Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Flip and Manage the Classroom with Khan Academy

I have written about the Khan Academy many times in my blog postings. It is a tremendous resource and  one that I believe can greatly impact student achievement.  The "flip the classroom" model of instruction involves having students review teacher or student made tutorials at home for homework. They then work on applying problems in the classroom. The benefits of this method of instruction are discussed in one of my previous posting "Are you ready to flip the classroom".



If you are planning on testing this method of instruction, the Khan Academy is a great place to start.  Here is a brief overview of the site from the publisher:

"Our library of videos covers K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics, and even reaches into the humanities with playlists on finance and history. Each video is a digestible chunk, approximately 10 minutes long, and especially purposed for viewing on the computer.

 

"I teach the way that I wish I was taught. The lectures are coming from me, an actual human being who is fascinated by the world around him." —Sal"

The site now offers new features as well as integration with our Google Apps for Education Accounts. After students watch the tutorials they can also work on practice problems in a virtual environment.  Each problems can be broken down into individual steps with a the click of a button.  Students are able to track their progress as they progress through an interactive map of knowledge.

Managing this progress has now gotten even easier. They have added an entire new Student/Class manager. Teachers can monitor and report on student progress. Information regarding these features can be found here. ( You will be prompted to login with your Google Apps account.

Students and Faculty who have access to Google Apps for Education accounts can sign directly into Khan Academy with their accounts.  The site is well organized and easy to navigate.

Here is a video from TED that discusses Khan Academy



Enjoy!

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