EduLS Week 2 Video Challenge

I have wanted to share this idea for a long time, but haven't found the right outlet. I don't know if this post is exactly what the EduLS had in mind for Week 2, but I really like the idea and it fits in with making videos, so here it is. I have been flipping my high school classes for 4 years and wanted to spread the concept to the elementary schools in the district. I had heard of elementary schools having success by hiring math coaches/experts to work with their staff. I knew there was no way for our district to hire math coaches for all of our elementary schools with the current economic status of our area, but I thought of a way I could help. I am the only AP calculus teacher in the district, so I have 40-50 math experts in my classes every year. These are students who went to the same elementary schools and many have younger siblings currently in the schools too. I decided to have my students produce videos teaching 3rd grade lessons that elementary teachers could use to start flipping their class.

I got approval from my principal and got together with a small group of 3rd grade teachers to plan what to do and got my kids started. We decided to use an early chapter in the textbook so teachers could begin flipping right away. We began this project the day after the AP Calculus exam in late May and took over 2 weeks to complete. The students wanted to make high quality videos and had a lot of difficulty explaining elementary skills because they were so used to college level math. I reached out to all of the elementary principals for school shirts so my kids could wear a shirt from whichever elementary school they went to. I didn't help with any of the production, just with certain parts of the content to make it more elementary (a lot of my kids were explaining things at too high of a level for a beginning 3rd grader).

Here are a few of the videos my students produced:

Unfortunately, over the summer, the district re-wrote the 3rd grade curriculum and it started in the chapter after my student videos. Even though the videos weren't used as intended, the teachers still flipped their classes this year and I will try again to provide them with useful videos for next year!