- Hello all.
Welcome to seven tips for effective remote learning
with Khan Academy.
My name is Meaghan Pattani
and I head up US Teacher Education here at Khan Academy
and I'm joined today by my colleague Jeremy,
who leads our teacher success team.
So, just a little heads up,
today, we're gonna be covering tips and best practices
for remote teaching and learning.
Again, Jeremy and I are really here
to help support teachers and students
as they navigate this remote learning experience.
Jeremy and I are both former educators,
and we've tried to do our best to put ourselves
in your shoes going through this very chaotic time.
And we're gonna try our best to provide clear
and actionable steps using Khan Academy wherever possible.
Just a heads up, today we will not
be covering account setup or how to get started.
If you wanna learn more about
how to get started with Khan Academy.
I recommend using the link below,
in order to access our quickstart guide.
If you want a full copy of the slides
and all the links attached
in the handouts tab of GoToWebinar,
you'll find a full copy of the slides
from today's presentation.
So, why use Khan Academy for remote learning?
Well, Khan Academy is built
to serve learners anywhere at any time.
You can assign specific skills to practice,
or you can have students practice and get instant feedback,
you're able to keep track of student progress,
even when you're not together,
which right now we know is more important than ever.
Khan Academy is built to serve learners,
anywhere at any time, you don't necessarily need a computer,
everything students can access
on the web can be accessed on a smartphone.
So, if you have students
with limited access they'll still be able
to reach valuable content.
And our content is available
in over 40 languages and all for free.
Khan Academy is a nonprofit, with a goal to support high,
excuse me, high quality education for anyone, anywhere.
So, let's start here,
and while this may feel a little bit obvious,
I think sometimes when teachers
and students, jump into remote learning
those valuable communication skills
that you rely on every day seem to fall apart.
So, think about when you go into your classroom.
When you walk into your classroom in the morning,
you never think, "I'm not gonna talk
"to my students all day,"
of course you're gonna communicate with them.
And for some of your students you
are the most important relationship that they have every day
and so, now more than ever,
your students are in need of consistent communication.
So, if you and your students can connect live,
absolutely do it,
even if it's a learning curve for you and for them
there's some really great tools out there,
like Hangouts Meet, which allows teachers
to give live video lessons and record them for students
to watch later, there are a bunch of other tools
that are now offering their video streaming services
for free, so feel free to take a look
and have you have the opportunity to connect
with your students live,
I absolutely support taking that dive.
Let your students know you're thinking about them.
So, if you can't connect live or even if you have time
beyond that, which I know is a stretch right now,
send them a note via email or an app like ClassDojo.
Find a way to communicate with your students,
let them know that you're missing them.
I think students right now are really hungry
for that opportunity for social connection
and getting a note from you as a teacher, someone who's
so meaningful in their lives, telling them
that you missed them
and how excited you'll be to see them again,
it really has a deeper meaning.
And please, please, please provide feedback.
A lot of students have been given a bunch of work to do
while they're at home.
But if they're just given the work with no feedback,
how do they know that that work has meaning?
How do they know that they're doing things correctly?
So, please, if you've given your students work to do,
while they're remote, make sure
that you're giving them qualitative feedback as well.
Here's a couple of examples we're seeing
from our teacher community.
So, the top we have a teacher who says she
was channeling her inner Sal Khan,
and she used video chat to whiteboard live with students
and down below we have one of our ambassadors
who combines Flipgrid and combines Khan Academy
and creates videos for his students
in order to know that he's thinking about them
and they and he can message each other back.
Then, let's talk about communication between students
and between you and their families.
So, while that communication between you and your students
is so essential, students are also missing each other.
And so, using something like Google Docs or Slides,
allowing students to collaborate
or communicate in real time around shared problems
and ideas is a great opportunity.
We see a lot of teachers, maybe taking a sample problem,
so they'll look at Khan Academy and they see a problem
that a lot of students have answered incorrectly
and they'll throw it on a Google slide and then each student
can add a subsequent slide showing their work
on how they would solve the problem,
and students can leave comments saying,
"Oh that's what I missed," or "Great job,"
so that way your students are still able to collaborate
in a way similar to what they would do in class.
Also don't forget about parents and families.
Right?
Many of you I'm sure are now becoming both a full time,
stay at home parent and a full time work
from home teacher and so, think about some
of those other families who are in your shoes.
We're all working remotely on this journey together,
and if possible try and reach out to one family per week
just to share something their student might be doing well
or something, you know, know about their students
that's really exciting.
And don't hesitate to let parents
and guardians know how much you appreciate them
for supporting their child
through this process of remote learning.
This is a really hard jump for parents
and to get a little high five
from the teacher saying, "You know what,
"you're really doing a great job putting that effort in,"
that can make a huge, huge difference.
And don't forget each other, right?
I'm so excited to see so many people on here today
because we really are stronger together
and don't forget to reach out to your other teachers.
Teachers you work with daily
that you're used to communicating with,
members of maybe your peer learning community,
and just your teacher friends, they're going
through this transition as well,
so don't hesitate to share best practices,
or just check in on each other
and if you're looking for a way
to communicate with them, use some of the same tools
you're already using with your students.
Number two, choose the best tools, and stay with them.
Just the tools that are best for you and your students.
There's a lot of noise right now around digital tools,
and there's all sorts of things you can use
for remote learning.
But you know your classroom boss.
