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  Jennifer, most of the topics are related to the national curriculum, which is anchored to a fairly common set of ideas. In some cases, topics are pretty funny – a python eats a rabbit, so what is the percentage of change in mass. The teachers are just starting to get accustomed to the idea of making videos from science of their surroundings – this past week, i took a group of teachers to a beach on the Atlantic (near the famous Skeleton Coast in Namibia), and the process of connecting real world phenomena unique to their geography (there is no place like this in the world) is still novel. They are heavily invested in meeting curriculum goals, and facing many of the same struggles in nurturing deep and effective learning in light of performance demands that we face.

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  Jenna! What a great question. We have had some experience facilitating communications between youngsters creating videos in Long Beach CA and Helsinki. It was a wild experience! We are trying to do the same thing with youngsters in US and African locations, but are finding that our hosts are really intent on us working with teachers first – indeed, their interest is in professional development, as you and Brian put it. We are striving to make it happen and believe it will be sublime. This is a dream long in the making.

I have been spending this week at Namibia’s annual mathematics education conference, and gave a keynote yesterday on pedagogy. Much of our work is in the mechanics of learner-centrism, and the hard and mindful work of reflecting on practice. We focus a lot on interactivity, principles of media use in learning, feedback, and valuing multiple points of entry to the representation of concepts and structure. We try to help teachers decouple their own sophisticated understandings of mathematical ideas from that of students, pointing out how things they have automatized are now subconsciously part of their instruction, and unrecognizable to students, who then think math makes no sense. We work hard to highlight examples. We also try to get teachers to understand that ideas formed in rich socio-affective contexts are more durable than the didactics with which they are comfortable. And encourage them to feel permission to express joy in not only teaching but in mathematics. I know that is a lot of varied points, but that captures a bit of the pedagogical guidance we give.

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Helen, thank you for your kind comments. I agree that one of the most fascinating things about watching teachers and learners (that is what precollege students are called here in Namibia) stretch their creative competencies is that something new is showing up every time we observe it. Thank you for having such a supportive heart and knowledgeable and insightful mind on this work. :)

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Avron, we have thought deeply above evaluating impact. There are several tiers of evaluation – the students media-makers, the peers who learn from them, and their teachers. We are trying to think through the best ways to maximize the impact, so while looking for expanding, we are focused especially on making sure that the student and teacher teams not only derive great satisfaction and intellectual growth from the project, but those who use their videos do also. Thank you for your question. : )

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Betsy, I agree with Helen Teague’s comment below. Your phrasing was beautiful, and meant much to me. The challenges you refer to are small in some sense – learners and teachers readily take ownership of the media they create. We are finding a challenge in getting makers to move through the video improvement process that is necessary for what they produce to be usable outside of their immediate context. Thank you again.

Eric, thank you your kind comment. Few like to face the unknown reader so what you describe is fairly common in this online world that once was only text! I’ve moderated gated student online forums and have found that they can be a great..and fun place to peer edit practice for localize meaning and interpretations. Interesting to hear how video can focus some of the context so tight that it has difficulty engaging others “outside of their immediate context”. Thanks too for sharing that.

Helen,
Nice to hear someone giving digital tools a fair shot to aid learning. Science education has the benefit in that students need to learn the practice and benefits of research science to employ digital tools to assist complex problems. By starting with projects and developing “learning progressions”, our MSP project gained. HOWEVER…evaluation processes for STEM became a challenge.
Eric did your project run into that challenge?

Must respect and appreciation!