Awesome

**The students are to know that completing the square with algebra tiles is similar to creating an area model for any other quadratic expression that works to create a rectangle; however, in this case a perfect rectangle can not be formed so they can create a square as long as they don't change the value of the quadratic expression.**
 * Stories that Teach **
 * What do you want the students to know at the end of the project?**

**The students need to know how to take a quadratic expression and create an area model with algebra tiles. They must also recognize the algebraic representations for each (area as a sum & area as a product).**
 * What do the students need to know before they start on the story?**

**The students will see the video after they have spent some time making area models out of quadratic expressions that form nice even rectangles (ex: x^2 + 4x + 4 will form a rectangle/square with sides x+2). They will receive an expression that does not form a rectangle but a square with a few extra pieces left (ex: x^2 + 4x + 6).**
 * How will you introduce the story?**


 * What kind of technology tool(s) did you use?**
 * I used Go Animate to create the movie and used Smart Recorder to record the voice portion & the video. **


 * How will you assess the the students' understanding of what you have taught using your story?**
 * I will then let the students go back to trying to form a rectangle with their tiles. If they can create the square and write the algebraic expression that goes along with their area model then I know they were able to make the conncection. **


 * How does your story reflect Mayer's Principles?**
 * Multiple Representation Principle: It is better to present an explanation in words and pictures than solely in words.**
 * The story doesn't directly deal with the concept however it is similar to a student being interrogated about how/why he did what he did when the expression couldn't create a nice rectangle. The student wasn't sure why he did what he did, he just knew it was mathematically correct. It also tries to get my students to be confident in their math abilities because the student was correct the whole time. **..


 * Contiguity Principle: When giving a multimedia explanation, present corresponding words and pictures contiguously rather than separately**
 * The word bubbles pop up when the person should be speaking them **.


 * Coherence Principle: When giving a multimedia explanation, use few rather than many extraneous words and pictures**
 * This principle is the main reason I attempted to use the smart recorder to add audio and remove the speech bubbles. It was difficult to get the timing correct **.

**Similar to Coherence Principle... I attempted to remove the speech bubbles and replace them with audio**.
 * Modality Principle and Redundancy Principle: Students learn better from animation and narration than from animation and on screen text**


 * Individual Differences Design effects are stronger for low knowledge learners than high knowledge learners and high spatial learners than low spatial learners**


 * The students that don't recognize (or recall) that a square is a rectangle will benefit most from this video. Once they make this connection the other pieces of how to actually complete the square should fall into place **.


 * Embed/Link your story here:**

ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ARE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME STORY... 1) The first story has no music & no voice but has speech bubbles...  .  media type="custom" key="5813893"

2) The second story has music & speech bubbles...  .  media type="custom" key="5814009"

3) The third story has voice & speech bubbles ...  //(this one ran in Internet Explorer but I had to allow an add on to run)//  .  media type="file" key="voice with bubbles.wmv" width="300" height="300"

4) The fourth story is my attempt at voice & no speech bubbles ... // (this one ran in Internet Explorer but I had to allow an add on to run) // . <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 150%;">media type="file" key="voice with no bubbles.wmv" width="300" height="300"