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!

Student Made Tutorials Using Paper Slides

What do you do when workbooks, handouts, and class problem sets are not connecting with your students? What do you do for those students who have a solid understanding of a topic before you begin the lesson? How are you differentiating for them? Can you address the needs of your advanced students as well as your struggling students with one activity?

Student made tutorials should be a welcome addition to any classroom. Students may be assigned to work independently or in small groups. Their task is to develop a video tutorial that explains a topic, problem or concept discussed in class. The completed video will be published online for all students in the class to reference as a study guide. By providing such an activity you are allowing your more advanced students the opportunity to apply their knowledge of the topic and better grasp the material by developing a lesson to teach the topic. Your struggling students will then have access to this tutorial online. They can pause, stop, rewind and replay the videos at home while working on homework or studying for an assessment.

There are a number of  options for creating tutorials. Paper Slide  Tutorials is a simple, cost effective method. It is no intrusive in the classroom and can be easily integrated in all subjects. The process is simple. Students plan a storyboard for the lesson. They prepare paper slides that will be used to present the topic. Once they are organized they will begin recording their tutorial. A Flip Video Camera or any Web Cam can be used to record the tutorial. Once completed the video can be published on the teachers website, Blog, School Tube, YouTube or any other video sharing site.

Here is a video made by a teacher for his students, introducing the process of Paper Slide Videos:

Here is a a sample project made by a student:

Student learning on demand with over 1000 targeted math and science tutorials

Today I was introduced to a fabulous website called Khan Academy. The address of the site is http://www.khanacademy.org.  Khan Academy hosts over 1000 math and science video tutorials.  All of the videos are categorized and hosted on Youtube.  Here is a quote from their site

"We have 1000+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan."

The videos provide a very easy to follow explanation of basic and advanced topics. Salman explains these concepts in a manner that is attractive to students.  Each video is supplemented by software that dynamically generates exercises and captures data on student usage and progress. You can read this document to understand the vision of this site and to review student and teacher feedback.

Another highlight on this site is the SAT review. Khan works out every problem found in a common SAT study guide. This is a free SAT study guide with step by step video tutorials!

This site is a tremendous resource for students and teachers. The tutorials can be integrated into lessons, posted on Moodle pages, linked to teacher web pages or provided to students for review. The tutorials have proven to be an effective tool for special education students. Teachers may decide to incorporate these videos in center activities in the elementary school. I could also envision these tutorials added to a Glog.

I hope you enjoy this resource. I welcome your comments on this post and would love to hear your feedback or implementation experiences regarding this resource.

Enjoy!