The power of kids teaching kids

I feel strongly about getting children to teach each other. They get so much more understanding of concepts when they not only learn but have to understand each concept enough to be able to teach others.
At the beginning of the term I was talking to one of my students who showed some great understanding about something I was trying to teach. Once he completed the set task I asked him to become the teacher and explain what to do to the rest of his group. He looked concerned and asked, "why do you ALWAY get us to teach each other?"
This comment made me giggle. I made my most innocent face and said, "Be honest with me! How often do you switch off when I talk too much?"
To that comment he scratched his head and looked at his feet. "Does that answer your question?' I asked. He just nodded.

I have adopted a new teaching model for my maths lessons.
Model
Do
Create

At first we look at a strategy. We work together as a group, looking at materials, discussing the strategy and trying it out together. The children then move on to complete some questions on their own. After the kids have had a practice they begin by creating videos using our cameras, laptops and iPad to show their understanding of the strategies. We create videos of children working with materials, we also use apps such as ShowMe and Educreations.
I am still getting there in terms of loading the videos onto our wiki page but here is what I have put up already:
http://room26pvs.wikispaces.com/Our+Maths+Vids

What I found really, and I mean, REALLY useful about doing this is the instant feedback about what the children understand and what they still need help with. I can see if I have to revisit a strategy to clarify some learning or I can see when kids need to move on.

To anyone who decides to give this a go I would say, go for it!
There are some things you have to be aware of:

• make sure you teach your students how to present their videos (we're still working on this one). For the first few videos I have had to constantly remind the kids to explain what they are doing step by step. They found it quite tricky at the beginning but they are getting much better at explaining what to do.
• get the kids to work with a buddy or a group of three (any more becomes unmanageable). This way you get great discussions about the learning. When one is stuck or has made a mistake then the other(s) is quick to correct them and help explain where they went wrong. So they are teaching each other in the video making process.
• talk to the students about how they use their cameras. I still get very shaky videos which can make a person feel motion sick while watching. Tripods are great, if you don't have one of those get one child to hold the camera and the other to write or move materials.

The next step for me is to apply this video making process to other curriculum areas. Watch this space!

How do you use video in your class?