How to Use Khan Academy in the Classroom

The following link is extremely comprehensive:

www.khanacademy.org/toolkit

• Computers for all students
  • Completely replace your curriculum (Mr. D's Khan Academy - He did it this way in 2010-2011)
    • Class Time
      • Students: Working on KA during class, have the freedom to ask each other for help, refer to other on-line resources, ask teacher, etc. This empowers students and fosters a learning mentality where students take charge of their own learning. 
      • Teacher: Pull targeted small groups based on KA teacher dashboard by identifying struggling students. You can also pull groups based on any other criteria you wish. This basically enables you to do small group instruction all day, every day. 
    • Homework
      • Assign an amount of time students spend on KA
      • For small groups, assign specific videos and exercises, either for enrichment or remediation.
    • Grades
      • Determine which exercises must be completed for your grade-level to earn an A, B, C, or D. This is like pseudo-standards based grading. Teacher is fully responsible for determining which exercises qualify for which grade-level. This requires you to experience all of the exercises like a student would to identify what students need to know for each exercise (a time-consuming process, but very meaningful).
      • Share what you decide to be the required exercises with your students. This is a very empowering document, simliar to this.
  • Supplement Curriculum
    • Class Time
      • Students: A group of them work on KA for part of the time, while another group is progressing through curriculum with your instruction.
      • Teacher: Teaching the standard curriculum to ½ of the students while ½ of them are on KA, then switching groups half-way through class.
    • Homework
      • Standard homework based on curriculum, KA not assigned as homework, but encouraged.
    • Grades
      • Standard grading policy for curriculum based on tests and quizzes.
      • Make KA worth 50% of the entire grade while curriculum is worth 50%, or vary the %ages based on your specific implementation.
• Computers for some students
  • This is likely the most common use of KA. You can set up your classroom in to centers/stations. Example:
    • 3 centers
      • Khan Academy
      • Instruction with Teacher
      • On-going Projects
    • 4 centers
      • Khan Academy
      • Instruction with Teacher
      • Math game center
      • Word-Problem, explain your response center

Essentials

• Track and display student/group progress on a bulletin board/poster. Students need the visual recognition.
• Let students know how they will be graded by creating a knowledge map specific to your grade level. An example can be found here.
• Allow students to add each other or their group as coaches to keep track of group progress and identify struggling teammates so they can help each other.
• Dedicate one class period every week or two to teaching students how to best use the KA coaching view. New features are constantly being added that can be useful for students so it’s important you keep up with them and teach students how to use them.

I would love to hear your ideas on using KA in the classroom. How have you been using it in your classroom?

Comments

[English Expressions]

The Khan Academy started with Khan remotely tutoring one of his cousins interactively using Yahoo Doodle images. Based on feedback from his cousin, additional cousins began to take advantage of the interactive, remote tutoring.