Khan Academy Part 2: The Data

Now, for part 2 of Khan Academy: The DATA

The data this site provides to both the teachers and the students is pretty awesome. What makes it even more awesome is that the data is created automatically as your students work through their knowledge maps on the website (see part 1).

Here is how to get started:
Once students have a log in and they sign into Khan for the first time, they have to add you as their coach. This obviously means that you need a log in for yourself as the teacher/coach.

To add you as their coach, students click on the coaches tab which is found on the left side tab in their profile (see below). They type in your log-in information or email address and simply “add you as a coach.”

  Khan Academy Part 2: The Data - Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Class List:
Once all of your students have added you, you can log into your teacher account to see your class list of students. When you see all of your students in your class list, you are ready to go! Students can start their knowledge maps (see other blog post) and you can now track your student’s progress with the data the site provides.

So now that you have had the opportunity to log in and see your class list, below I will walk you through the data that the site generates for you.
When I click on the “coaches” tab on the top right side of the screen, I am brought to this screen, which then gives me a coaches tab on the left side with “Reports.” Below, you can read about each one of these “Reports”

Progress Summary:
This screen is the first thing I am shown when clicking the coaches tab.

This Progress Summary is organized by topics. If you scroll through this Progress Summary, you will see a list of every single topic available on Khan Academy. If you notice above the topic heading of “addition and subtraction” it says Expand All- Collapse All. I currently have it on Expand All, which is why it is showing those colors with numbers. If you click Collapse All, it will not show the colors and numbers, but instead just a list of topics.
When clicking Expand All, I am shown these different colors, which represent the progress my students are making on different topics. So, on 4 digit addition with carrying, you can see that I have 8 students that are in review (remember after some time it brings back old concepts for students to review), I have 12 students that are proficient, I have 3 students that have not started it, 1 student that is struggling, and 1 student that has just started this skill.
I can then click on the individual colored bars to get a more in-depth look. It is important to remember that no matter the view of the data, you can keep clicking the data to “dig deeper” and get more information. Below you can see I clicked on the topic decimals on a number line:

When clicking on the individual colored bars, I can see the students who are in review, those that are proficient, etc.

Another great thing with this Progress Summary is that you can filter what is shown on your screen. If you notice the search bar in the picture below, you can type anything in that search bar and it will filter the results, so you don’t see the entire list of every single topic. You can also click that little “struggling” box (next to the search bar) to only see a list of the topics that students are struggling in, versus every single topic. You can filter for a time period, maybe instead of looking at all time, you just want to see today’s progress. Lastly you can filter an individual student to see only their progress versus the entire class.
Progress Report:
Another way to view all of this information is to click Progress Report on the side coaches tab. This is directly underneath Progress Summary. This will essentially give you all of the same information, but presented in a different way. Instead of a list going down the screen, it has all of the concepts listed on top, with students going down the left-hand side.

**Side note: I love this view because our computer lab is set up so students are sitting in a half circle, and unable to see each other’s screens. So if I want a quick snapshot of my students’ progress, I ask them to pull up this page (remember, they’ve seen all of their own data too), I then do a quick glance around the room and can pay attention to the number of struggling skills (red boxes) and/or proficient skills (blue boxes). Below is the student’s version that they show me.


Going back to the coaches view of Progress Report, you can filter this data  as well. I filtered it for struggling skills, and when I hover the mouse over one of the red boxes, it will show the student’s progress on that particular “struggling” concept, as well as the date of when it was last attempted.

Then, I can click that individual red box and get an EVEN MORE detailed view of the time it took this student to complete each question. I can even click each individual number to read the question:
This view, in my opinion, is the meat and potatoes. This view allows you to see an individual skill broken down to its barest bones. It allows you to dig deeper and diagnose your student in terms of the help and/or remediation they may need. *Side note: students can see this in their own profiles under “Focus”.

The question marks above each bar show that the student clicked “Need a hint?” Which indicates that they could not solve the problem on their own and needed help. You can also see how long it took this student to complete each question. Then, you can get even more detailed by clicking the individual red and blue bars. These show the actual question the student worked on.

