I like to have as many resources as possible available to my
students to help address their differing learning styles. For several years I
have posted pdfs of my class notes on Schoology. Originally this was intended
to be used by students who had been absent. However, my students soon realized
that if they were having trouble keeping up in class, they would either print
my notes out or pull them up on their iPads to follow along and annotate during
class. Over time, more and more students have been automatically obtaining the
notes ahead of time so that they can spend more time listening in class and
less time scribbling down the notes that are on the board.

Last year, after many of my Algebra 2 students started
subscribing to Mary Beth’s YouTube channel so they could watch her videos, I
recognized a need for my advanced math students to have access to video lessons
too. While there are many quality video lessons available on YouTube for
Algebra and Geometry, I couldn’t find good lessons that were
specifically tied to my textbooks, so I decided to make them myself.  Any student of mine can now go onto Schoology
and when they look in a lesson folder they will find a pdf of the notes, a
video lesson and the homework assignment. 

Creating the videos is a lot of work
and at first I was disappointed by how few “views” my lessons were getting.
However, as the quarter has progressed, absences have started and quizzes and
tests are becoming more challenging. Now when I check out my YouTube channel I
can see that more and more students are making use of the videos. I think that
the extra effort is paying off.