Teaching Online: Modeling a Math Lesson

I am currently teaching a practicum class online and we run a virtual school program. I am learning a lot of things and want to share some tips along the way.

Modeling online is hard because it is hard to draw online. I think it also takes up a lot of time an for some reason, teaching is slower online and time seems to go faster.

One thing you might try doing is to solve the problem on a piece of paper before class and taking a picture of each step finished. Or you can do it in a word document and take screenshots. You can also save as a PDF or put into a PowerPoint presentation.

Then when you share your screen and are modeling how to solve the problem, you can share either your pictures, presentation or PDF file but you aren't having to try to draw on the screen. 

For example: (see attached) 

Picture 1 - The question: Bill has 2 boxes. Each box has 4 pencils. How many pencils does Bill have?

Picture 2 - Same as picture 1 but underline the important words 

Picture 3 - Same as picture 2 but now you have pencils in boxes drawn.

Picture 4 - same as picture 3 but count all the pencils

Picture 5 - same as picture 4 but now with addition equation

Picture 6 - same as picture 5 but added multiplication equation. 

Then you could do another problem but have each student go through the steps together with you. 

Bob has 3 boxes. Each box has 5 books. How many books does Bob have? 

1.     Read the question out loud. Show question on Screen.

2.     Everyone - underline the important words. (Show picture with words underlined)

3.     Let's draw - what will you draw? (books). Let's draw 5 books. Draw a box around the 5 books. Let's draw another box of 5 books. Now let's draw the third box of books. (Show picture 2 but with pictures of books added)

4.     Let's add how many books altogether (15) (Show picture 3)

5.     What addition equation would we write? (5 + 5+ 5 = 15) Great! Let's write that down. (Show picture 3 with addition equation)

6.     What multiplication equation would we write? (3 x 5 = 15) (Show picture 5 with multiplication equation added)

Original photo by Pat Hensley