Why I (half) Use Khan Academy in my MS Math Class

Over the past year I have read numerous posts about the pros and cons to using Khan Academy. After reading many of these, and now that Khan Academy has come out with new features, I wanted to put my two cents into the mix as to why I feel that I "half" use Khan Academy.

Teaching Student Individuality
I introduce Khan to my students on the first week of school. Students create accounts and add me as their coach. As we do this, we also have a conversation about who we are as learners. We talk about how important it is to understand how each person learns differently and needs different supports. We also discuss how a mature student is one that celebrates their own learning needs and finds their own right path to success.

I ask students to think of a time where they felt that they were learning differently than the other students in their class. A time where they felt they needed something different. Everyone can think of a situation that this happened, either that they were ready to move on, or that they just needed more time. This is when I introduce the Khan quizzes. We talk about how each student is able to practice a concept as many times as they need, without waiting for a teacher to tell them to, or that they can move ahead and challenge themselves with a new idea. They can then work on something as many times as they need to, at any point in time without any consequences. We then share and celebrate times where students felt different than others in their learning. Putting these feelings in the open in a middle school classroom can create a classroom culture of understanding and support.

Creating Student Directed Review

When I started using Khan, I would assign quizzes as homework, but I realized that this was not following the culture of student directed learning I was trying to create in my class. The minute that I stopped assigning quizzes, students saw them as a place to make mistakes without injury. A place to practice and test their ideas with immediate feedback. Prior to assessments, they select their own review questions based on their own needs and create their own study plan. With the immediate feedback from the quizzes, they can gauge their own needs and made adjustments as needed. By the end, they have a great sense of empowerment and ownership of their learning. They were the ones that made the plan, did the action, and then came out with the final result. I feel that for a middle school student, this is a very important lesson.

Providing Vocabulary to What They Learn
I have also used Khan as a way for students to identify what they have learned. At the start of a unit, I give the students a list of concepts that we will be learning. We call them the "building blocks" as they are the more calculation/knowledge based concepts needed for their curriculum. As we explore the concepts in class, students are told that we are looking at concept #6, or applying concept #4. Students can then refer to their concept chart to see what these could be called. Along with this chart, I attach links to Khan quizzes. I do this because I want the students to be able to look back at examples of things that we have done in the past, and see how they build on top of each other. They can also then practice a specific skill if necessary.

This year I saw a new benefit to linking the Khan quizzes to each concept. My students now can tell me that they are having challenges with the distributive property because they don't fully understand negative numbers. By seeing how the concepts build on each other, and not as separate entities, they can find the specific issue for themselves. They can go to a Khan quiz and see concepts as many times as they need, making them more familiar with the smaller building blocks. Compared to my past experiences I would have students say that they can't do any math and would put up a wall for moving forward. Now, I have students saying that they can move forward as long as they go back and practice an earlier concept. This was an amazing thing to hear from a student, and something that we celebrate together. If a student can identify a specific challenge rather than feeling it is EVERYTHING, they can feel there is a way out of the maze. The best part is that they become their own guide rather than depending only on the teacher. I have really enjoyed this aspect!

How I Don't Use Khan

I do not use the "flipped" approach that Khan was originally founded on. I do make my own videos, that I post after we have explored a concept in class, but I feel there is a part of learning that is missed if a student doesn't have a chance to explore an idea before they are walked through it. I feel that a student should have the time and opportunity to think through a new concept. To be able to ask themselves:

What looks familiar? 

What looks new? 

If I could change one thing about this problem so it looks familiar what would it be?  

What do I think my first step is going to be?

 I feel that by giving the students a chance to explore the ideas, they start to develop their own problem solving skills.  The end goal is to develop their own routine to find a starting point for any question that they are presented with. I feel that if a student is walked through the steps they don't have this opportunity.

Final Thoughts

I am very thankful for programs like Khan Academy. They allow my students to feel that they are more in control. They determine what they need to practice and when. They also start to celebrate their own challenges and their own solutions. I also appreciate how they are free, and my students can continue to use it long after they leave my class.

