For parents: Setting a daily learning schedule for elementary school students

All right, hi everyone! Thank you so much for joining our parent webinar on how to create a schedule for your third through fifth-grade student, as well as how you can use Khan Academy resources and tools to support your child's learning at home. So you can keep your day moving, I want to take a moment to say thank you to our sponsors, including Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, and Novartis for helping us provide support during school closures. Their support has made webinars and resources like this possible.

I also want to acknowledge all you parents, grandparents, older siblings, and maybe even some teachers who have joined us today. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about how you can keep your child learning at home. We are so grateful you're turning to Khan Academy during these challenging times. My name is Shannon and I'm a former teacher currently working on the district partnerships team at Khan Academy. I'm so excited to be joined by two of my colleagues and friends, Dan who is on our marketing team and Patty who works with me on the district partnerships team.

Patti will be answering your questions throughout the webinar, so please submit any questions you have throughout the presentation in the question box and she will get back to you there. We'll also save about ten minutes at the end to answer your questions live. Today's webinar will cover how to find and utilize content on Khan Academy during the school closure period, as well as tips and best practices for setting up a daily schedule for your child.

This will hopefully be helpful to parents who are looking for ways to keep their child learning during school closures and provide some structure so that you can gain back time in your day for all the many tasks I'm sure you have on your list beyond childcare and homeschooling. This webinar will not cover in detail account setup or how to get started on Khan Academy, so if you are new, our remote learning guide or quick start guide is a good place to start. If you go to the handout that's linked in this webinar, you will see on the slide we have linked the quick start guide so you can check that out there.

Now for a bit of background on Khan Academy. We are a non-profit organization, and our mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Our content is standards-aligned and available in over 40 languages, covering multiple content areas. Your child can access our resources on the web or through a mobile device. With more than a billion children worldwide being impacted by school closures, we are experiencing soaring demand for our free resources. We will continue to produce webinars and resources to support remote learning, so keep checking back to khanacademy.org for any upcoming webinars and new resources as they are created.

And now let's take a look at what resources are available for your child. Khan Academy is possibly best known for our math content in math videos, but in addition to math, we have a full range of subjects and an increasing range of subject areas for your elementary school student. Relevant content might include our English language arts content, which is in a work in progress state; you can expect to see it change and evolve as we continue to gather feedback. We also have a mastery-enabled grammar course, which covers third through fifth-grade grammar standards; a computer animation and storytelling course, both of these courses were created in partnership with Disney and Pixar and are highly creative.

They involve computer-based and tech-free activities. We also have a computer programming for beginners course and growth mindset activities for all ages. These activities offer students an opportunity to reflect on their learning goals and develop learning strategies that will likely benefit them as they adjust to their new learning routine at home. Of our third through fifth-grade content, one important thing to note is only math and grammar are mastery-enabled, meaning students can work through an entire year's worth of content and at their own pace, tracking their progress along the way.

You might be wondering, well, how do I access this content? The first step is to ensure that your child is logged into their Khan Academy account. From there, as you can see on the right side, you go up to courses, and that will bring you to a menu displaying all content on Khan Academy. Your students can access any exercises, quizzes, and unit tests from there. But you have another option. On your child's homepage, they can select "edit courses" to access content.

One benefit to adding courses this way is it will automatically recommend courses based on their grade level, so you can easily find what content is relevant for your child. Once they've selected and saved those courses, they will always appear on their homepage, so it'll be easy to access for them. During this time of school closures, we've heard so much feedback and questions from parents and teachers about how to structure a student's day and keep their child learning while still getting your own work done.

We know how challenging it can be to juggle multiple priorities, and we hope that our resources can help you achieve some semblance of normalcy during this time. In response to this feedback, we created this set of schedules that give you a recommendation, or you can think of it as a starting point, for restructuring your day. Using the link on this page, you will see a template for the daily schedules, which go all the way from pre-K to high school. So if you have younger students or older students, you can see the schedules there.

We put these schedules out having heard that there was a need, but it's important to acknowledge that they won't just work as is for all families. You know your child best, so we encourage you to adapt and change the schedule to make it work for you and your child. In our sample schedule, which you see here, the subjects outlined in green have resources available for your child on Khan Academy. Your child's school might already be providing remote learning guidance or tools, or the schedule might not work well with the routine you've already established.

So know our sample schedules are meant to be flexible and adaptable to meet the needs of your family. You might not be able to stick to the schedule every day, and that's more than okay. During these challenging times, everyone is just trying to do their best. So if all you can do is an hour of math and an hour of reading a day with your child, that's great, and that's enough. When you and your child are ready, you can always add additional subjects or activities that might interest your child.

For a quick run-through of the sample schedule we have here, we'll start our day with breakfast, followed by math, some outdoor play if possible, or maybe a board game with a sibling, followed by English language arts, some silent reading time, grammar, and then end the day with some fun enrichment activities. Now we're going to go through each part of this schedule and talk about what resources you might use from Khan Academy.

