Video Homeworks?

Just thinking aloud...

I'm not the only one with a video camera in my phone.  Most of my pupils have the same technology in their pockets.  I wonder if I could convince some of them to record a video explaining their thinking as they solve one of the questions in their homework?

That would be really interesting. I would receive so much more information about their thinking processes, which would in turn allow me to provide higher quality feedback to them.

Sometimes the language that pupils use highlights misconceptions that are not apparent from their written work. For example, I was working with an advanced higher pupil on Friday, who asked me, when tackling the step below,  "what happens to the dy?"

$\int dy = \int x^2 dx$

I asked her what happens to the dx in a regular integration, and she said "it turns into +c?".  Further discussion showed that she had not grasped the fact that the integration symbol, plus the "dx", represent an instruction to perform an operation - the operation of integration with respect to x.  Once she had this, her problem with the dy evaporated.