I feel that Khan can be a great tool if used in the right manner. For me, that means there is nothing assigned, marked or expected from students when using this program. The less I tell them to use it, the more they do. My next step is to figure out how my students can start making their own Khan academies online, to share and collaborate with each other in a program that gives immediate feedback like Khan. I guess that is the project I could assign my students exploring coding as an extension project. See what their first step will be to this new challenge.

Flipped Mastery: Finding a Balance for Middle School Students

For my upcoming unit of Patterning and Algebra, I have decided to run the class on a Mastery Method. I have spent the past two weeks setting up the program, marking plan, support materials and just released it to the students this week. I was surprised to then see two articles posted this weekend, one from the New York Times and the other from David Wees which both made me reflect upon my methods and goals.

The New York Times article In 'Flipped' Classrooms, a Method for Mastery, Tina Rosenberg summarized the challenge of a traditional class room as "the teacher must aim the lecture at the middle, leaving the faster learners bored and the slower ones lost". I have enjoyed using a Challenge by Choice approach to differentiate my teaching for my students. They select the level of challenge and support that they would like when learning a new concept. The issue I was having with using this method was that I was dictating which concepts we were learning and when. Students still enjoyed selecting their level of challenge as they could move slower or faster depending on their personal needs at that time with that concept.

However, looking forward to our algebra unit, I know that my students are coming from a wide range of backgrounds, and some have already covered this material. Due to this I wanted to provide the Challenge by Choice teaching style, but also with the student selecting which concept they wanted to explore and when. My solution to doing this was to combine the Challenge by Choice with a Mastery Method of teaching.

To make this happen, I have broken down the unit concepts into small, understandable steps for my students, each with their personal copy. I took this idea from Dan Meyer after reading his post about his checklists for students to track their learning. Students are made aware of which concepts we will be exploring in the upcoming week via an email and announcement on Friday. If students want to, they can go to another document that outlines videos that I have made or found as well as practice questions about this topic. They can explore the concepts ahead of time, practice, and then come to class knowing what kind of support they would like to have (Green, Blue or Black). When I introduce the concept, students can then decide if they would like to explore the concept together, or if they would like to move ahead and explore an additional concept through online resources, in class activities or with peers. As stated in the Times article, putting this together has been almost having another job, but I know that by having the resources available will allow the students to move at their own pace.

The plan for tracking the students progress is through the use of Mastery Quizzes. Students will sign up each week and identify which mastery quiz they would like to complete. These are formative and they can take them as many times as they like. To be a master, they need to get 4/4 on the concept twice. Students track their progress on their concept check list sheet and I do the same in my notes. It is through these quizzes that students can show me that they already have understood a concept and so they do not need to be in the Green group with me, but can move ahead. If a student has not preformed a mastery quiz on that concept, they are indicating that they would like some support walking through the concept.

In the end, all the students will still write a signature assessment (test) displaying their understanding of the unit. The difference is that they can select how they progress from the start of the unit until the end, not having to move at the same pace.

David Wees made some valid points in his post that made me reflect on my plan to use online resources like Khan for students to practice.  David identified the following challenges of only using online assessments or learning tools when looking at its use at his son's school:

• It did not measure his ability to explain his reasoning to others.
• It did not ask him to show multiple solutions for finding his answer.
• It did not present a meaningful context, and measure my son's ability to apply his understanding to that context.
• It did not check to see if my son had gained any transferable understanding.
• It did not allow my son to talk to peers about his solution.

I am going to keep David's comments in my head as I move forward. My goal is to ensure that those students that are moving ahead are also needing to think collaboratively and be challenged when in the Black or Blue groups. I will remember to think that online tools should be used as a way for them to track their own learning, but not as the way for them to display it. 

If you have any experience with a Mastery based program, I would love to hear or read about your experience and appreciate any advice you can give. 

My Grade Book: Tracking Progress, Not Product

This year I am trying out a new way to set up my grade book. My goal is to better see the progress my students are having in the class, identify areas where they are being challenged and provide extensions when they are showing mastery.

