Chapter 7 in our Algebra 1 textbooks is all about exponents and exponent rules.  It is super dry (lots of rote memorization), but critical to their success in future math chapters and classes.  So I decided to try something a little different because I wanted my students to be able to fully understand and explain these exponent rules, not just regurgitate them on a typical test.  As I often do in class, I referenced my favorite Einstein quote, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough,” and decided to ask the students to explain the rules to me–via video.  The expectation was that they would explain why the exponent rules work, not just show me that they work.

Not quite sure the best way to do this, I attended Joan’s lunch demo of screencasting (such perfect timing!) and she really helped me get the ball rolling.  We found a great app (ShowMe) to record videos with, but when the time came to submit these videos, there were quite a few issues.  The biggest being that most of these videos are 5-10 minutes long and few platforms have the capacity to store that amount of content.  We are still working through this part of it.

I haven’t made it through all of the submissions yet, but so far they have been amazing.  Allowing the students to prove their understanding in a creative way really helped me see them in a different light … and we don’t even need to get into the brain science that supports using both “sides” of your brain in a math classroom.  The creativity of this one in particular blew me away:

Chapter 7 Alternative Assessment Student Sample
*It is over 7 minutes long so you obviously do not need to watch all of it, but the creativity comes across right away.

Even after all of the logistical snafus, the feedback from the students was very positive:

Almost 70% said that this type of assessment helped them understand these concepts more than if they had taken a traditional test.