Personalized and Self-Paced Learning!

Khan academy is a profound resource for any student who is seeking help in subjects (not limited to) math, science, reading, and even life skills! Khan, the creator, has a very soothing voice that calmly explains concepts as he writes on a black screen, adhering to both auditory and visual learning styles. I only have experience with his math and science videos, both of which have clarified information better than any teacher ever has. Khan Academy also has a section for SAT/ACT prep, which is extremely useful, as it is an online option for students looking to practice without having to go to a class. For teachers, it allows for individual student progress reports that give access to how students are doing in particular topics or what they may be struggling in. This gives teachers the opportunity to create specific plans for each student. A downside of using this platform, is that each topic-teaching does not go past mild to moderate difficulty, so it can be hard for students to learn more complex problems if this site is their only source of teaching.

This is great for self-paced learning. Students can work on their own time, at their own pace, and according to their level.

SELF PACED some students learn quickly, others more slowly, according to their ability, time, and desire to learn; videos can be paused, rewound, and re-watched students have to put in consistent daily effort, which is focused, and at the edge of their ability, to continue to improve! how do teachers encourage students to put in the effort in math?? MASTERY-BASED students (potentially) achieve 100% mastery of many math topics to confirm mastery, students/teachers/parents could ask students questions on that topic, to see if they really do have it nailed down teachers need to follow student progress, and provide small-group lessons to those at the same level / content CUMULATIVE a record of student mastery in the “world of math” is visible in their profiles want to know what they know and don’t know in math? it’s all there! excellent metrics for teachers, to track progress, and identify “gaps” in learning, to signal need for remediation if several students have same gap, small-group instruction IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK students know whether questions are right or wrong right away unlike pencil/paper assessment, which may be returned much later step-by-step hints, or instructional videos, are provided below every question SPIRALING students are doing work from number sense, measurement, geometry, algebra, and data & probability … all “strands” of math … on rotation → no need to plan a complicated spiraled curriculum, it’s all done for you. less planning for teachers, and more time to focus one-on-one attention to students teachers don’t have to say “textbook page 121, numbers 1-3, 5a-f anymore! math class starts … “OK everyone, open Khan, and pick up where you left off!” POINTS! COLOUR CODED! kids enjoy the motivation of the points they accumulate, badges, avatars, etc it’s easy to follow the steps, b/c videos AND exercises are colour coded for understanding FIND MISTAKES some exercises include “find the mistake”, and students have to go through and check the work to find mistakes … sometimes there are none! Very smart. Next step - kids make up their OWN questions, and solve them! easy to get parents on board → KA is helpful from pre-K through university … and life! if students learn to use KA well, it can be helpful to them today, high school, university, and more (mortgages, interest rates, history, etc) getting to know ONE TOOL WELL instead of introducing students to many different platforms, learning to use one, high quality, platform well could be beneficial to their learning NO cost, NO ads, mission “to provide a FREE, world class education, to anyone anywhere” the content is high quality - good descriptions, easy to listen to and follow the platform is well-funded, and not likely going anywhere anytime soon students can continue to use this for the rest of their lives PRIVACY is top notch.