My grade book last year looked something like this:

	Formative Fractions: Quiz Sept 15 (/12)	Formative Percentages: Quiz Sept 30 (/15)	Summative: Test Oct 6 (/35)
Student X	7 = 58% Knowledge: 2/3 Thinking: 1/3 Application: 2/3 Communication: 2/3	12 = 80% Knowledge: 3/5 Thinking: 3/3 Application: 4/5 Communication: 2/2	29 = 82.5% Knowledge: 13/15 Thinking: 6/7 Application: 5/8 Communication: 5/5

In Ontario, each of our assessments are broken into four learning categories; Knowledge, Thinking, Application and Communication (Achievement Charts). Even though with this method, I am able to see that my students greatest area of challenge is in the application area but I can not be specific with my feedback about what concepts, or steps they should take to improve. I can only be general or have to sit down and go through the assessment with them to identify how they could improve. I found that a week later, I would only know that I would need to help this student with their application questions, but I would have no background as to specific concepts, or past areas of concern to adjust my teaching methods. 

To help give a better picture of each student and their progress and growth, I looked to Standards Based Grading for support. My school does not grade using this method, but I thought that if I used it in my personal grade book, it would help provide more meaning to my grades and therefore impact my teaching. My school grade book still looks like the one above, but now my grade book for each unit will look like the following:

Diagnostic		9abcd	4b,7a,b	8a	8b	7b	5	3, 4a
1st Assess	Formative		1ab	1c	1d	1b		2
2nd assess
3rd assess
First Name	Last Name	Algebra Awareness	Add and subtract fractions	Multiply fractions	Divide fractions	Convert improper to mixed fractions	Create equivalent fractions	Order rational number
Student	A	NC	VG VG	NI VG - formative	NC VG - formative	VG VG	G - mixed challenge	G - issue in boxes VG - formative
Student	B	Guess and check	VG VG	VG VG	VG VG	VG VG	VG	VG VG

This was the first few columns and refer specifically to specific concepts. As you move further along in the grade book, it then shows results for applications of rational numbers from word problems etc. 

With a lot more lines, it looked more confusing and more work, but I feel it provides a deeper picture into each of my students. I have put more emphasis on the concepts, taken directly from the curriculum, and now break up my assessments into these rather than the other way around. I have also indicated what question on each assessment referred to each concept. This way I can also ensure that each concept will be assessed multiple times and that students have been given feedback. Now a story can now be told about each learner:

Student A:

• From her diagnostic, Student A showed that she was comfortable with adding and subtracting fractions even when there was an improper fraction involved. However, she showed that she needed improvement in multiplying and dividing fractions as well as the rational number on a number line. Specific support was provided for these areas, and with the second assessment she has shown improvements. The student can be congratulated specifically on her improvement in each area.

Student B:

• From the diagnostic it was aware that this student already had the skills in these areas. Throughout the following class activities, she was encouraged to challenge herself with Blue or Black level activities. In her following assessment she continued to show a very good understanding of the concept and she will be encouraged to explore these ideas further with individualized questions. 

For me, it helped to see if students were continuing to struggle on a specific concept and more direct instruction or support was necessary. Also, I am able to say to Student A:

 "I saw that you have made a great improvement in your dividing fractions. Thats great! What did you do to make those improvements?". 

By identifying their specific achievements, I hope that we can celebrate together, but also reflect on their process. How did they improve in this area? What strategies did they use? What resources? When a student sees that they are the ones that made that improvement, I am hoping I can refer back to it when they may come across a challenge in the future. Also it allows me to celebrate each student because each one will hopefully show a progress on one concept even if their overall result is not displaying this. 

If you have a way to break down your grade book into specific concepts that is working for you, please let me know. I am hoping to make changes throughout the year to something that communicates the learning process.

Breaking Assumptions: International collaboration through a new project to merge data management and internet awareness

One of my favourite TED talks is Chimamanda Adichie's Power of a Single Story. Having been very lucky myself to have traveled to numerous places in the world, living and working with the people there, I have understood the challenges of having a single story of a place or people. Prior to each of my experiences, I felt that I had read up on current events, history and the culture, to only be reminded when I got there about how individual each person in a place is and how challenging it can be to feel that you "know" a place.