You can see below. I clicked on one of the red bars from the graph above.
You can see how the student answered the question, the amount of time in between the multiple attempts to answer, and the number of hints they used before they answered the question. The hints are an awesome feature and very helpful for students, but it needs to be documented that this student required three hints in order to attempt to solve it, and still did not get the answer correct. Not good.

This is one of my higher students, because negative numbers aren’t a 5th grade skill. But still, this is great data to show me that a quick reteach/mini-lesson is needed.
The equivalent of this information for a student’s view is the under the tab “Focus” in their profiles. They will see the image below.
As with all of the data, students can click the different colored bars to dig deeper into the data and see the different skills and problems. As stated above, when students click the different sections of the colored circle, they see the above graph of red and blue bars (skills proficient in vs. struggling).

Daily Activity:
This view allows you to see what students are working on and how long they are working on it both during school hours and outside of school hours. You pick a date on the calendar and it will show you the screen below. The dark blue represents outside of school hours and the light blue represents during school hours.
My favorite part about this is the after school hours data. Knowing that my students have internet at home, I may tell students to go home and work on a particular skill. I can hover the mouse over the dark blue section to see what this student has worked on at home, and for how long.
Also, I can easily see which skills this student worked on during school hours.
Student’s can also view their own activity under their “Vital Statistics” tab under “Activity”.
This is their view:
You can see that their view shows video time vs. skill time and energy points earned. They can also click the individual colored bars to dig in deeper.

Progress Over Time:
This is another way to view student’s progress while working on the website.
The bottom of the graph shows the days working on the site, and all of those circles are skills completed. So when I hovered over a student’s (shown in a color) small circles, the highest circle is the last skill completed.

Energy Points:
This is directly connected with the amount of energy points the students receive as they complete tasks (read more about this in my other blog post: Khan Academy Part 1). A fun thing to do is create a goal to earn so many energy points by a specific date, or turn individual energy point accumulation into a friendly competition!

Goals:
The last view on the coaches tab is Goals. You can read more about students setting personal goals for themselves in my other blog post found here. But, as the coach, you can see how your students are progressing towards individual goals, and you can also see the new goals students have set for themselves.
Like the other coaches view options above, you can also click each of these colored bars to find out more detailed information.

Remember that students can also see all of this information in their own profiles. This data helps give them a quick view of their progress and also allows them to see how they have been spending their time on Khan Academy.

Being that my students are masters at tracking their own data, they now understand the benefits of tracking their own learning and understanding and have even grown to love this process of seeing their mastery of content. Using Khan is another fabulous tool to support data tracking and what’s even better is that with the individuality of this website, students get the opportunity to steer their own ships. Can’t ask for anything better than that!

*See part 1 of this post HERE!

9 Comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    Thank you so much for posting this! I teach 5th grade and have been using Moby Math, but I like Khan Academy so much better from what I’ve seen so far. I am wondering if there is an easier way to keep track of each student’s energy points other than clicking on each individual student. I teach almost 70 students for math and that is just too time consuming. I’ve searched and haven’t found a way yet. Thanks again!

    Lacey

  2. You’ve got me so interested in this site! I created an account after your first post, but I signed up with my own personal email (which I don’t want the students to have access to) so I need to create a new email address that I use just for this. This site is PERFECT for us to use with our netbooks.

  3. You will love it Jen! As will your kids! It seems overwhelming, but I promise I just started playing around and it was super easy to figure out!

  4. @Lacey- I tried looking through, but I am not finding an easier way to see energy points. I’ll keep looking though!

  5. I’ve been pondering trying Khan with my homeschooler. Will definitely give it a go now.
    Thanks so much for all the time and effort you have put in to compiling these posts. Much appreciated.

  6. So glad to help! My kids love it. I’d be interested to hear how it goes from a homeschooler’s point of view as well!

  7. Desiree Truett says:

    Unbelievable post! I own a school and will be using this at Professional Development, WOW!!! I’ll also be purchasing from your store. You are incredibly talented!!!

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