So, start with things that you've already been using.
If you've been using Khan Academy all year.
Great.
Please keep using us.
If you are looking for new tools,
take what fits you and your students.
I don't know your classroom better than you do,
and neither does anyone else.
And so, find what fits your students use that.
And make sure you're not switching it every day, every week
because students, we want them
to focus on what they're learning, we want them
to learn new skills in math or English language arts
or foreign languages.
We don't want them worried about stress over new tools.
So, if you find what's right stick with it.
Number three, keep a schedule.
And we know this is much easier said than done.
But sticking to consistent times for working and connecting
with students is really important.
And as we're trying to keep schedules for students,
we also wanna try and keep schedules for ourselves.
It helps give a rhythm to the day and to our organization.
So, find times for you to lesson plan,
connect with students, find times for you to take a break.
And if you're looking for examples
because this is a really big adventure for a lot of us,
we've got you covered.
Sal Khan has put together key schedules
for all different age groups.
So, you'll see on your screen right now, an example
for our elementary school students, an example
for our middle school students and example
for our high school students.
What should you be thinking about?
What might your students need?
And you'll see this is not just sit
in front of their computer for eight hours,
things like getting outside and playing,
finding time to read and reflect,
all of those things are there for them.
And definitely teachers are great at adapting resources.
So, if this is a great base for you,
take it and make it your own.
Number four, support independent learning.
And I know a lot of us are always trying
to find ways for our students to gain independence
and really take ownership and agency of their learning.
And so, with remote opportunities we
can encourage our students to really take hold of that
and to master new skills.
So, using Khan Academy's mastery system, students can set,
students can use mastery goals to work below, on,
or above grade levels, and students
can move at their own pace.
They're always welcome to go back and review content
or move ahead.
They can even work on subjects
outside what they would normally do inside your classroom.
Some teachers might encourage students
to move a course below or course ahead
in the same content area, or I even know one math teacher
who wants students to master their grade level in math,
encourage them to find something that they're passionate
about and really dive into master skills in that area.
So, encourage your students to take a little ownership
of their learning now and move ahead, or review concepts
that make them feel really competent in their learning.
and if you're looking for more guidance
on how to tactically do this,
the link at the bottom of this slide will take you
to a how-to article
on setting up course mastery goals for your students.
And this here is just a quick animation, so for those of you
that are familiar with the Khan Academy platform,
if you go to your teacher dashboard
and into your class, course mastery on the left hand side,
as you see the image doing, click placement and create goal.
Again, I highly recommend,
if you'd like to do this with your students,
you access the article and it will take you
step by step through the process.
Number five, motivate your students.
Now, I know a lot of you are thinking,
"This is hard enough to do in person.
"How am I supposed to do this
"when I don't even get to see my students every day?"
Well, we know, motivation is hard, and it's even harder now.
So, one thing we recommend is setting clear goals.
And maybe you had goals before,
but use this as a great opportunity to revisit them.
Or maybe as a class you wanna set goals
for while you're remote.
What is something that we as a class can achieve?
And include your students in the process.
Students really love being part of their own learning.
So, often do we get the question, "Why am I learning this?"
well include your students in the conversation
either make them individual or as an entire class.
Focus on what they wanna achieve in this time period,
and then communicate that back
with the student and with families.
Again, think back to our earlier conversation
around communication, involve families, tell them
what your students are working towards.
And if you want more information, again,
these links are all included in the slides,
and the handout tab of GoToWebinar
and will be included in a follow up email.
I recommend using that link to learn a little bit more
about mastery goals
and why we recommend using them with students.
And don't forget to recognize milestones.
Right, in the classroom if students perform well,
if they do well on an individual assignment
or they're showing growth
or perseverance, we recognize that
and really make our students really celebrated.
Well, it's a little bit trickier, we know,
to do at a distance.
And so, why don't you try recommending a, you know,
virtual certificate of achievement or a celebratory video.
Things like Flipgrid, allow you to do quick free videos
to students, if you're looking for certificates related
to Khan Academy we've got you covered
that link will take you
to a handful of Khan Academy certificates,
that you can share digitally with your students,
and they come in a variety of languages.
So, they should reach a fair number of your students.
This one's a pretty big one and I think this is one
that adults just as much as kids are struggling with.
Is recognize the emotional impact,
that everything that's going around right now.
Remote learning is about more than just curriculum.
I think we've seen a lot in the media
over the past couple weeks
about how students are gonna keep learning
and keep hitting goals and those things.
It's more than just curriculum.
You as a teacher know that being a teacher
is not just about reaching a standard.
So, make sure that as we're going through and worrying
about all the things students have to learn
that we take a moment to pause
and think about the emotional impact
this is having on our students and our communities.
And some teachers recommend switching out an assignment,
and instead of replacing it with an opportunity
for students to write and reflect on what's going on.
Maybe you have a question for discussion,
or maybe just open reflection and, again,
thinking back on some of the things we talked about earlier,
using a tool like Google Docs,
and students can share that
and leave supportive comments to each other.
So, you're giving students an opportunity to reflect
on the emotional toll
that this experience is having on them,
and allowing them an opportunity
to communicate with each other and be supportive,
even when they can't be with each other in person.
Express gratitude.
I think this is the thing we can all work on,
I know I certainly can
with our students and our communities in general.
But taking a moment to, you know, send a brief email,
or, again, a message in something like ClassDojo
to encourage teachers and students
to share their appreciation.