I wanted my students to have first hand experiences with this. In the past, I was able to sail into new ports with students and see first hand how their awareness would change as they met and participated in cultural and social activities. However when teaching at a school in Toronto, it isn't as easy. So to bring the same awareness, I developed a project (that has just started) that I hope will bring the same thoughts and reflections to my students while staying inside our school's walls. I am calling the project the Breaking Assumptions Project.

Breaking Assumptions Project

Students will be asked to go online and explore another school/city/location on a website(s). In small groups, they will be asked to use their preconceived ideas and the pictures/information they gain to create a general picture of the people that live or work in that area. They will be guided to think about demographic categories (quantitative) as well as what a day in the life would be like (qualitative). As a class they will summarize their image of the other population and send it off to them. 

The students upon receiving the information from the outside party will analyze the responses. As a group they will reflect to see if they agree or disagree with the responses. They will be guided to prove the statements true or false by creating a survey in which they can collect the information necessary. Once the survey is completed, the results will be analyzed and presented in the form of an info graphic. This info graphic as well as the results of the survey will be both posted within the school as well as sent back to the original group to better inform them about our schools population and demographics. The original group will be encouraged to respond to share if the data better informed them, or if it left them with more questions. They will be the evaluators of the success of the project by completing an evaluation created by the students who completed the survey and info graphic. 

Day 1: (lesson plan)
Through a connection at my school, I was able to make contact with a teacher at a school in India. She was very excited about being apart of a project and offered her English class who were also in middle school to participate. After emails discussing each of our goals, I sent her the following document which outlined what I was hoping her class could accomplish (click here).

In summary, her class would look at three online sites that my school had produced. Her students would complete a See/Think/Wonder activity. To do this they would identify something they saw in the online document/video/pictures, what it made them think about and then what it made them wonder about who we were as students of our school. As a class they then did a summary of who they think a student at my school would be based on the information they gained.  They sent this information back to me, and it was excellent!

My students started off their first class completing the same See/Think/Wonder on the other school's website. After sharing what they saw and thought, I shared with them that this school did the same activity for us. My girls were really excited to see what they had thought.

Each group was given one of the response sheets that the school in India had sent back to look over. The gasps and outcries told me that I had hooked them. "Why would they think that?" or "Thats not right... we are not all blonde!" were heard around the class. By the end of the class it was determined that we needed to prove or disprove the assumptions that were made. Through a discussion of how to do that which included writing individual letters, making a movie to taking photos of each person proved to be too much work or too confusing. in each class a student would come up with the idea that perhaps doing a survey of the grade, asking specific questions would allow the school in India to see the results would allow them to gain a better understanding of us. And with that, the girls were hooked and the project was laid out

Day 2:(lesson plan)
Students needed to create the survey that would prove or disprove the assumptions that were created about them. To do this we had a short class discussion about how we could make sure that the information we collected from the survey was valuable. Through this discussion they learned the definitions of bias, open and closed questions as well as how questions can lead someone to select a specific answer. Each student was provided with an assumption that was taken directly from those sent from the school in India. In a small group of three, they had to come up with what question should be on the survey that would prove or disprove the assumption that was also a closed question, unbiased and the results would be useful to them. At the end of this class the survey was created and it was sent out for students to complete.

Additional Notes:
Coming up with the questions for the survey proved to be harder than I had thought for the students. They really wanted to make sure that the questions would be unbiased and also closed. To differentiate, I ensured that the assumptions that students received would challenge them appropriately. These assumptions ranged from "All students are Canadian citizens" to "Due to small classes, students must have good relationships with their teachers". The first assumption can be translated easily into a closed question, while the latter requires some creative thinking.

As the teacher, I did not edit or change any of the questions prior to putting them into a Google Form that was used for the survey. When putting in the questions, I already could tell that some questions would not gain the feedback necessary to prove or disprove the assumption. Also some questions were not well worded and could result in many different types of responses meaning different things. When the students go through the data, we are going to have the opportunity to share which questions were challenging to answer and why. My goal is by working through the experience and feedback students will be able to see the importance of well worded questions to collect valid data.

