At Dr. Losier Middle School, our core values are Personalization, Positive Relationships, and Equity, and our Compass Points - Iteration, Choice, Relevance, and Doing - guide our expectations. We noticed that just having a 1:1 iPad classroom was moving the needle beyond the initial novelty. What became increasingly apparent was that our pedagogy needed to shift to unlock the potential of the devices. In our math class, we asked: What happens when students record themselves solving a problem? "When students talk about their thinking, they are doing more than explaining a procedure; they are constructing meaning, making connections, and hearing multiple ways of seeing a problem" (Small, 2017). As a general question, we wanted to see whether requiring a student to talk their way through a problem would lead them to engage more with the skills required to solve it, because they would have to articulate how they solved it.
Teenagers, in general, know their way around a device as they are huge consumers of technology, but how often do they leverage the power of their device to do something they could not do without it? Having them solve math problems on paper and trying to implement math talk at the same time is tough, but the iPads made that more doable. We were also challenged on the math side. Many students struggle to articulate their reasoning. Traditional math assessments capture the what, but rarely the why. We wanted to shift towards a classroom where students explain, refine, and share their thinking, improving access and voice for all learners.
What we did:
- Every student in our grade 8 math class used an iPad to record themselves solving an order-of-operations problem and to talk through their reasoning. We chose the order of operations because of students' overall limited understanding on a pre-assessment and on the related learning targets from the previous year.
- Using built-in apps (Keynote, Notes, Screen Recorder, iMovie) and Airdrop for sharing, students shared their videos and received feedback based on a rubric.
- Each day, students received a new order-of-operations problem to solve, with scaffolding and instruction to support them, then reflected on their learning, shot their video, and submitted a final version.
- Teachers viewed the videos, gave feedback, collected pre- and post-test data, and ran pre-/post-surveys on student confidence and participation. This work embodied our Compass Points: Choice (which app to use and creative freedom to express themselves), Iteration (record and refine), Relevance (real student thinking, and Doing (creating a video).
Evidence of Impact:
Overall, students' average scores increased by +2.0 points, from a pre-test mean of 10.55 to a post-test mean of 13.10. The data show meaningful gains in student performance when math-talk videos were embedded in a 1:1 iPad math class. The +2.0-point growth suggests that when students articulate their reasoning, learning deepens.
By gender, male students showed an average growth of +3.4 points. While the female student showed a + 1.5 point growth. The difference in growth between male and female cohorts points to potential variations in how students engage with video-reflection tasks. While both improved, it invites further exploration around confidence, voice and format. As well, the increased growth among males may point to their disengagement with math concepts, and that using Small's math-talk strategy on the iPad requires additional engagement to complete the task.
The technology becomes the platform for creating, not just a substitution. As a school leader, in addition to being a math teacher, building and sustaining the right climate is foundational: we model risk-taking, value student voice and ensure that iteration, choice, relevance, and doing are universal and non-negotiable across our community. Using iPads to capture math talk helped students make their thinking visible and strengthened both their understanding and communication of mathematical ideas. The ability to record, review, and refine their explanations encouraged precision, confidence, and reflection - key habits of mathematical reasoning. The measurable growth in student performance suggests that structured math talk, supported by technology, can transform how learners engage in problem-solving. Moving forward, we aim to explore how this approach can be extended as a common assessment practice and how peer feedback and collaborative video analysis might further deepen conceptual understanding and discourse across the math classroom.
Reference
Small, M. (2017). Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction in the Standards-Based Classroom (3rd ed.). Teachers College Press.
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