Administrators

Support Khan Academy for Personalized PSAT/SAT Practice (Outside of Core Content Classes)

Step 1: Schedule Time & Space

We know that students that reach the 20+ hour mark for personalized practice average 115 points of improvement from fall to spring. Therefore schedules should be developed to help schools reach the goal of 20 hours in the 28 weeks leading up to April testing. That is:

28 school weeks from September to April
20 hours of practice
20 / 28 = 43 min/week (outside of core instruction)

While students should be encouraged to use Khan Academy outside of school hours, meeting this 20 hour goal can be achieved within school hours. Here are 3 suggestions of how to incorporate at least 43 minutes of Khan Academy practice into your school's schedule based on the three most common school schedules. Below is each type of schedule listed with recommended practice times below them. Below them are three exemplar schedules of how to get over the 43 min/week benchmark, while being efficient with class time.

Schedule #1: Schools with an Advisory/Seminar/One Goal Class Daily

10-15 minutes on Khan four days a week

Schedule #2: Schools With a Advisory/Seminar/One Goal/Extended Homeroom Class Once a Week

30 minutes of Khan during Advisory/Seminar/Extended Homeroom once a week
10 minutes during lunch time during week
10 minutes after school once a week

Schedule #3: Schools With No Advisory/Seminar/One Goal/Extended Homeroom

15 minutes of Khan PSAT/SAT practice during ELA class
15 minutes Khan PSAT/SAT practice during Math class
10 minutes lunch time during week
10 minutes after school once a week

Schedules

Avoid Using Instructional Time

While there are many ways to incorporate the use of Khan Academy into your school's daily routine, it is best to avoid using precious Math and ELA instructional minutes of PSAT/SAT personalized practice if possible. If you as an administrator truly feel that there are not minutes that can be spared throughout the school day for Khan Academy test prep, consider opening the school up on non-attendance days for students to use computers in an adult supervised area. Find ways to provide access to the necessary time and resources for students to get the recommended amount of practice.

Step 2: Schedule Technology

Students won't make much progress on Khan Academy if they aren't provided the technology necessary to practice! Make sure that whatever technology that is present in your school is used efficiently and assist with making sure technology is provided for people in designated practice times. If your school utilizes mobile carts, design school policies that prioritize usage of these for homerooms that want to use Khan Academy.

Step 3: Set School-Wide Usage Minutes Goals

20 hours of practice on Khan Academy on average leads to a 115 point increase in SAT scores! We want to see every single high school student in CPS achieve this growth. The first step to doing this is to set clear guidelines and expectations of the amount of time that students will spend on the platform. Coming up with innovative ways to hold students accountable and incentivize practicing will be key to making sure that students buy into this program and get the most out of it that they can.

Step 4: Monitoring/Tracking OSP Practice

Monitoring the progress your students are making is essential to ensuring their success and providing necessary interventions for students not on track. This is both one of the most essential and challenging steps in the Playbook. Click through this presentation to learn more about what tools coaches have to monitor the progress of their students.

SAT/Khan Playbook: OSP Monitoring/Tracking

Making Progress Public

There should be a designated staff member who regularly consults the Official SAT Practice (OSP) dashboard to check in on how much students are using Khan. They should then provide updates to the rest of the staff on how much the program is being used. Additionally, it is important to make the data about how much students are using Khan public. This can be done by:

Students who do an excellent job of meeting the time benchmarks should be acknowledged publicly (bulletin board, morning announcements, school wide email)
Share data with parents so they can see how much their children are using the website
Send home a school made report on usage with students' reports cards
Emphasize to parents the important role of the SAT in opening opportunities for college and scholarships

Step 5: Create Incentives for Practice

Getting Students Engaged

The large amount of data this initiative provides makes it possible to create fun, competitive ways to get students engaged in the test preparation process. Implement incentives on the individual student, grade, and school levels to encourage both individuals and the community as a whole to buy-in to this practice routine. Consider rewarding students with:

field trips
movie screenings
out of uniform days
pizza parties

Have systems in place to make sure that the promised incentives are delivered and that students are aware of how attainable receiving these incentives are.

Step 6: Student Ownership Culture Building

In order for this program to work, students have to take ownership and agency in ensuring they get the amount of practice they need to. Support them in doing this by setting up a school pledge asking students to pledge to complete 20 hours of OSP prior to April testing. Consider holding celebrations, designing incentives, and giving out awards like student of the week to people who utilize this resource well.

Click to go back to read about other stakeholder roles in this stage.

Report abuse