Final Thoughts:
Going through this project for the first time has been exciting but also slightly worrisome. Since I am not editing or providing feedback though this project, my students are going to be learning from their mistakes and ultimately feeling the pressure of sending these mistakes to their audience in India. I decided prior to this project that it would be a formative activity and not be marked. Their signature assessment (marked assessment) will be an individual task that will occur after this project is completed and the students have identified how they could improve and what a good data collection methods and analysis looks like. My goal with that is for them to create the rubric by which they will be assessed based on their experience with this project.

Also, working collaboratively with someone who I have never met overseas has also been challenging since communication and understanding of goals wasn't clear at first. But I am VERY thankful that my partners at the school in India have been excellent and have made this project possible for my students. I hope that this will be provide them with the same valuable experience as it has for my girls.

Bansho: Applying Primary School Strategies to MS Math classes

A quick summary of a Bansho from my understanding would be that students solve a problem, share their unique solutions to the rest of the class allowing the teacher to identify various strategies and methods that could be used. The teacher consolidates the methods by creating a summary of a good strategy by identifying or combining various students work. Students then take ownership over the work and feel it is possible to understand since a peer/peers were the originators of the ideas.

I decided to use a Bansho as a way to assess what skills and understanding students had about percentages. I did the Bansho on the first day of class (lesson plan here) also to create the sharing and collaborative culture that exists in my Grade 8 classroom. As students went through the period, they experienced the values of creativity, perseverance and selected challenge. I created a small slide show to guide the work (found here) and and wrapped up with only four questions for homework.

I adapted the idea of the Bansho that I was introduced to match both my teaching style and needs. By using this method I was able to see more than just who was able to solve the problem, but also able to see the following:

• Clear awareness of students who have been taught in a procedural method
• Risk taking abilities
• Number sense abilities
• Ability to explain and justify their ideas
• Ability to see similarities and differences in mathematical procedures
• Ability to make connections to prior knowledge
• Preferred learning style (visual, oral, etc)
• Prior understandings
• Introverts/extroverts

For an activity that took only 50 minutes, it provided me with a better understanding of who my students were and allowed me to flag students who needed both support and a greater level of challenge and where that would need to take place. More than I have ever done on the first day of class. 

Upon reflection I would say that a Bansho would be a valuable teaching strategy for all grade levels. In the high school level it would be a beneficial activity prior to introducing a new functions, rates of change, geometry proofs, to beginning calculus. By asking the students to come up with as many different solutions to a problem you could see their understanding of previous concepts, ability to compare methods to each other and analyze what aspects of various methods create a more accurate and useful solution. For me since the Bansho, I was able to understand how my students already viewed proportional relationship problems and then teach to their methods directly. Overall a great experience and one that I highly recommend to all teachers at all teaching levels. 

Learning from other divisions. How I learned about Bansho.

Last year I attended a OAME conference (Ontario Associate of Mathematic Education) and participated in a "Mathematical Literacy" group. Sitting among the teachers, I quickly realized that I was the only middle school teacher, or pretty much the only teacher that was above the Grade 5 level. As the presentation proceeded, my eyes were popping out of my head as I was seeing strategies that I felt would bring the clarity and ownership of mathematical procedural learning to my students.

However, as I looked around to the other teachers, I saw that they were not as interested as I was. When questioned as to why they weren't as "blown away", one women sitting at my table said "Honey, I've been doing this in my class for 10 years. This isn't new information to me.". A few sessions later, I was sitting in a session meant for Grade 11 and 12 teachers only this time I was the one telling those senior school teachers that the "amazing" strategies that they were being introduced to were common practice in middle school classrooms. It was at this point that I realized the valuable strategies that work for students are not being used or applied beyond the designated Primary, Junior, Intermediate and Senior divisions. So I made it a goal to see what I could take and use from the Primary/Junior divisions, as those are the areas that I have never taught in. And this is how I was introduced to a Bansho.

