Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology

Elinor Madigan, an Assistant Professor, had a class of repeat calculus students and decided to try an experiment. She wanted to record the process of solving a problem because static notes don’t provide enough information. Using a tablet computer and the help of a student, she made a narrated recording of problems being solved. These recordings were made available to a group of volunteer students to use to review for quizzes.

Quiz scores for a volunteer group were compared with scores from students taking the same class but not using the recordings for reviews. Although the quiz score results were mixed, the study was very small and informal, so no real conclusions can be drawn at this point. Student feedback indicates that all of the students using the recordings thought they were valuable and would like to have recordings like this available in the future.

Also interesting was that the student who helped make the recordings felt he learned a lot more than he would have if he hadn't helped with the project and would like to continue to help with making the recordings.

Elinor would like to obtain grant money to help with the project. She would also like to include students more in creating the recordings. Making this a class assignment would not only increase the number of videos available, it would also give students the opportunity to learn the material better because they have to understand it before they can write a script and make a recording.