Occasionally Elementary: The Making of All About That Base (Denominator): An Educational Parody on Adding Fractions

Making Educational Parodies for the Classroom

Every time I have taught Grade 9 Math in Summer School, I am surprised by how many students forget how to add fractions! I'll go through a few examples and then provide them with a handout to reference, but there will always be a small handful that zone out, lose the handout, or immediately forget the steps the next day. You know what students don't forget though? A cringeworthy music parody that their teacher made them watch!

Inspiration:

Browsing through Pinterest one day, I stumbled upon a funny math parody. I can't remember which video specifically now, but my favourites were all by WSHSmath. I always love the idea of using cross-curricular activities to make math more accessible and engaging for students, so the idea of making an educational parody to teach a math concept was really exciting to me! After watching some of the videos, I was inspired to make my own educational parody! What else would pop into my head first expect one of the most popular pop songs on the radio at the time: All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor (click here for Trainor's original song/video).

How do Intermediate students respond to Educational Parodies?

I spent about a month teaching grade 7 and 8 music. Now, I don't have my music qualification...but I know that curriculum expectations for both grade 7 and 8 involve students demonstrating an understanding of standard music notation. I earned my Grade 8 Practical and Grade 2 Theory certificates for Piano back in high school, so I do at least have experience reading and performing music. A majority of the students either didn't know how to read music at all, or were not confident in their abilities to read music, so I used that as a starting point.

While gathering resources and materials for teaching and practicing the Treble and Bass clefs, I stumbled upon the following Educational Parodies by Jeanette Young:

I Knew You Were Treble and All About That Bass (Clef)

Even though I was going into a different class each period, each day of the week, every set of students had the same mix of reactions: either they were excited to be watching a video (no matter what it was) or they would realize it was an Educational parody and begin to groan and complain. Surprisingly, the ones that seemed to groan and complain the most were the ones that would ask to watch it again! They loved to hate it! Each time a majority of the class would end up singing along, ironically or not, and would request to watch them again the next class!

The Video (with and without vocals):

All About That Base (Denominator) with Vocals

Parody of All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor

(Scroll to bottom of post for lyrics)

All About That Base (Denominator), Karaoke Version

Making the Video:

One of the things I loved about Jeanette Young's videos was that they didn't show any people in them, but still did a great job of getting the message across with other visuals; I wouldn't need my own class or school to make one like that!

I wanted something a little bit more interesting than showing still frames, but I have no experience with animation so I decided to use Microsoft PowerPoint. I would have a main slide for a particular part of the song, but then use the animation options and the Animation Pane to decide the order I wanted specific portions to appear, disappear, etc. I could also choose whether I wanted a series of movements to occur immediately after each other, or whether I wanted them to occur "on click". When it came time to sync the slides and animations to the audio, I figured out when in the song I needed to actually click and then practiced until I could do it comfortably. Then, I used the "Rehearse Timings" and "Record Slide Show" options to allow the slideshow to play on its own.

Recording the Audio:

For the music itself, I found a karaoke version of Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass by Sing King Karaoke on YouTube.

For the vocals (or at least, my attempt at vocals...) I used the microphone on my MacBook Air and Audacity, which is a free, open source, cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing. I had not used it before, but found tutorials online that were easy to follow.

Final Thoughts:

Pretty much any question that came up during this whole process, whether figuring out how to do something in PowerPoint, Audacity, etc. I was able to search online and find an answer quickly and easily. I hope to get brave enough to show this in my own classroom someday, either as an opener to a lesson on adding fractions or as a follow up to a lesson to review what they learned. Also, having taught Grade 9 Math in Summer Session for a few years now, I like the idea of offering an alternative to the "Create Your Own Math Game" Project as a Summative Assessment. I could show mine as an exemplar of my expectations for the assignment until I have one from a student to show. Someday making an educational parody video with my students and other educators is now on my bucket list, once I'm hired on as a permanent teacher!

Lyrics:

All About That Base (Denominator)
Parody of All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor

Because you know I'm all about that base,
'Bout that base, denominator
I'm all about that base, 'bout that base, denominator
I'm all about that base, 'bout that base, denominator
I'm all about that base, 'bout that base

Yeah it's not always clear what you're supposed to do
But I can find a number that they both fit into
'Cause I got that multiple that's commonplace
All the right factors in all the right spaces
I see some students that try to straight up swap
We know that don't make sense
Come on now, make it stop
Use common multiples to raise 'em up
'Cause what you do to the bottom
You must also to the top

Yeah, my teacher she told me don’t worry about the term’s size

She says, always reduce the last answer to simplify

You know I won’t change to decimals

Or forget to check them all

So, if that’s what you’re into

Then go ‘head, review this song

Because you know I’m all about that base,

‘Bout that base, denominator

I’m all about that base, ‘bout that base, denominator

I’m all about that base, ‘bout that base

Adding fractions back to back

Go ahead and have another try at that

I ain’t playing, I know you think you can’t

But I’m here to tell you

That what you do to the bottom

You must also to the top

Yeah, my teacher she told me don’t worry about the term’s size