Students who are still completing all of their assignments,
or maybe reaching out to you for something more
or students who are asking for help.
Obviously it's gonna take them an extra bit of effort
for them to ask for help right now.
Recognize and appreciate the effort your students
are putting in and I bet you'll see
a lot of that returned back.
At a school I worked at we used to have an option
where we would send five messages to students once a week,
or five messages to students families once a week,
and it was just a way to recognize students
and let their families know that we appreciate them
and the things our students are doing,
and not just your high achievers.
You know, across the board, students
that are doing something, even if it's not academic based,
that you really wanna recognize that,
and then you'll get a lot of really supportive things back,
I promise you, and how much families
and students appreciate all the time
and effort you're putting in right now
and throughout the year.
Also, remote learning and that emotional piece
is not just about the students, it's about you too.
And I think we've seen a lot
about the effect it's having on students,
but don't forget, this is really hard
and this is a lot to take in at once.
So, be honest with yourself
and be honest with your students.
Share with your students, and let them know it's okay
to struggle with a new tool or a new concept.
I can tell you the team here at Khan Academy.
We've been trying to learn new tools,
all week so that we can reach all of you.
And when we opened up about how we're struggling
to learn these tools,
it was great to hear everybody else say,
"You know what, me too."
And so, it's okay to open up with your students and say,
"This is a lot to take in."
"There's a lot to learn and it's okay to struggle,
"and we're gonna get through it together,"
and if you're looking for additional resources
on things like that, please feel free
to check out our content on growth mindset
and it's a great starting point
to talk about productive struggle
and things like that with students.
Last but certainly not least,
and I think this ties in, right,
with recognizing the emotional piece.
Is cut yourself and your students, a break.
Be realistic.
You are not gonna cover everything you would class
and you know what, that's okay.
And so, to take a step back and realize that you are putting
in the effort to keep your students mentally engaged
is a huge achievement in and of itself.
So, if you need to choose a couple of key standards
or concepts to focus on, think about
what are the most essential for students to understand.
Most of our teachers are recommending two or three a week
for students to work on and you know what,
if one week you only get to one, that's okay.
Again, cut yourself some slack, none of this is easy
and as you transition
and as you and your students get more comfortable,
you'll find that you can get more done.
And so, again, if you're thinking
about those two or three concepts per week.
If you wanna use assignments on Khan Academy.
Most teachers have told us that three
to five assignments per week covers the right amount
of content for about two to three, you know, standards
or concepts and reaches about 30 to 45 minutes per week
on Khan Academy and we found that that benchmark
is really, really important for students to see growth
and if you're looking for more on assignments.
Again, please utilize these slides after the presentation
and that link will take you to a video
on how to create assignments using Khan Academy.
And now I wanna make sure we have time to open it up
to questions and if you want to have anything more specific
or you're having trouble with any of the technical pieces,
please reach out to our Help Center, again, a link here
and feel free to share these slides with other educators,
and if you wanna share feedback, please let us know as well.
We are trying to gather as much information from educators
and teachers like yourself about what they're doing,
that's working well and what
has been a really great learning for them,
that they wish they could share with other teachers.
So, I'm gonna pause here
and I'm gonna reach out to Jeremy,
and Jeremy is gonna share a couple of our questions
that are coming in.
- [Jeremy] All right, so, first of all,
thank you so much Meaghan, for leading us here.
Bill actually says.
- [Meaghan] And if you look here you'll see,
total learning minutes, skills leveled up and skills
without progress, so this shows the total learning minutes
for each of my students so I can get a quick glance
at how long my students have spent on the site
and then in terms of their skills,
how many they've leveled up,
and how many they have not made progress on
which means they either level down
or they've stayed at the same level.
If I click on an individual student,
here I'll be able to see my exercise minutes,
and my total learning minutes,
so these are the two numbers I was referencing.
77 is the total learning minutes I spent on site
on any content.
Whereas the 28 minutes are the minutes
that I've spent engaged with questions.
And so, for all of your students you'll be able to see that
and for each activity on this individual student report,
you'll be able to see exactly
how many minutes they've spent on each of these items.
As you can see this is a demo account
so there's not a lot here, but that you'd be able
to see how much time they've spent on each item.
- [Jeremy] Cool, thank you so much Claire
for that great question
and thanks Meaghan for showing us exactly where to find it.
Let's step back from the technology for a second.
Another question says, "what are some of the norms
"that we can set up for virtual learning?"
"We all have rules and guidelines
"in our physical classrooms,
"how do we bring that same sense of culture
"and expectations to the virtual environment?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, I think it's a really great question
and a really important one, I think, what happens sometimes
is that a lot of teachers as they move digital,
forget that those same concepts apply.
Things like, you know, class management and class culture
are still really valuable
and in some cases even more valuable now.
So, for example, if you decide to go live
with your students,
like a fair number of teachers we know are,
set up the first time you're doing it
or if you haven't had an opportunity, start Monday.
Take what you would think of as your norms and expectations
and display them to your students and go through them.
If you're not sure what your norms feel right
for your classroom, make it an opportunity
for an interactive activity with your students
again, you can do it in a discussion format,
if you're using something like Hangouts Meets,
students can put suggestions
in the chat on the right hand side.
If you're using something
where students can post comments, or post votes,
allow them to choose what should be our norms.
Should our norms be that anyone can add to the chat at once?
