Professional Learning Goals

We learned how to use apps in the math classroom for students to better demonstrate their understanding and thinking of math concepts.

Activities and Resources

• Explore different apps for students to demonstrate their understanding (chose to use Explain Everything)
• Meet with Instructional Coach (IC), Technology Resource Coach and team to create lesson and pre-survey/post-survey to collect data about student engagement with the app
• Students completed pre-survey on Google Forms before using Explain Everything
• Students created their math video (Grade 7 math or Grade 8 math) and submitted to Google Classroom
• Students completed post-survey after using Explain Everything
• Team and IC met to discuss our own experiences with our classes and data from the surveys

Unexpected Challenges

• Difficulty booking and sharing iPad/technology
• Fewer students with devices than expected
• Resistance from teachers to try technology

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

• 56% of students found Explain Everything at least a four out of five on the effectiveness to communicate their thinking
• 77% found it at least a level three out of five

Sharing

• Shared our learning with other teachers at the staff meeting and offered to co-teach when they wanted to use Explain Everything
• Co-teaching with teachers who would like to use the app in their classroom

Project Evaluation

• Students who previously fared poorly on assessments, and struggled to communicate any learning, were able to demonstrate far greater knowledge and comprehension than expected
• At first it was time-consuming as students learned how to use Explain Everything, however, as they became more comfortable with the app, they were able to complete their assignment more quickly and efficiently
• As for providing feedback from the teacher, student videos were no more than two minutes long and using the checklist provided at the beginning of the assignment, it was quick to view the video and provide feedback based on the checklist
• Using the iPads and Explain Everything, students were able to demonstrate a clearer understanding using more vocabulary, procedures and strategies, and how to communicate their thinking
• This can be used as open-ended tasks for core classes that can cover many topics in different subject areas with one assignment (for example, comparing two population maps, they can talk about history, geography, procedural writing, data management)
• Students like pair/share and working in pairs allows them to share their thinking with a partner
• Explaln Everything allows students to review their work (including ELL and IEP students) and re-record their work before submitting it
• This also allows for quotes from the students that can be taken from student work to be used in the report card and in student feedback
• We think it would be valuable for subject teams to have a group of iPads available to them so students can use the technology more frequently
• We purchased a couple of Apple TVs which allowed us to mirror the iPads students used to show their work immediately to the class for them to provide feedback
• Explain Everything allows students to develop oral communications skills, providing opportunity for students to practise putting thoughts into words, allowing students to build communication skills, which could transfer into better writing skills, and also allowing students with anxiety of speaking in front of people, the opportunity to develop confidence in their ability to speak publicly