Grading Students Using Khan Academy (Week 5)
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 6:38PM Today marks the beginning of Week 5 and I surveyed all 64 of my students. Here are the questions (and results):
1) Do you have a computer at home? (96% yes)
2) Do you have internet at home? (82% yes)
3) Do you want Khan Academy to count towards your grade? (88% yes)
Sample Responses
Action Plan
Students are on-board and pumped for grading through KA. Now, how do I grade students using KA? Here are my thoughts:
I want KA to represent 50% of my students 4th quarter grades.
5th grade curriculum roughly takes students through all the modules up to "Prime Factorization". Completing all modules up to this point will earn students a "B", which at my school, represents being at-grade-level. I will individually conference with students to determine their module requirement for an "A", which represents a student who is above-grade-level.
Through "Subtraction 4" will represent 4th grade curriculum, which will translate to a "C"
Anything below will earn students a "D"
Significantly below will be a "U" (equivalent to an F at my school).
I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas, what do you think?
Reader Comments (4)
HI,
I just decided to start using the KA for my 7/8 pre-alg and alg 1 classes. I, too, am struggling with grading. One of the things I like about KA is that it can give those students that are way behind a chance to succeed and to catch up. I'm concerned that if I base their grade on how many concepts they master in a week/month/trimester, then those students that take a long time to understand math are getting punished even though they may be giving it a great effort. I'm thinking that maybe adding an effort element or amount of time outside class that they work on KA as a way to boost their grade. That way, if a student is really putting in the time but just plugging along slowly, they can still be successful.
Many of my students have more or less resigned themselves that they are stupid with math, will never get it, and just plain give up. Some of them know how to play the game so that it looks like they know what they are doing but they really have no idea.
I've been using KA for about 6 weeks now. I'm using it 100% just to see how it goes. Students really like it. I want to add my own videos for them to watch next year and I would really like to get a sound program in place.
Another questions I wonder about is whether or not getting a streak of 10 is sufficient enough to show mastery. Should I include mid-terms? I think the gut reaction is YES, but why? If they can show proficiency, isn't that good enough.
I look forward to your thoughts on all this and would love to work with you and other teachers to put together how best we could use KA in the classroom.
Regards,
Joe Donahue
GCT, Sydney, 2011
Joe,
“I'm concerned that if I base their grade on how many concepts they master in a week/month/trimester, then those students that take a long time to understand math are getting punished even though they may be giving it a great effort.”
It’s interesting you mention that. My school and other schools in Chicago seem to be pushing towards keeping student effort out of grades. For example, my charter network (UNO) prohibits teachers from giving grades for homework, participation, or class work. Thus, students grades only reflect their mastery of content from assessments. Are grades accepted to reflect student effort where you teach in Australia?
Perhaps you could consider altering your KA grading system to strictly reflect mastery of content, and explain this to your students. For example, you could provide students with a document similar to this so they can track their grades themselves. Tracking their own grades and seeing what they need to accomplish to earn a certain grade could be very empowering. I will be introducing this self-tracking of their KA grade to students on Monday (5/9/11) so I will give you more feedback then.
You could use timed in-class Arithmetic Challenges, Pre-Algebra Challenges, etc. to replace midterms and finals—or tell students ahead of time that their final for the class will be a timed Pre-Algebra Challenge on a certain date. That way, students can practice and ‘study’ for the mid-term or final ahead of time.
I too would love to continue bouncing ideas.
— Harsh
Can you update on the response to the student grade tracker. Plus i need help determining what is an acceptable finishing point for Grades 6, 7 and 8. How did you determine which module should be the end point for your grade 5's?
Hamza,
I chose the ending point based on what I saw in the Illinois state standards, as well as by choosing what I knew my students definitely needed to know before they moved on to 6th grade for my school in particular.
I'd love to update, but I'm not sure what you mean by the response to the student grade tracker.
Thanks for reading! And commenting!