Back to school and New Goals

New school year, means a fresh start and of course the creation of goals for the year. For me, this is my first year that I will be teaching in the same school as I was in June. Also it is my first year teaching the same grade and curriculum. With my goals usually being something surrounding me trying to "figure things out" and "stay on my feet", I can now slow down my pace and take a look around. It feels great to be able to look ahead to the whole year, able to picture it, but with that also comes with the awareness of what could be lying around the corner. One of my students said it best when sharing her hopes and fears for the Grade 8 year. She indicated that in Grade 7 she had many fears and hopes since everything was new, but now that she knows about the school and the expectations, they are bigger hopes and even bigger fears. Being aware of what is around the corner, didn't make things easier, just made her more aware of what was to come. 

For me my goals are the following:

1. Remain flexible. Just because I can see beyond the week, doesn't mean that I need to lock myself into any set ideas or plans. A strength I feel I had from my previous years was the idea of things can always change, and I always need to be open to that change.
2. Use my resources more. We have a great Junior school in my building. I hope to go and see how they work through their math curriculum with the students and see what skills I can gain from them. Also I hope to continue reading my RSS feed each sunday which has consistently introduced me to new and creative thinkers. 
3. Fine tune and challenge my Challenge by Choice (Green/Blue/Black) program. Ever since being introduced to it while living in Jakarta by David Suarez, I have adapted it to fit my teaching style, resources and students. Now applying it in the same school, two years in a row, I can really explore and make bigger changes to fit my students.
4. Keep in touch with my online professional community. Last year I was apart of a program geared to help teachers develop a blog. It was the encouragement I needed to do something that was a goal for a while. Now that I am out of the program, I hope to keep up the reflection and communication as best I can. I have changed the site (using blogger) and hope to gain any suggestions.

So here is to a great year. As my roommate on the ship said so well after finishing our first semester, "The first bit we just tried to survive. Now we can truly live the experience". And with living, my buy-in is greater, making the highs even higher.

Hangout with Formative Feedback - A personal youtube video for feedback

For those teachers in Ontario, you are well aware of the Growing Success document that was published in 2010 and is the guide for how assessment and evaluation is implemented in our schools. Having taught overseas for my first years as a teacher, I came back to Ontario in 2011  lucky to learn the document and participate in PD at the same time as my colleagues. Here is a summary of the 7 fundamental principals.





This year my goal was to develop the last principal. I wrote about my experience and process in my previous post  and also the experience of the 13 year old student driving there education. The one challenge that I had with this last principal what how the students were using the diagnostics, formative check ins, class conversations activities to identify their needs. I found that my written feedback was not having as great an impact for the amount of time and effort I was putting into the work.

My goal was to have the students think through the feedback that I had given them and develop an internal conversation about how they could improve. A teacher friend of mine told me that she would highlight areas on student work and ask them to think about why she had done so, causing them to reflect on their own work. I liked her suggestion and wanted to do the same thing with my students. My challenge was that I was hoping to give differentiated feedback, asking students to revisit key concepts, but also to challenge other students to show their thinking or show them new ways to communicate their ideas. So I decided to make marks on their work, but follow it up with a guiding conversation afterwards... for each student. One on one conversations are not possible in class, so I decided to video tape my feedback to the students. But with limited computer space to save so many files and a challenge to share them, I looked for options on the internet where I came across Google hangouts and Youtube streaming.

The solution is a personal video, recorded directly on youtube and sent as a private link to my student to watch, comment and use for their feedback. It was a one step process from recording the video to sending a link automatically to my students without any uploading or fancy editing. Here is how I did it:

1. Add Google Hangouts to your chrome apps
2. Open a new hangout, name it and ensure that you also say that it is a private video.
3. Record the video
4. Send the link of the private video to your student
5. Track the "views" to see if your student was able to watch it. Also you can set up the comments to create a private conversation to talk about the video. 

The feedback I got from my students was great. They said that they enjoyed the private feedback, and by watching it they were able to think through what I was saying more compared to when they read it. Also, they knew exactly where the feedback was so that they could view it again before they did a final assessment that affected their grades.

My goal is to continue this next year. It took a lot of time, but the payback was great. I also plan on asking the students to do their own videos and save them to their online portfolios. This way they can talk about their own process of learning and their own next steps.