Using an evaluative tool to develop effective mathscasts

Abstract

This study is situated in a course designed for both on-campus and online pre-service and in-service teachers, where student-created mathscasts provide a way for university lecturers to assess students’ quality of teaching, and understanding of mathematics. Teachers and pre-service teachers, in a university course with 90% online enrolment, were asked to create mathscasts to explain mathematics concepts at middle school level. This paper describes the process of developing and refining a tool for the creation and evaluation of quality student-produced mathscasts. The study then investigates the usefulness of the tool within the context of pedagogy and mathematical understanding. Despite an abundance of mathscasts already available on the web, there is merit in creating mathscasts, not only as a tool for teaching, but also as a means of learning by doing. The premise for creating student-produced mathscasts was to capture the creators’ mathematical understanding and pedagogical approach to teaching a mathematical concept, which were then peer-assessed and graded. The analysis included surveys, practice mathscasts with peer- and self-reviews, and students’ final assessed mathscasts. The results indicate that the use of the evaluative tool resulted in an improvement in quality of student-created mathscasts and critiques thereof. The paper concludes with a discussion on future directions of student-produced mathscasts.