ShowMe and Formative Assessment
Once you have created your lecture video, it is important to understand whether your students understand the information that you want them to know. So what I have done in the past is setup a worksheet to guide the students through the work that I am showing them in my videos. In the past, I have sent the lecture video link with the handout, which has allowed me to differentiate the work that I have given my students in the classroom. What I have noticed is that more than a majority of students will and prefer to watch the video rather than outline a textbook. But the problem still is whether the students truly get what is in the video. Most times I find that it is important to use some sort of entry slip where the students, at the beginning of the class, can work out a problem before the lesson begins to determine whether they truly understand what I what them to understand. This gives me great formative data, which allows me to create a learning environment that raises the bar for the entire class. Those students that might struggle will be able to get specific help from me while the rest of the class is working on other problems. By the end of the period, I notice that all students will be able to work on the most complex examples related to the video.
However, just recently I have been thinking about this process and have been wondering if there was a way to collect this data in some other way and what I came up with is pretty simple. What I have been doing is playing around with Google Forms. This web-based application gives the user the ability to develop open-ended questions (which would be great because you could give the students the ability to free write about their understanding of the content of the video) and multiple-choice questions (which could target specific learning for the students to understand). The great thing about Google Forms is that all of the information is collected in a spreadsheet, which gives the teacher ability to target the specific problems the students are having with the content. The next day’s lesson can be tailored to the individual needs of the students rather than the lesson being one size fits all.
The next time you develop your ShowMe video, consider using Google Forms to collect formative data on your students and remember this will get easier especially when you start your ShowMe with an essential question. Also remember it is important to design your video lesson with what you want your students to understand and be able to do. This way you have organized yourself to target a specific outcome.
