“Kids teaching Kids”: Student-Created Tablet-based Mathtrain.TV Tutorials For A Global Audience

Abstract

This paper details the benefits of empowering students to create video tutorials. For the past 6 years, middle school students at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, California have adopted a “kids teaching kids” model. The students use a Tablet PC to create short mathematics tutorial lessons (“screencasts”) based on classroom material. Their voice and writings are recorded simultaneously using screen-recording software and produced as a video file. The student-created tutorials are shared with their peers during class instruction, on the class iTunes podcast, YouTube channel, as well as YouTube EDU, our student created mobile apps, and archived on their own Mathtrain.TV video Web site. A global audience emerged as students, parents/guardians, teachers, and the general public across the country and world began accessing this on-line library of freely available lessons. Students enthusiastically spend hours after school, on their own time, collaborating with other students, as they contribute to the library of student-created tutorials. They are self-motivated and never receive a grade or extra credit for these screencasts. Over 155 countries have accessed Mathtrain.TV. Students of all levels are having fun while taking an active role in their own learning and recognizing its global impact.