Starting our day, like I mentioned, first thing to do is eat some breakfast, the most important meal of the day, and get out of your pajamas. It's time to get started with math, and depending on your child's grade level, second through fifth grade math is likely a good place for them to get started. To move through the content more quickly, students can utilize our course challenges and unit tests.

One practice we've seen effective to fill in learning gaps that your child may have developed over the years is to have students start at kindergarten and work through the content for each grade level before moving on to the next. This provides students with a rare opportunity to fill in those gaps that might hold them back in the future. If your child doesn't have too many gaps, they can typically get through previous years' content in one to three hours.

For a quick overview of our math content, here are the most important things you need to know. Our math content is aligned to common core standards and covers all standards from kindergarten up to early college. All math content is mastery-enabled, so students can work through an entire course at their own pace. As your child works through a course, they will be exposed to various question types, receive instant feedback, and if they get stuck, they have access to step-by-step solutions, videos, and articles. So before asking you for help, encourage them to check out the learning resources that are built into Khan Academy.

Students can also track their progress on each course in real time, and as a parent, you can track their progress on your parent dashboard. We recommend giving students ample time to play and get their heart pumping. After a break, students can jump into our English language arts content. You can expect to see more content added to each grade level over the next month. You can have your child start at grade level and practice one to two practice sets per day, which should take about 20 minutes.

If you notice the content is too easy or too challenging for your child, you can have them move up or down at any time. Our English language arts content is aligned to common core standards. Right now, our content includes practice for second through eighth-grade standards, with ninth grade coming soon. The content is focused on reading and vocabulary standards. As students work through assignments, they will be exposed to interesting passage topics related to science, social studies, and social-emotional learning.

Similar to our math content, students have access to instant feedback and a worked rationale for every answer choice. If they get stuck, our English language arts courses have a limited number of videos, but you can expect to see more added soon. Another option for your child during the English language arts block is to check out our project-based "Imagineering in a Box" course. In this exciting course made in partnership with Disney, students will create a theme park of their very own by getting a behind-the-scenes look at how artists, designers, and engineers come together to create theme parks. The course includes videos, articles, and activities such as designing a menu, creating a ride simulator, and building a prototype character.

The course is broken down into three main lessons, with each lesson taking a minimum of two hours. So one option if you want to implement this course with your child is to have them work through the lessons for about 30 minutes one to two days per week in place of their English language arts content. And now we have arrived at silent reading time, which your child is likely used to having in their regular school day. We have listed popular books by grade level; you can see the link here, but encourage you to have your child find something that they're interested in.

Now, after silent reading, you can take a quick walk or break, and then your child can jump into our grammar content. We recommend having your students start by taking the course challenge a few times to figure out what they know and what skills they still need to work on. Similar to our math content, our grammar course is also mastery-enabled, so your child can work through the skills at their own pace and track their progress along the way. The course covers skills related to third through fifth-grade standard American English standards, and every question has a step-by-step solution and a line video to help support students as they work through the skills.

Then, for some tech-free time, which is so important, have your child take some time to journal or respond to a writing prompt. This could be as simple as having them write about their day and how they're feeling, or you can have them create a story of their very own. On the schedule, you'll see some sample writing prompts you can pull from, but feel free to make these up on your own or encourage your child to make up a prompt. You can follow up writing time with some lunch and maybe an educational podcast. Podcasts are a great way to keep your child learning while reducing their time spent staring at a computer screen, and it also might give you back a bit of time.

There are tons of great podcasts for kids available, and we've listed some examples, but encourage students to find something that they're interested in. We'll end the day with enrichment. Some options include code.org express course, which is the block-based coding for beginners course, where students will create their very own story or game. On Khan Academy, we also have a text-based computer programming course and a computer animation course, which was created in partnership with Pixar and growth mindset activities for elementary school students.

If you have an upper elementary school student, so a fourth or fifth grader, or maybe you have a middle or high school student and they're interested in computer animation, you can try our interactive computer animation course. The course demonstrates how traditional school subjects such as math, science, and the arts are a vital part of the everyday work put into Pixar's filmmaking process. In this course, students will work through the many stages of the filmmaking process, including lighting effects and set and staging.

Similar to other content on Khan Academy, students within this course have access to instant feedback on exercises, step-by-step solutions for every question they answer, and instructional videos to guide them along the way. This content spans multiple grade levels, so not every lesson is appropriate for your fourth or fifth grader, but within the course, you can access a lesson finder and find content that's relevant for your age, for whatever grade level or age your child is. Lastly, our research-based growth mindset activities are especially relevant during this challenging time of school closures.

The activities provide a structured way for students to explore the science behind their brain and the idea that they can learn anything. The growth mindset videos, articles, and activities cover topics such as the brain and learning, how to work through mistakes and frustration, and how to set goals. With students adjusting to their new remote learning routine, these activities will provide a way for students to process and reflect on their new normal and set goals for learning remotely. If you're just getting started with remote learning with your child and are looking for more tips and best practices to support them and their learning, see the link for more information. We held a webinar last week that covered a lot of tips for effective remote learning, so it might be worthwhile to check out.

