How-to: Have students use ShowMe to teach each other!
I recently went to 7th grade classroom in Mineola, NY where they proudly declare their classroom motto is “think different!” I was incredibly impressed with the students and teachers and totally jealous of the things they were getting to work on!
One really awesome thing that they told me about was the way they use ShowMe. Instead of the teacher creating lessons to share with students, after assessments the teachers figure out where each students’ strength lies. Students are then assigned a topic or a problem to teach using ShowMe. The last step in the process is to assign a student created ShowMe to another student who might be struggling or need a little extra help with the topic. Students get to learn from and help their peers which is what a 21st century classroom should look like!
If you think this is a great idea for your classroom, here is how to do it:
- Give your students an assessment or temperature check for understanding. You can also let them volunteer their favorite part of a unit!
- Assign each student a problem set or area of study to teach. They should be able to cover the subject in under 5 minutes.
- If you have one iPad in the classroom, set up a station in a quiet part of the room and create a schedule to let students know when they will be creating your ShowMes. If you have a cart or 1-to-1 classroom, let students work on their ShowMes in waves. The room can get quite noisy with 28 students all teaching at once!
- Each student should save and upload their ShowMe and then email the link to you. Save these links all in once place on a class website or blog.
- Assign these student created ShowMes as review work to help students who need to strengthen their skills!
