Kathy+Cash


 * Stories that Teach **


 * What do you want the students to know at the end of the story? ** My story is a play on the common mnemonic device "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally." Students often learn this short phrase to help them remember the order of operations. I hope that this entertaining story can help them not only remember the mnemonic device but also help them to apply the order of operations to real math problems.

Students need to have basic knowledge of the mathematical operations. They need to know what is meant by parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction and should be able to routinely carry out problems involving only one of these operations. By the time students reach my class, they have typically been exposed to the order of operations and can complete simple problems, but they often need some skill refreshing.
 * What do the students need to know before they start on the story?**

Prior to showing the short animation, I will show my students a very complicated order of operations problem and ask them if they remember how to solve it. I will then show the video as a refresher for the correct order or operations.
 * How will you introduce the story?**

I used the online program "GoAnimate" to create my story.
 * What kind of technology tool(s) did you use?**

After showing the story, I will use the same problem from my introduction and ask students to try to apply the order of operations to the problem. They have to describe, in words, each step that they follow in order to arrive at the correct solution.
 * How will you assess the the students' understanding of what you have taught using your story?**

Multiple Representation Principle: It is better to present an explanation in words and pictures than solely in words.** Steps for solving the problem are both explained and shown during the video so that students get both a verbal explanation and a visual one. The kids in the video are shown working the problem at the same time that they give explanations. I hope that my students can follow along with the kids in the animation.
 * How does your story reflect Mayer's Principles?

In my video, words and explanations occur simultaneously so they contiguity principle is definitely in place. I also tried to allow the animation to remain for a good length of time so students can read the explanation and see the changes that occur to the problem as it is worked.
 * Contiguity Principle: When giving a multimedia explanation, present corresponding words and pictures contiguously rather than separately.**

I tried to keep the actual teaching portion of the story very simple and neat. Though I used some fun animation and music (for its storytelling effect) throughout pieces of the story, the portion that is designed to teach my students is clear of all unnecessary movement, noise and objects.
 * Coherence Principle: When giving a multimedia explanation, use few rather than many extraneous words and pictures**

Unfortunately, this is one area where I failed. Though I attempted to find proper hardware for recording a voice so that I could use narration rather than written text, I did not succeed. If I were to do this project again, I would definitely try to find a way to use voice recording so that students would not have to read everything off the screen. I did, however, avoid the redundancy principle by not showing text and providing voiceover at the same time.
 * Modality Principle and Redundancy Principle: Students learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on screen text**

As I noted earlier, I fully expect that many of my students have had experience with the order of operations before. However, for those students who have never heard of "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" or for those students who have a particularly difficult time remembering random bits of information, I hope that my story gives them something concrete so that they have a means for knowing the mnemonic that will help them remember the order of operations.
 * Individual Differences Design effects are stronger for low knowledge learners than high knowledge learners and high spatial learners than low spatial learners**

Won't You Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally? Presented by Sr. Kathy Cash media type="custom" key="5827109"