Journal Post # 9

Looking through the different choices that I had for typing this post, I clicked on the link: 2012 K-12 Online Conference, and stumbled upon the event: Student Voices Keynotes  as if the title on student keynotes didn't capture enough of my attention, the following text: " Kids Teaching Kids" really got my full attention. I was always told that an individual doesn't truly understand something, until he/she can teach it.

The short, sixteen minute clip, is by a young girl named Tiana Kadkhoda, who is a senior in a High School, in Santa Monica, California, has been participating in Mathtrain.tv since she was in the sixth grade, 2006, under the name of " Paul."

This website is a forum,  where teachers may post homework assignments, class work and any other miscellaneous math related work for his/her students.Tiana says that she enjoys using this website for homework questions to the teacher, as well as being able to use the instant messaging function on the website to be able to communicate with her classmates about the class or a homework question.

As a 6th grader, Tiana remembers instant messaging her teacher about a math problem, and within the hour not only did Tiana get a reponse, but the reply happened to be a great video on how to do the math problem that she was asking her teacher about. The video was a recording of the screen while the professor, Mr. Marco's worked on solving the problem while he was explaining it through audio. By this point, Mr. Marco's inspired his students to get involved in creating their own videos to teach other students. Tiana says that now, if one logs on to the website, all the websites are done by students, and Mr. Marco's no longer creates them, thanks to his students efforts. She loved getting treated as an "equal" and was more engaged and encouraged by being able to use one of Mr. Marco's computer/tablet to create the student videos.

Tiana says a very important point in her video: "I am forced to think outloud, by making this video, I am able to master the concept." As I mentioned earlier in my blog, when we are able to teach somebody else something we had learned, that's when we truly know how to do/make something. She says that it is great to teach other students by her videos, and having over thirty-thousand views on one of her videos, really motivates her, and really makes her realize how helpful these videos are to another student who may be having problems with homework, or their math class overall. 

A screen shot of Tiana speaking from her video:

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Not all students have parents at home who can teach their children, and tutors are not always available due to various reasons. What this young girl does is absolutely amazing, as an aspiring teacher, I believe that students can really teach their friends,classmates, peers, at a different level. This picture is a screen shot of what Tiana's math videos look like :

 


As Tiana mentions in her video, students have a different language, sometimes. There are times where a teacher may be trying to have their student understand a concept, but the teacher may not change the teaching style for the student to understand, therefore the student may feel "stuck" not knowing the concept. A student who does understand the subject may be able to teach the student who feels stuck because they are standing on a similar intelligence level, and being able to communicate with each other in a similar language within themselves.

For students to be able to make these videos, and teach themselves, and their classmates, helps the students become engaged in the classroom, not only to come into the classroom to get lectured, but to truly understand, to truly grasp the concept. Tiana says that making these videos helped her work collaboratively with her teachers, it also allowed her to understand how hard educators work for their students. Many students don't look past the fact that they have " so much homework" or " how tired they are", giving students the opportunity, as Mr. Marco's gave Tiana, really helps the students understand what their fellow educators have to do in order to be successful in educating others.




As I watched this video, I kept going back to it to hear it again, ( I watched it three times, to make sure I was really understanding it, while I was typing). I was motivated and inspired just as the young girl, Tiana. I believe that her professor, Mr. Marco's did a wonderful thing by letting Tiana become " Paul " on the website and be able to create videos to teach other students, and not only motivate herself to learn, but motivate others to learn, and motivate others to learn it so well that they too want to create their own videos, such as her friend " Bob."