Flipping the Maths Classroom (or Trying To)

I'm pretty sure that I've previously mentioned some offshoots of my Google Innovator Project, but I haven't yet talked about one of ones I've spent more time on than the others: my Maths Strategy Videos.  I essentially have had this idea for a few years now, but have kind of sat on it for a while because of time and not really having the confidence or motivation. That all changed with making videos for breakouts and coding.

I've used videos before in my mathematics teaching but often it was hard to find ones that aligned with what I was meant to teach. I've also been taking an online course through Stanford University and Jo Boaler that's been encouraging me to make maths more visual.

When planning my videos I wanted to be able to show learners a variety of ways that they could visualize a problem or strategy. But I also wanted to make the videos short and sweet. Admittedly I do feel like an amateur, both with the quality of the videos but also the content.

I've tried to get lots of feedback (and I've gotten a bit from my immediate colleagues at Ormiston) but I still doubt that I'm showing the strategies the best way I could. At the end of the day though, it's another resource for children to use in order to understand mathematical concepts.

So why do I think this is a good idea? I've noticed that many children do not feel very confident in maths class. Their brains seem to shut off the moment you say "It's time for maths." For many children these are difficult and abstract concepts to understand and they are likely taught way to quickly. I wanted to give them a chance to review the lessons at their own pace. I also wanted to make it possible for me to do the work of 10 educators at the same time. All learners have different needs and this helps me meet them.

Ideally, I'll be able to cover all the different strategies in the NZ curriculum and beyond. In my future, utopic maths classroom, my learners would learn at their own pace, watching the videos and completing the work as fast or as slow as they could. I would act as a guide and facilitator - making sure they got the help they needed and that they were moving forward as they understood new concepts. This would go alongside collaborative, mixed-achievment problem solving, with (hopefully) rich mathematical discussions.

I've also started thinking of other ways I can flip the classroom. Watch for some writing videos coming soon...

Here is the link where I'll be housing all of the videos as I make them. I'll likely also have some sort of progressions where the videos can be linked to the curriculum.

Enjoy!