Video-based instruction and its role in today's classroom: A study of Square One TV and The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury

Teaching and Learning Department capstone projectVideo-based curricula have been around since the early 1920s. While the technology for and content of video-based curricula has evolved, the effectiveness of these programs in motivating students and bringing life outside the classroom into the classroom has remained consistent. This paper looks at how two video-based curricula developed for the mathematics classroom benefited student achievement. The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (CTGV) developed The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury specifically for classroom use. This program helped students become excited about math, learn how to generate their own problems, and see the usefulness of mathematics. The Children's Television Workshop (CTW) developed Square One TV as a public broadcast television show that eventually made its way into classrooms. Research also found this program to be effective in engaging students in mathematical task, showing the usefulness of math outside of the classroom, and connecting math to other disciplines. Even with the positive results that these programs showed, they are no longer widely used in classrooms today. Lack of access to the program or technology needed to use it and lack of time due to fast-paced standards based courses all attribute to the dismissal of these programs from US classrooms. This paper looks closely at how these two video-based programs enhanced the learning environment, engaged learners, supported effective teaching methods, and how they can be assessed.Department of Teaching and LearningPeabody College of Education and Human Developmen