For our project, we are aiming to teach how to calculate the perimeter of shapes to elementary students. When I typed our topic on YouTube the video attached below was one of the first few videos I found, therefore I will be analyzing this video for this blog post.

  • I believe that this video is somewhat interactive as it says statements that students can think about and follow along (particularly in the portion where they calculate perimeter for certain shapes). Although this video appears to be somewhat interactive, I don’t think it does a good job at being inherently interactive, as it does not provide adequate background information about the perimeter. The video simply provides a very short definition of a perimeter and then quickly begins to discuss calculation techniques and unit conversions. Moreover, I believe that the video is not inherently interactive as it does not ask thoughtful questions that would require students to actively engage and think and reflect on their prior knowledge and current understanding of the topic.

  • Frankly, I don’t think this video provides enough knowledge particularly regarding the importance of perimeter and why we need to calculate it, as the video seems to focus more on just calculation techniques. Therefore after they have watched this video, I would suggest they watch a longer video introducing perimeter and why it is important to learn. This video can be used to provide students with a basic definition and overview of the perimeter, therefore it could be incorporated at the beginning of our third lesson in our project. After they have gained adequate knowledge regarding the topic, they can then go back to the first video and watch the portion of the video where they practice calculations. They can then follow along with our lesson place and find objects in the classroom and calculate their perimeter. By practicing the calculations along with the video and through meaningful objects in the class, the students would be able to develop their measuring skills.

  • As the assignment of calculating the perimeter of objects in the classroom, would be formative, the educator would provide feedback either individually or in groups based on if the students work in small groups or by themselves. Feedback could be given orally by educators talking to students individually or in groups regarding their assessment or through Microsoft teams, fresh grade math, or other similar online platforms. Using these technological platforms would allow the educator to keep track of the student’s progress as well as allow parents/guardians to know how their child is understanding the content taught in school.
  • An aspect of the video that I personally to be challenging is the background music sound. I found it to be very distracting, therefore I can only assume that this might be even more challenging for students who have heating difficulties. Therefore, I would either provide an alternate video without background music or would provide subtitles for the current video to address this barrier. I would also recommend that students slow down the video in the setting section so that the video would be easier to follow along, instead of its current nature of being very quick which can be hard to follow.

References:

Free School. (2016, January 5). Intro to Perimeter for Kids: How to Find the Perimeter of Polygons – FreeSchool [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mopAgqjkVM