Interest-driven video creation for learning mathematics

The teacher-directed approach characteristic of the traditional classroom normally adopted by mathematics teachers provides few opportunities for students to develop their mathematical problem-solving skills and little encouragement for them to engage in conversation. Furthermore, this approach might not be flexible to students’ individual learning needs and could generate low interest in mathematics among students. To reduce these learning problems, this study proposes a student-centered learning activity called interest-driven video creation, which adopts interest-driven creator (IDC) theory in its design. By viewing cognitive apprenticeship strategies as subcomponent concepts of the creation loop in IDC theory, this study could articulate and enrich the creation loop model of IDC design in mathematics. In an interest-driven video creation activity, students solved mathematics word problems through individual and group creation of tutorial videos. With these videos, students could teach their fellow classmates by discussing mathematics concepts and sharing ideas. The preliminary results reveal significant improvements in mathematics achievement and show that both high- and low-achieving students have positive attitudes and low anxiety regarding the activity and perceive both mathematics and the learning activity to be highly useful. In addition, the students’ perceptions of the benefits of the activity for learning are positive overall. Students also agree that they enjoy and engage in the video creation activity and that the activity helps them to learn mathematics better and improves their communication skills, teamwork skills, and filmmaking techniques.