Interactive Classroom

A brief description of how Khan Academy can be used in an interactive classroom.

If you are interested in a self-paced learning experience for each of your students,

then you're probably really gonna like this model of an interactive classroom.

In an interactive classroom students move at their own pace through a chunk of curriculum.

So, this could mean that students are working through an individual unit at their own pace

maybe it's a semester of material or maybe it's an entire school year or multiple grade levels.

It just depends on what your school is supportive of and how much planning you're willing to do.

Regardless of how much curriculum your students are moving through

the students are really the drivers of their own education in an interactive classroom.

So, students... students become drivers...

And this is because students are no longer listening to a lecture everyday

Instead, they are given a list of exercises and videos and maybe some other worksheets and online resources

that they are moving through in a mastery, in a mastery based way and also at their own speed.

So let's go ahead and jump into the nitty-gritty of what an interactive classroom can look like.

Now, they never look the same and they often change throughout the day. So this is just an example.

Usually, sometime during the day there will be a teacher seminar.

And this is when a teacher can look at the data to see which students really could use some extra help,

if a group of students are all struggling on the same topic or maybe the teacher is just ready

to introduce some new material with a group project or a hook, and these are the students who are ready for it.

There is also a fair amount of peer-to-peer tutoring that happens in interactive classrooms

you can see that in these two groups with students sitting next to each other

with these orange things which are supposed to be computers or tablets

And again, teachers can use data to pair students up, students can pair themselves up

based on what they know of each other.

And then over here in this corner this is probably a bit quieter, this is where a lot of individual work can happen

And again, students might be working through different videos or exercises, based on where they are

on their own learning trajectory.

And then we also hope that there is a lot of time spent on group work or collaborative work or projects.

And this gives students an opportunity to really approach math in a more interactive exploratory way.

Maybe it's an activity where students can apply their knowledge to real world situations

that are very relevant to them.

Regardless of what the activity is, these are just important opportunities for students to interact with each other

and have that discovery based approach to learning math.

So this is just one example of what an interactive classroom can look like.

You can see that there is a lot going on and so, there are four things that are really key to an interactive classroom

and the first is data.

It's important for teachers to be data driven so that they know which students are sort of lacking behind,

which students are ready to move on

and because the teacher becomes less of a content expert and more of a facilitator,

the teacher really needs the data to know how to group students intelligently.

The second thing that's really important for the success of an interactive classroom is simply classroom management.

Because there is so much going on it's important for a teacher to

really have a strong grasp of being able to control this much caos and feel really comfortable with it.

The third thing that's important for an interactive classroom is planning.

When you have students moving at their own pace there'll inevitably be students who are moving

much faster than the rest of the students.

So, a teacher always has to be ready to know what to do with those students.

Whether it's moving them on to the next unit or to the next grade level, or maybe saying

"You know what? It's time for you to peer tutor and prove your mastery that way."

"It's time for you to do a project." Or maybe "It's time for you to explore the computer science curriculum"

As a way to sort of hold that student for a little bit until you're ready with the next amount of planning that you've done

The fourth piece that's really important for an interactive classroom is simply time

It takes time to be able to get here, it takes time for students to become familiar with this site

and it takes time for you as a teacher to feel comfortable with the data and analytics to be able to run

something like this.

So, if this is something that you are excited about then we encourage you to start in any way that you can

And just know that as you learn more about the systems and procedures that are successful with your students

that that will all build towards an interactive classroom where there can be a lot of self-paced, mastery based learning

where students are the drivers of their own education.