The Grandparents Teach, Too writing team.

If your children struggle in elementary, middle or high school, or they simply need more practice, there is a website that can help turn things around. If you are a teacher who wants to help struggling students and high achievers, a site founded by Sal Khan and supported by the Gates Foundation is not perfect, but it is another tool in the toolbox. You might want to check it out.

Khan Academy

The web site is www.khanacademy.org and it is free. This is how it works. Students go on the site and choose the lesson they may be working on in school. They follow the movie explanation until they understand it and practice some problems.

Here is the important part classroom teachers may like to use from time to time: The site gives teachers and students the power to “flip” the traditional classroom. Instead of the teacher giving an explanation, doing problems together and assigning homework practice, classroom time is ONLY spent doing the “homework,” giving help, checking practice or doing fun hands-on activities.

Let’s say Wednesday night, students watch an assigned 10- minute video explanation at home, and Thursday in class students practice textbook problems together with their teacher based on the 10-minute video lesson with teacher review. Teachers can spend more time giving one-to-one instruction and understanding can be checked immediately.

This changes the basic rhythm of classes. Teaches know when the difficult concepts are coming. It allows teachers to provide more help with those and to allow families to practice skills with their children once they thoroughly understand. Instruction can occur twice and homework can be done in class with teacher help. Students who understand, do the practice and do advanced work provided in every text series. Students who need expert help receive it immediately.

Classes Upside Down

The textbooks don’t go out the window and this is not done for every lesson. The responsibility is still on parents to insure students follow through and watch the 10-minute online video before class the next day. The change is that homework is done in class with the teacher and nights are more peaceful for everyone. Friction often occurs when students don’t understand how to do their homework.

Teachers can choose from thousands of videos covering everything from early arithmetic to SAT practice. The videos on the site have been seen millions of times, perfected and translated into many languages.

Palo Alto, California schools, site of the project, found that supposed slower students are often able to learn faster. They simply need more explanations, supervised practice, and a “flipped” classroom, not every day, perhaps, but often. Could the Khan Academy also help with summer practice?

See grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com; wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons; and their sites on Pinterest and Facebook.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Grandparents Teach, Too is a non-profit organization of elementary and preschool teachers from Marquette, Michigan. The writers include: Jan Sabin, Mary Davis, Jean Hetrick, Cheryl Anderegg, Esther Macalady, Colleen Walker, Fran Darling, and Iris Katers. Their mission since 2009 is to help parents, grandparents, and other caregivers of young children provide fun activities to help prepare young children for school and a life long love of learning. They are supported by Great Start, Parent Awareness of Michigan, the U.P. Association for the Education of Young Children, Northern Michigan School of Education, the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum and the Northern Michigan University Center for Economic Education.