Visual Variety for Math - Primes
Visual Variety Project
Using Digital Video to Help Students with Challenging Topics
What We Made
Some topics are more challenging than others for our students. Is that just the way it is, or can we creatively address this issue?
A pair of middle school math teachers and I took time in the spring of 2007 to identify topics that their students found particularly challenging. We chose one - identifying prime numbers - and made a trio of videos to see if bringing some variety to how the topic is presented might help students better understand the topic.
Below are links to the three videos. The first is a rather traditional explanation of what prime numbers are. The second is a graphic exploration of primes using the Sieve of Eratosthenes. The third is a music and stop action piece designed to appeal to those with a more visual orientation to learning.
Prime Numbers - Sieve of Eratosthenes
Prime Numbers - Stop Action with Music
How We Evaluated Their Worth
We showed these videos to students in their math classes without any extra instruction on the topic. Before showing the pieces, we gave the students a pre-test like the one below.
After taking the pre-test, students watched the videos, and then took an immediate post-test. A week later, again without extra instruction, students took a similarly formatted follow-up test. Of the 192 students for which we had valid data from both days, 51% showed improvement of at least 10% between the pre-test and the follow-up test the next week, and 34% showed improvement of at least 20% over the same period. Additionally, 83% of the students said that the videos were "somewhat helpful" (45%) or "very helpful" (38%) in their understanding of prime numbers.
How You Can Take Part
We believe that using inexpensive or free video editing tools, teachers and students can create simple pieces that can help others more easily learn challenging concepts. If you wish to try replicating our project, please contact me. If you are interested in trying this project with a different topic (math or another subject), I would be happy to help with that as well. I can be reached via e-mail at rh@nextvista.org.
Last Updated 9/30/2007 (with link corrections made 12/8/2022)