Different Way to Check Students' Understanding

I am a Math teacher in Cleveland Metro Schools at John Marshall IT HS.

I used to think showing written student work samples was enough to assess student understanding of the math concepts that I taught. Now I think that it is extremely important for students to describe and talk through their thinking process when faced with a challenging math problem. Students in my class showed their understanding of a concept by recording themselves talking through solving a problem!

It surprised me that so many of my students were willing to jump right in and use their iPads, while still some students were apprehensive about switching over to completely using technology.

In the future I want to implement the station rotation model in my classroom with different opportunities for students to use technology. I also want to continue to use recordings of students explaining their thinking to assess their understanding.