Should our norms be that we need to raise a hand icon
if we wanna contribute to the class discussion?
Should our norms be that we only meet live twice a week?
I think that really involving your students
in what should be those norms now that you've gone digital,
that should be an opportunity for you.
If you feel really comfortable and know what the norms
should be for your classroom already,
make sure you're communicating those well,
and make sure that you're following through on them,
they're really easy to get off task.
So, for example, when I would work remote with students,
one of the things that I would say is enormous,
I would close off all of my social tabs
while I was in class.
If I was teaching my class remotely,
then that was where my focus was, and so, making sure
that my cell phone was on silent and that my, you know,
twitter feed was muted, and things like that, so making,
if that's the norm, make sure you're modeling that behavior
for your students.
You're not on your hangout
or your video, you know, distracted by something else,
which I know that example can be easier said than done.
But, again, setting those norms,
communicating them clearly and modeling them,
tends to be a really helpful for,
and, again, if you're able to do that,
then your students will be encouraged to do the same.
- [Jeremy] Cool, and speaking of modeling Meaghan,
I think hopefully what we're seeing
through this webinar today is what's possible
for your own students.
They use a tool like GoToWebinar or Zoom
or Google Meetings or whatever your district provides,
you always have the ability to have questions, chat,
even live polls kinda like a Kahoot! baked
into your webinar,
so there are often lots of ways to keep students engaged,
even in a tough learning environment.
- [Meaghan] Yeah, I would double down on that too, Jeremy,
as you think about this, again,
as someone mentioned the hope was to share some tools
that go beyond the scope of Khan Academy
and that we really can can give some ideas
as you take this remote learning adventure.
And don't be afraid to mix and match your tools together.
So, when I was teaching,
some of my students really enjoyed combining a video tool,
so they would be on live camera
with each other with Kahoot!,
so that that way they were doing review questions
and they were doing it in a social way,
but they were all in their own homes at night
and so, don't be afraid to try something.
And, again, take these tips as guidance and fit them.
Right, teachers are great at adapting things
to their own classrooms,
so don't be afraid to take, you know,
tools you're already using and adapting some of the tips
that we've share to fit you best.
- [Jeremy] Cool, so, another
sort of psychological question here,
and this coming in from Maddie, Maddie says,
"How do I actually encourage my students
"to complete Khan Academy assignments,
"given they don't have that in person contact
"and the ability to motivate them, day to day?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, great question.
So, a couple of things are built into the platform
and let me show you just in case you,
for those who might be a little less familiar
with the Khan Academy experience.
On every course for Khan Academy, this mastery enabled,
you'll see that each of these
offer kind of a gamification piece where students
are earning mastery points for achieving progress
on skills, lessons and units and so,
as students work through content
and I'm gonna jump into a unit here.
As students work through material,
they'll see their levels go up and their skills move
to mastered and they'll see
these little icons start to fill out.
And so, as they do this they earn mastery points
and badges and they can upgrade their avatars
on their own profile page.
So, there are some gamification pieces built
into Khan Academy.
We know that works for some students,
and definitely not for all.
And so, again to the question of,
"I'm not there in person I can't put my chart on my wall,
"I can't throw a pizza party for my students.
"What else can I do?"
And so, what we recommend is trying some of,
building on some of those same concepts
that work well in person for your students,
try adapting them with some of the tools you're using
and making them, you know, remote.
So, if your students are really encouraged by things
like certificates or homework passes and things like that,
again, we have a portfolio of certificates, we can share.
But don't let that limit you, feel free to, you know,
recognize students with certificates
and if you can share them digitally via email
or a message app through something like ClassDojo,
that works really well, or even if you got to the point
where you could mail them to students
and they can recognize that
and show their class, either by sharing maybe
through your Google Classroom,
"Hey, I got this great certificate from my teacher,"
or you know, if some teachers prefer things
like video messages, like, using Flipgrid to show,
"Hey, this is what my students have done this week,
"I'm really proud of them."
Even some simple things are really inspiring
like putting your, you know, pet
or your own children getting really excited
about something they've done or doing a silly dance,
we have a teacher that we work really closely with,
and he celebrates his students by doing really, you know,
things that sound really terrible as an adult,
like walking on Legos
or things like putting pie in his face.
Recording yourself doing some of these really funny things
that you can still do while in your own home
and sharing them to students, "If you reach this goal
"I will do this thing, put it on a video
"and share it with you,"
showing that you're staying committed
to learning just as much as your students are.
- [Jeremy] Cool, I wanna share this comment from Linda,
which was, "That I know, I thought I was the only one
"who was feeling overwhelmed.
"I'm so glad to know that I'm not alone."
So, Linda and everyone else out there know
that we are totally in the same boat.
Meaghan and I are both former teachers, current parents
with our own kids at home, so we absolutely feel
what you're going through and want to do anything we can
to support you during this tough time.
That being said, I do wanna call out, 'cause there
are a lot of questions coming in on this,
on the question line,
that this is all being recorded,
it'll be available in your email automatically
in about three hours after the recording is processed,
you will get that no questions asked.
You can also grab all the slides
that Meaghan's already shared right now
in the handout section
and if you can't find that don't worry,
it'll also be included in the email coming in three hours,
so one way or another, you'll get access to all this,
and yes you can absolutely share it with anyone.
