Khan Academy Alignment to the CCRS?

Hi everyone!

As part of a curriculum alignment project I'm working on to aggregate resources and materials as they align to the CCRS, I'm wondering if anyone has gone through the work of doing a content alignment of Khan Academy that exists in Excel or CSV format. Khan provides a .csv file that lists out the alignment of all their practice content to the Common Core State Standards, but I'm wondering if anyone has taken this and adjusted it to show the alignment to the respective CCRS. 

I know there has been a survey circulating to capture the what the adult ed field might want in relation to KA and its CCRS alignment, but I do not know who circulated this survey. I also know people have their likes and dislikes in relation to KA; however, I think it has a lot of value, and I'd like to be sure it's included as a resource option as part of this curriculum alignment work. 

Thanks!
Jeff

Comments

Thanks for this good question, Jeff. I'm betting some members have been working on this. Why reinvent the wheel if someone has already put forth the effort? I'm hoping we hear from members on this.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Teaching & Learning CoP
 

I'm not so sure. 

One thing I have noticed about Khan Academy 'lessons' and videos is that they often include concepts further down the Standards progression in a simpler concept (and usually it's taught as a procedure, and standards tend to be more concept-based).     I haven't actually explored this because there are so many better materials out there (e.g. https://www.illustrativemathematics.org/ )   though probably somebody has. 

Hi Susan,

I completely agree with you and, yes, Illustrative Math is a far richer approach to math instruction. The work I'm trying to do is to aggregate free and open content around standards so there are multiple options for learners and instructors. As an educator who LOVES teaching math, I'm much more of a fan of posing problems, allowing for cognitive struggle, making comparisons/connections to approaches, etc.....but I also appreciate that this method does not fit into everyone's teaching approach. Aligning Khan is the first step to our plan to provide teachers with a list of alternatives to aligning the curriculum the have on-hand—as well as free and open online resources—to the skills their adult learners need to learn. 

Here is a cool example from my friend at Waukegan Public Library, where he has pulled lessons from various publishers, Khan Academy, and LearnZillion to offer instructors and volunteer tutors clear guidance on how to address a particular skill a learner might want to work on....with multiple options for getting there. I'm working with folks to try to scale this work in a meaningful, easy-to-use way, so learners have multiple options and can more readily select the option to which they best respond. 

In the meantime, I'd love to learn more about how you are using Illustrative Math with your learners....it's another one of the list of options I'd love to build in. Please feel free to post or PM me at jeff.goumas@gmail.com

When I heard about Khan Academy, I was excited and optimistic.   Then I dove into a lesson b/c I thought it might be helpful to a student.   I realized it wouldn't be, per: 

https://resourceroomblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/average/    

I enthusiastically recommend Khan Academy when folks have forgotten a procedure, and I realize his casual "let's not really worry about anything complicated" approach is very appealing to many.   

I have rather a strong preference for resources that get beyond recorded lecture and chalkboard -- I'm heading over to geogebra now :)   

Hi Susan, I really appreciated reading your blog describing and reflecting on the math lesson on figuring averages. Your words illustrate your depth of understanding of many adult learners and their needs. I would agree that the lesson you described might be fine for someone who just needed to brush up on this procedure, but would be quite inadequate for many of the adult learners we serve. Thank you for sharing your insights.

At the same time, I think it's a good thing to organize online resources for their potential usefulness. There are some students who might benefit.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Teaching & Learning CoP

:)   I fully agree!   THat blog post was in 2011, too, and many things have been polished and improved.   

I had a student tell me about another online resource -- https://www.youtube.com/user/FortBendTutoring   "Fort Bend Tutoring."   She said "he's goofy," making it less stressful... but that he gives a lot of background and explanations of why something is done the way it is.   SHe was struggling with complicated roots and powers (fractions, negatives everywhere...)  

Another good video source is http://www.mathispower4u.com/  

These sources are designed and delivered by math teachers.   

Hi Brett!

Thanks for sharing. I have in fact downloaded their alignment spreadsheet and have been plugging away at trying to align all of the videos to a master Google Sheet that has the CCSS and the corresponding CCRS. The purpose of this activity is to provide a tool that allows instructors to see how various resources "align" to the standards to support the transition to the new NRS tests, which by way of being CCRS-based are ushering in "required" CCRS implementation. I'm wondering if there are folks out there who might find this of use and might be willing "divide and conquer" the effort?

Jeff

HI Brett,

I'm working with some volunteers right now to set up the format for folks to contribute by way of tagging/aligning content from Khan and some others. Hold tight, and be on the lookout for a post in the near future. 

Jeff

Hello Jeff! I stumbled on some work by a teacher coordinator, Jennefer Jolls, that you may find helpful. Jennefer was part of the New England Literacy Technology Integration Project in 2016. It looks she started an alignment sheet that maps KA math videos to CCRS. Here's the first page of her alignment: https://nelrc.org/practice/tipdocs/Jolls.lesson%20materials.pdf. She also speaks about this work in the video (start at 1:30): https://vimeo.com/123499002