This video is called “One is One…Or is it?” and was created by an educator named Christopher Danielson. I found this text on the TED-ED website. This website provides mini-lessons on all topics you can think about. The nifty part is the videos can be “flipped” to better fit your teaching needs! These innovative lessons online allow educators to get in touch with thousands of other minds in order to collaborate to create great teaching opportunities for our learners. From real-world math to the fine arts, this website has it all. Not only do you get a great lesson video but there are resources attached to each lesson that help extend thinking beyond just watching and absorbing. These extension features called “Think” and “Dig Deeper” give educators some ideas on how to make the information comprehensible for students, and how to take that thinking one step further.
The Mathematics video I chose is about the number one as a unit. “One bag of apples, one apple, one slice of apple,” which one of these is one? The lesson takes students through an animated lesson on partitioned and composed units and the importance of understanding how we see these numbers. In order to help students grasp this material I wanted to have them work on the comprehension strategies; making connections, questioning and visualizing, as well as asking investigative questions to help identify main idea.
As students watch the movie there are breaks that occur several times. The students have about a minute or longer to think about what they saw and record their questions, pictures or how the information reminded them of something they have learned before. Then the teacher asks a question about the main idea covered in that segment. Students should have a few minutes to record their thoughts and answers. At the end of the video all of those mini-connections should come together to make new understanding about the concept as a whole! Students should work in small groups to discuss their thoughts and notes on the Danielson video. Have students record their discussions on a poster paper to share with the class or in their individual notebooks to keep for later use.
By the end of the lesson your class should have a better understanding for the concept of units and the ambiguity of the concept of “one.” For complex topics such as this, that might frustrate students in a lecture, we can use digital texts to make the ideas easily accessible. Digital texts such like the TED-ED video caters best to visual and auditory learners and expands the literacy development of all students in the classroom. For a more in-depth view of this lesson and how it can be modified, check out the lesson plan I created to incorporate Christopher Danileson’s digital text in the mathematics classroom!
Sarajean,
I am so impressed. You are very thorough in your description of the video. Though I was unable to view the video, I really like the whole concept of “flipping” the video the meet the needs of your students. How cool is that. I definitely think I could use this resource in my future classroom to help reinforce the concept of money. I too chose to focus on money (a game to reinforce money concepts) and think this video can be a useful resource in helping to teach the initial concepts of counting money. I like that the video stops for about a minute every so often, giving the teacher time to ask clarifying questions and assess student comprehension and thinking. Thank you for incorporating the lesson plan as well. It really helped me to better visualize how I could incorporate this resource in my lesson.
I wish I could have viewed the video and I look forward to seeing just how “flipping” the video works. Would you use this video as an initial way to introduce the lesson, or would it be used to later clarify and or reinforce the concepts? All in all, great work.
Thanks,
KME
This was a very well thought out lesson plan. You put a lot of work into this. I wish I could have seen the video, but I will definitely look at it after class. I also love how I can use this in my future classroom to help me teach and collaborate with other teachers. Your hard work has clearly show through. Great job!
Thanks,
SG