Week Eight: Activity Two

Learning Adventure: Numbers and Songs Lesson Plan

The best way to learn a subject is to teach it. This lesson allows students to create lyrics and songs that incorporate mathematical concepts. Then they have to put the lyrics to melodies and record it. Finally, the videos are displayed for the whole class.

In order for this lesson to meet the needs in my classroom, I would use this as a review at the beginning of the school year of concepts that students are supposed to know before coming to my class. The students would share their videos and their peers would have to rate the accuracy and sense of the lyrics of each video. I believe I'll have students post their finish projects/videos to a class website or blog, where students can go on and provide feedback to their classmates' posts before the final day of showing and grading. Then, we would review as a whole class before a quiz. This would be a fun activity that would break the ice with students as well as get them interested in math with a review of concepts they should know.

This lesson supports multimodal learning and the development of digital literacies, because students are working in groups to come up with a mathematical music video. They will have to collaborate through various methods at home and at school, and then incorporate their created lyrics into a song to be recorded. They will have to know how to use computers, edit music, lyrics, and video clips, and compile all the information and skills of the group to complete this project. The blogging and posting will allow students to provide feedback for each other's projects. Thus, being able to create, provide feedback, and edit (according to the feedback given) are the basic skills necessary for digital literacies.