Okay, Mina wants to ask
"When you're sort of talking about sort of the time
"on Khan Academy per week,
"were you recommending 30 to 45 minutes per week?
"What was the recommendation again there?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, so, when we talk about,
a lot of times we've been focused more on in-class practice
but even thinking about that,
again, we don't want students to feel overwhelmed
by, you know, sitting in front of a screen
for eight hours a day or things like that
and it shouldn't be just Khan Academy,
we encourage you to have some diversity
in what students are learning.
And especially if you're an upper school teacher, right,
you're probably subjects of civic
and you don't want your students just doing
that one thing all day and so,
what we see is that 30 to 45 active minutes
on Khan Academy per week, shows really great efficacy
and so, what you can look for as a teacher
in terms of tracking, is that on that report I shared,
and I'll just go back on my screen to show you.
So, if you go back and you go to your teacher dashboard
and look at your activity overview, and you wanna see
in this total learning minutes column,
you wanna see somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes
and then in this skills level,
the column you wanna see two or more,
we find that that's a really good benchmark
for seeing if students are making meaningful progress.
- [Jeremy] Great, okay and to go along with that,
Bridger asked this question,
"For an English or math teacher,
"could you give a brief summation
"of what a week might look like, including assignments?
"So, basically walk me through how that flow would look,
"what I'm doing what the students are doing,
"so it feels really, real doable for me."
- [Meaghan] Sure.
Now, I do wanna say again,
you know your classroom and your students best,
so please adapt in and don't take this as a hard
and fast rule but take it as general advice
that you can adapt to your own teaching
and your students learning styles.
So, if you're looking for, you know,
let's say a math teacher, right?
Khan Academy has great math content
from pre K through early college and so,
if you're looking at something like that,
we recommend some time, again,
you still wanna be teaching your students
so if you can make sure you're getting live
or recorded videos of you talking
through some of those concepts
at least a couple times a week and so,
how long that takes you now, I was gonna say,
and how much time your students have access to internet
and to those tools might vary a little bit,
but we'd say at least two or three times per week,
trying to get that to them.
And then, when you're looking at,
"What would I give my students?" and, again,
I recommend looking at our resources
to walk through some of these skills on Khan Academy,
a little bit more slowly.
But if you're looking to make an assignment.
In this case, if I wanted to assign,
let's say third grade content to my class,
if I were looking for what I wanted to do for the week,
I might make three to five exercise based assignments
plus, if I felt like there was any sort
of learning content that might be helpful.
So, if I were looking at one digit multiplication.
I can open up this unit and open up each lesson
and I can see the exercises that would be there
and if you look on the right hand side for our teachers
these are the common core standards to the right hand side
so if you're looking for specific standards,
you can find them right here in the assignments feature,
or you can search by those as well.
So, to get back to your question.
I would probably make three to five assignments
for the week for students.
And I would have them do, one day.
Like I would pick one day, probably at the end of the week
and I would also communicate with my students
that I'm not gonna be looking at how well you performed
until this day so you're giving students the opportunity
to go back and try again and really persevere
through things they might be struggling with, or, you know,
they might need additional time to, you know,
learn those skills.
So, circle all the way back,
I would say recommend making sure
there's some sort of teaching
or communication component two or three times a week,
and then giving students, three to five assignments,
hoping that they'll reach
that 30 to 45 minute per week threshold
and move up two skills or more.
- [Jeremy] Awesome.
A lot of questions are coming in about, sort of,
how do you use Khan Academy for differentiation
and in particular,
how do you serve special education students,
particularly during this really tough time?
Any recommendations there Meaghan?
- [Meaghan] Really tough questions
but I'm really glad to hear them.
So, when it comes to differentiation,
we strongly encourage teachers to enable our mastery system
and to set mastery goals with students, and here's why.
If you go into course mastery, again,
from this teacher dashboard.
You go to placement, you can see the goals that are assigned
to each of your students, and what you're able to do
is assign a course mastery goal to all of your students,
just a subgroup of your students,
or maybe just one of your students.
So, in the example you see on your screen,
I've assigned algebra one to my whole class,
and I've assigned pre algebra to four of my students.
And so, the reason I assigned algebra one to everyone,
that's my class level goal and this shows up
on the student dashboard for all of them,
every time they log in, it's one really big goal,
but how they get to that goal, varies by every student.
So, instead of having to make an individual assignment
for every skill they need to learn,
you've given them the opportunity
to reach mastery on all of those skills,
but they can do it at their own pace.
And they're able to watch videos
and read articles on concepts, they can go back
and review skills that they may have had a gap in,
or they can move ahead if they really understand, you know,
graphing equations well
and they can move quickly through that,
they have the opportunity to take a unit test
and move really quickly and move on to the next concept.
So, that way you're getting all students
towards this grade level, huge goal.
One, giving them the opportunity
to work at their personalized pace
and get the supports they need.
And then, if you have students
who might need a little bit more support,
maybe they're working below grade level,
you can always assign an additional goal and say,
"You know what,
I'd really love for you to get to 50% on pre algebra,
"because I think you really need some extra support
"in these skills," and so,
students can have the opportunity, again,
to go back and revisit content
that might feel, you know, below grade level per se,
but they can do it at their own pace,
and they can see themselves growing
and achieving mastery and skills
that they might not have had before.
And as I mentioned earlier, some teachers for students
that are progressing at a faster pace,
we'll encourage to them to, you know,
work on the next course or work on something else.
