly shows the level of understanding of content as no worksheet really can.

Big thanks to Kim and her talented students! They were so much fun to work with and I was impressed with their teamwork!

Here is an Animoto video I made several years ago to illustrate arrays in case you might need it.