The morning Math Challenge in Mrs. Zora’s classroom has taken a bit of a twist toward the end of the school year. Since this past Spring, she’s been using her iPad with Doceri software to encourage her students to take risks, and better understand their problem solving steps.

“The students work the problem and I walk around as they are working,” says Zora. “I am able to add hints via my iPad, or best yet…I hand the iPad to a student and they show their solution.”

Instant Replay

Doceri’s screen recording function allows Mrs. Zora and her class to “re-wind” through the problem, step by step.

“This is so powerful. If the solution has an error, it is possible to isolate the step that has ‘gone wrong’ and analyze the error. While on the surface this may seem to be a simple use of the software and iPad, there are important implications for learning in this process.”

“Many students, particularly in math, are not willing to take risks or get problems wrong,” she says, “so they often will not attempt challenging problems.”

Motivating and Efficient

“Using the iPad and Doceri is not only motivating, and an efficient use of teaching time, but students will take the risk to use the iPad and get their work displayed in real time. Errors become shared learning experiences. Risks are good, different ways to solve the same problem can quickly be shown, math become less about the computation and more about the thinking and the showing.”

Dana Persson Zora teaches sixth grade at Stevens Elementary School in Aberdeen, Washington.

We’ve recreated Mrs. Zora’s Morning Math Challenge – join us for the instant replay.