Khan Academy has content across you know, math, science,
computer programming, arts and humanities, and many others.
So, that sometimes when students have that, you know,
additional time, allow them to learn even beyond that
When it comes to our special education students,
I will say this, is that we have,
I was gonna say, I would say we have an opportunity
to learn more about some best practices
with special education students,
but I can reference a teacher I've worked closely
with before who has used Khan Academy
for multiple years in math,
for a classroom entirely of special education students.
And, while those students in terms of age, might fall
into what you think of as middle school students,
they're working on a first, second, grade level and so,
what she's able to do is that for each of her students,
she creates a separate mastery goal
for each student based on where she knows they are
and then each student is able to work on the skills
that feel appropriate for them.
But the whole class is working on mastery
so all of the students feel really included,
they're working towards great big goals,
but they're all still working
on the skills that feel appropriate for them.
And so, in that similar way when we talked
about kind of a standard classroom.
I would offer the opportunity to think about
how you might be able to alter that
for special education students
and if as you go through this process you learn things
about that, please reach out to us
and let us know how it goes,
because we are always eager for teacher feedback
to improve our recommendations around any area.
- [Jeremy] That's awesome,
and then sort of a bookend question to that,
is coming from Melody and many other educators
is, "Okay I have assigned these course mastery goals,
"how do I measure progress?
"What reports do I look at?
"what do I focus on the page?
"How do I know how my students are doing?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, what a great question and I know
that there's a lot to take in here,
and I do encourage you,
these are really great Khan Academy questions too,
integrate some of what we're sharing
with what you're already doing.
Again, you are here because you really care
about your students and really teaching well
in this new remote situation, so please take these pieces
and integrate them with things that you know,
that you're already doing well
so how you're tracking your students
and making sure they're getting the best opportunities
to learn and grow,
please use those in combination with what we're sharing.
So, if I wanted to specifically track progress
on their mastery goal.
If you look on the left hand side
where I'm at placement if I instead choose progress.
I can see here, this is how my whole class
is doing in third grade.
So, if I've set the mastery goal here is third grade,
I can see how much progress, all of my students have made,
and I can see a class median,
so we've made about 8% progress,
and if I hover over any of these bars
it'll show me which students quickly fall
into each of these areas.
So, if I look here, Josslyn and Wenbo fall
into this first box, we're looking at, you know, 10 to 20%,
whereas if I jump up here I can see Melissa
is at, you know, 44%.
So, that gives you a quick snapshot of all of your class
and how they're doing towards that greater goal.
If you scroll down below,
you'll see each of the units within that overall course,
and it will give you a class median
on how they're doing on each of those units.
So, in this case if I clicked into one digit multiplication,
I now get a similar screen to what I saw for course mastery
but I get it at the unit level
and so, here I can see how much progress
have my students made in this particular unit.
We've made a little bit more progress here, you can see,
and the same hover opportunity exists.
And then if I really wanna get detailed
if I scroll below these chart,
I'll see this section called skill mastery,
and it shows me exactly where my students fall
for every specific skill.
By clicking the carrot on the left hand side
it shows me my students and how they're performing
on that particular skill.
So, my first spec overview, not started, meaning students
haven't done anything yet.
Attempted, means they've tried
but they've gotten fewer than 70%
of those questions correct.
Familiar, means they've reached at least 70, proficient is,
means they've got at least 100% on an exercise
which is single skill practice and to get to mastered,
they have to show that they have success,
in both a single skill practice
of the exercise and a mixed skill practice
of either the unit test or the course challenge,
so they have to be able to demonstrate
that skill in isolation and combined with other skills.
And what's neat about this part
of the progress report is that if you see students
that have not started this skill
or might need more practice,
if you click the Assign button
on the left hand side, a pop up box will appear
and without you having to search for it,
you can assign that skill, to either all your class,
a handful of students or a single student
and encourage them to work on that skill to master it.
- [Jeremy] Very cool.
So, hopefully that gives you a sense
of how you can keep tabs on your students,
even when you're all spread apart.
But now we've dove pretty deep
into the innards of Khan Academy.
Let's zoom back a little bit.
Sheila and a couple of others are asking,
"Hey, is there an answer sheet for Khan Academy?
"How do I actually evaluate how things are doing?"
Can you just maybe show off a sample practice exercise,
Meaghan, just to show the kinda experiences students get.
- [Meaghan] Really wonderful question Sheila and so,
let me address your question in a couple parts.
So, first of all, there's no grading required
for the teacher or if you're a parent on the line
with us right now everything is graded for you
so no one's gonna quiz you
on your algebra one skills if it's been a bit.
But if you're looking for more detail.
If you go to make an assignment.
So, let's go back into my class.
And if I go to assignments, and under that I click Assign.
And so, if I look at any of these exercises,
from the teacher perspective,
if I click on the title of the exercise,
what I see is an item bank,
and it will show me all the questions, students can receive,
if I assign this exercise
and when you assign it, you have two options.
You can assign all the same questions to students
and all students will receive the same exact questions,
or random questions, which means students
will receive random questions out of the item bank.
However, I will give the caveat.
That If students, if you choose random,
if there's different types of questions, so in this case you
can see there is a number line question
and there's this box question.
All students will receive the same number of questions
of the same type, so they won't be totally different,
it's more that the variables are changed and so,
in this case students would receive seven
of these 21 questions, and we encourage teachers
to take a look at the item bank before they assigned
to students to see,
"Is this the right skill I'm looking for?
