Video Story Problem – Computing Length & Speed

Ben Rimes

I’ve been nurturing a new found love for short video projects, especially the idea of talking story problems and giving them a visual element. The story problem is probably one of the most classic examples of a very valid attempt at putting math into real world context (depending on the execution). I’ve always advocated to teachers that anything you can do to personalize your teaching, or make connections between the material you’re working with and something immediately recognizable in your learner’s environment helps.

However, I’m still a novice at this whole video story project concept. Making sure to provide the necessary information to solve the problem is fairly simple, but I’m still trying to figure out how best to incorporate extraneous data and information that students will have to filter out. It’s easy to add some distractions, as you can tell in the movie, but I’m looking for a systemic way to make sure to include enough pieces that the story problems fit into various curricula, 21st century learning models, and aren’t…well, awful. That having been said, the following two videos are a bit cheesy, but they might make for some great companion videos, or a challenge for anyone looking for a way to bring more visual elements into their classroom, short of having the students actually go out and do the work themselves (which would actually be pretty fun).

Warning: These problems are not difficult for more advanced users, and would probably be most useful in elementary grade levels.

Here’s the companion video, which you could use separately, or together, depending on your purposes. It might even be interesting to see if playing them if reverse order might change how easy or difficult the problems are.

If you’re feeling up to it, I’d love some specific feedback on these videos:

  1. Would a weekly series of video story problems like this be beneficial to you?
  2. If these video story problems aren’t beneficial to you, are there any changes that would make them better?
  3. What elements should video story problems get across to the students to make them a viable, multimedia learning experience, and not just “fluff”?
Special thanks to Mr. Jason Valade (@Jay2thaVee) for helping with the videos today.