"Does this feel like the right level of rigor
"for my students?
"Are there any pitfall questions I should tell my students
"to look out for?"
And so, here's where you could find,
it's not quite an answer key but it is a good item bank,
of what your students would see.
And from the student view, if you click here,
See this is what it looks like from the student perspective,
here's the question and then below that you can get supports
to watch a video or use a hint.
And once you make those assignments to students.
You can look at their scores, right below
that assign, you can look at scores,
and what you'll be able to see is how they performed
on each assignment you've made and if it is a video
or an article you've assigned to the students,
they'll receive a checkmark for completing that.
For an article, they just have the article and scroll down
for a video they have to watch at least 90% of the video
and they can't watch it faster than double speed,
if they try and watch it a triple
or quadruple speed they won't get credit for it.
And then for anything that has questions, a quiz,
an exercise, a unit test,
they'll get a numeric value for that
and it will be color coded for you.
So, if they are below 70% it'll come up in red.
If it's between 70 and 99, it'll come up
in this yellow color and then
if it's 100% they'll get a nice green,
and by clicking on any of those individual scores,
you can view the report for that student.
So, you can really view it at a class level or jump in
and view it at a student level
and here you can see the questions the student was given
and then what their answer was.
And so, if the student, if you've selected randomly ordered,
the questions are ordered by the ones they missed most
and here's the thing, is that, you can also change this
on the top right.
Right now I'm looking at a single student,
right now I'm looking at Michael.
But if I wanted, I could select them all,
and what I can do here, is that I can look
at either their first or last attempt,
because I selected random,
I can see the questions in order by most miss
so if I see here question five
students had the greatest challenge with this question,
I can use this question for a reteach
and maybe it's an opportunity to do that quick video
that I either record and share out,
or do it live on a whiteboard with them
and work through the problem and if you're looking
for supports on, you know, maybe, "How do I look at this?"
In the same way that we offered hints to students,
we provide that same walkthrough set of hints to teachers,
if you wanted to display this, again,
maybe in a recorded video or live with students,
here's the walk through steps you can use.
- [Jeremy] Cool.
Well, speaking of recorded videos,
Paul has a very juicy inside Khan Academy question for us,
which is, do you know what kind of software Sal Khan uses
to make those videos and if a teacher wants
to make their own Khan style videos, how could they do that?
- [Meaghan] I do not know the software Sal uses,
that's a great question.
I have been here a few years and no one has asked me that
so Bravo and asked me a question I haven't been asked yet.
I will definitely find that out.
However, what I can share with you are some of the tools
that I use to make videos for teachers and so,
a couple of things that are free,
one you can do some recording with Hangout Meets, Loom,
L-O-O-M is a free tool you can use that allows you
to record your screen,
and your face at the same time that I really like.
Again, that's just something that I've used
and some of our colleagues have used,
and it's great for doing things like I just demonstrated
so walking through this and it also
can have a video of your face in the corner
so your students can see you,
you know, what you're doing on your screen,
so maybe they're gonna, you're modeling a behavior for them,
and they still get to see your face 'cause
they probably miss you.
- [Jeremy] That's so cool, I wanna add that
from having sat in Sals office a couple weeks ago
before we were all sent home.
I know he uses a wacom, tablet, so check those out
and add them to your next Amazon delivery
of hand sanitizer and toilet paper.
Okay, so great question, Paul,
another sort of interesting technical question.
This is come from Frank and a number of others is,
"Okay, I love Khan,
"but I'm also using Google Classroom or Schoology or Canvas
"as my LMS, is there some way
"to at least get like the Khan links into my LMS system?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, that's a request we get a lot
and it's something that, we as a team,
think is really important as, you know,
to think about as we move forward,
currently we do not fully integrate
with any of the learning management systems.
So, what we do allow is that you
can import your class roster through Google Classroom
so there's no need for you to create a class from scratch,
you can simply pull in your roster from Google classroom
and students can use Google single sign on.
However,
sharing the assignments directly,
we have not established that link with any LMSs yet.
However, I do know our friends at ClassDojo have shared
that with your using ClassDojo
and you make an assignment you can put the direct link
to the assignment in there
and share that really easily with students.
It's a really important concept that you bring out
and it's really important especially now,
but we do not link assignments directly
with any learning management systems
at the time.
- [Jeremy] Cool, I will just mention that like,
even though you would lose some
of the power of the assignments, we just talked about.
If you're ever just in a rush, like,
"I've got to get something my students fast,
"the clock is ticking."
Every single piece of content on Khan Academy
has a unique URL that little sort of web address at the top.
Of course you can always copy and paste a video link
or an exercise link.
If you just wanna stick it right into your LMS
but of course, there is an advantage
to using Khan Academy natively to have all that evaluation.
Okay, so a couple of challenges
that teachers are facing right now,
big one that we've heard a lot today is, "Help, you know,
"my students don't all have internet access at home
"or devices at home.
"Are there any workarounds?
"Or are there any way to get them access
"to all this goodness that you're talking about?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, I think that that has become
more apparent to everyone in being the current situation
that the way we think about internet
and device accessibility is really become, you know,
more apparent than I think the priority
has been in the past and so, while Khan Academy
is really dependent on students being able to have some form
of internet access to get those personalized results
to help them differentiate and get what they need
to either review or move forward,
there are a couple things we can recommend.
The one is that if students have access,
even to just a smartphone,
what we found is that a lot of families might not
have a laptop or they might not have a tablet
but someone in the home has a smartphone.
Khan Academy has an app, and all of the features
that are available to students on the website are available
through the app, and the app is available
in 18 different languages.
So, even if students want their parents
who might not have grown up in the US education system
to support them, they can work with them and so,
that's one piece we can recommend, a second one,
is there is some information on our Help Center site
that I recommend is that there's an article,
I'm sure I can pull it up right now, actually, on,
how do I use Khan Academy without an internet connection
and so, here it'll show you how to use some
of the apps and you can download the video
if students only maybe have a limited amount
of internet connection, they can download the videos
from the app and watch them at a later time
and there's also a collaboration
with an organization we work with called Calibri,
and they allow devices
to download content, including Khan Academy.
To download exercises, videos, articles, ahead of time,
and then watch them or engage with them
at a later point in time.
Again, that would involve a device still
and internet access, at some point,
but it wouldn't involve a consistent flow
of internet connectivity.
- [Jeremy] Cool, and then sort of piggybacking
on that linguistic challenge
that you were talking about, Angelina asks,
"You know, as an ESL teacher in an elementary school,
"a lot of my students just don't speak English.
"How can I leverage Khan Academy,
"given that most of the stuff
"that we've seen so far is in English?"
- [Meaghan] Yeah, absolutely.
What a phenomenal question and we work
with school districts, all over the US
and our team is international
and so, we are thinking about how do we serve anyone,
anywhere, and really deliver a world class education,
and that is not just in English and so,
we are available in 40 plus languages
and let me show you quickly
how students can change their language setting
and we see this in school districts,
inside the US really frequently,
and we want families and communities,
to be able to support their learners
so even if they're encouraged
to learn English in a classroom,
they can change their language at home,
so their parents and community
can support their learning process,
and then switch it back to English in your classroom.
So, if you click on the name
and this would be the same process for a student
as it would be for a teacher, so they click
on their name in the top right,
and they go to settings,
and one of the top things on the Settings page here
is it says primary language.
And if you click the drop down you'll see here
that we have over 40 languages for learners to choose from.
I'm gonna stay in English, and then make sure,
here's the important part, you click save changes,
and it says information updated, in green,
that's how you know, the language has switched.
So, if I were to switch it,
it would change the core language on the site.
And most of our content,
especially if you're looking for Spanish speakers,
almost all of our content that's in English is available
in Spanish and then on large percentages
for all of those other languages.
- [Jeremy] Very cool and so, just to end
on maybe one really universal question that folks
are thinking about right now is,
whether you're a teacher
and you're trying to serve the families all
around your community who are now spread out,
or you're also a parent, you're trying
to serve your own students at home.
Any recommendations Meaghan,
how to really support your students,
whether they're your kids or your students in your classroom
without overstepping bounds, without sort
of being too overbearing and say,
"Hey, you've got to do this work,"
even when the world is in a little bit of a chaotic state?
- [Meaghan] Yeah, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna go back to what I mentioned earlier
is just be open about it, right?
This is hard for all of us
and so, I think it was really good
in the example I said earlier
where the Khan Academy team was like,
"Listen, we're really trying to help but these tools are new
"for us too and we're trying,"
and people were like, "Yeah, I'm trying too,"
and owning that shared experience that this is hard
and so, I think being able to be open with your students
and say, "You know what, I want you to achieve this
and here's why," and giving them that really good reason,
and being like, "It's okay if you struggle,
"it's okay if it's frustrating," and you know,
accepting that this is an opportunity for us all
to grow together, and don't hesitate as I said, you know,
to reach out if you've got great ideas
or we as an organization can do more to support you,
because we really do think we are stronger together.
- [Jeremy] Cool, well I know we're almost at time.
I know we have barely scratched the surface
of all the questions that have come in,
so thank you so much for asking such great ones.
- [Meaghan] Yeah, thank you all.
- [Jeremy] Would you mind just sort of closing up
with showing folks where they can go on the Help Center
to ask questions directly to our amazing support team?
- [Meaghan] Sure that sounds great, Jeremy.
So, if you navigate to our Help Center
which is khanacademy.zendesk.com,
the link is on the last slide in the slide deck
that's shared from this webinar and here you can search
for any sort of content you might have questions on,
and you'll be able to see information
around frequently asked questions, community responses
and if you have a technical problem
or something that's not quite right.
If you click report a problem, you'll be taken
to this request form, and our support team
is really phenomenal
and even in this high request time
they've still been answering requests
in under a couple hours, so please if you have any questions
or if you, things aren't working quite right for you,
please reach out to us, we always wanna hear from you.
- [Jeremy] Cool, so any final words of wisdom Meaghan,
as folks head into the weekend
after this very, very long week?
- [Meaghan] You know what, give yourself a pat on the back.
It's been a long hard week for everyone and you know what,
be proud of the fact that you've gotten through it
and you've learned something and you know what,
next week, you've learned something this week
and look forward to learning something new next week.
- [Jeremy] Cool, so, as we say at Khan Academy.
We're always learning.
We're always discovering new things
and we always end every session by saying onwards!
So, we wish you - Onwards!
- [Jeremy] a wonderful weekend and onwards to all.
Thanks so much. - Thanks you all.