Again, I just want to say thank you so much for joining us after what I'm sure was a long day. I'll be turning it over to Patty and Dan for live Q&A. So if you have any further questions, you can reach out in the chat box for the next ten minutes. If you have any questions after that, reach out to our help center, and feel free to share this presentation with any other parents who might find it helpful. Thank you so much!

Thank you, Shannon! Hi everyone, I'm Dan, and I'll be moderating the live Q&A portion of this session. Thank you, Patty, for joining me. Patty gets to do the hard work of actually providing the answers. Before we get to the live question section, please do two things for us.

First, go to the handout section of this webinar. You can download the PDF version of this presentation. It contains guidance through the entire process that Shannon just walked through, so it has a great overview of all the content, both from the core courses that we have of math and ELA, but also some of the other things that create a mix for your students and kids. Basically, you know the Pixar course is really fun, the computer animation course, the computer programming courses, and it also has links to resources that we built specifically for school closures, including recommended reading lists, writing prompts, and links to other useful resources, and of course the suggested schedules and framework that Shannon just walked you through.

The second thing we'd ask you to do is, please, if you have any questions, add them to the question box so we can get started with the live portion of the Q&A. So let's go ahead. Patty, we have a question from Tracy. So Tracy says, "Hello, thank you for having this webinar. Please tell me, is this math content common core based?" And then also Stephanie is asking, "Is the curriculum based off of school districts and or state expectations?" I think they're both speaking to standards alignment.

Yeah, thanks so much, Dan, and as well Tracy and Stephanie and everyone for being here with us today. So at a large level, our math content is common core-based. It is aligned to the common core state standards, and so when you think about that, that second question that Stephanie asked, "Is it based off of school district or state expectations?" If your state, which is currently most states, uses common core standards, then it would be aligned to the same standards that your child or your student is going to be learning in school.

Great! And then I think here's a question from Sharon. This is a great question because I think a lot of folks probably don't really understand this, "Please explain what mastery enabled means."

Yes, so mastery is something that at Khan Academy we're really passionate about, and one of the reasons we're passionate about it is because there are many research studies that have showed that students being able to learn a particular skill and become fluent at it, and then also have long-term retention, meaning that if they come back to that same skill after a specific amount of time and they're able to show that they still know that skill, that means they've mastered that skill.

So when we think about mastery and what Shannon was talking about—mastery enabled—it means that the mechanism of getting to that fluency and that long-term retention in the course allows you to be able to kind of see the progress that a student might make. So if you're a little bit familiar with Khan Academy, if you're not yet, that's okay; that's why we're here. The mastery-enabled system has different levels, and so a student gets to go, you know, for a particular skill; you can think about understanding area, potentially for that fifth-grade kiddo. They are going to first be at "not attempted," right? They maybe don't know anything about area quite yet, and then if they practice this skill, the first time they might get to "familiar," right?

Maybe they got some questions right, maybe they got some questions wrong, but they have some sort of level of familiarity with area, with how to find the area, and then from there, the next time that student goes and tries that same skill to try to demonstrate that they know area, maybe they get all the questions correct, and so they get to proficiency. They get to a certain level; they are aware of what area is and where mastery comes in is that, as I mentioned, long-term retention.

So a student is then able to come back and show that they still know how to find the area of a particular object, which means that they would get to mastered. So mastery-enabled, in short, is the mechanism that we use on Khan Academy to be able to show a student's progress to get to a really strong level of mastering a particular skill. You can learn more about that too. Sorry, Dan. We have various resources even right now. If you open your browser and Google, like "Khan Academy mastery learning system," there's a really nice help center article that will pop up to help you kind of get more familiar with the levels as you're supporting your student or child with some of this learning.

Very much related to that, we have a question from Carla Jodi who asks, "One of my children is in first grade, another is in fourth, but he's doing second-grade math. Should we start with first grade in Khan and go through the assessments she just mentioned, or Shannon just mentioned, I guess, then go to second, or to start at second grade?"

So I think this is really perfectly aligned to what you just mentioned in terms of math, in terms of mastery.

Yeah, of course. So, Carla and Jody, thinking about where to get a student started, where to get your child started, we've seen various different tactics that work. We've worked with some districts; there was one district in Pennsylvania that we worked with that actually started the entire district—you can imagine their elementary school— they all started at the kindergarten level.

What was really cool is that they were able to make progress through the mastery system at their own pace. So if there was a student, you know, that spent maybe a couple of hours on kindergarten and then moved to first and so on, it made sure that they had a consistent set of knowledge as they were nearing, let's say, third grade if that was the grade they were in, or as they were nearing fifth grade if that was the grade they were in.

I would say, you know, depending on how familiar you are with your students' current grasp of either the second-grade math content or the second-grade math content, let them maybe try that content. Like, start them at their grade level, and if it seems like they're struggling a little bit, maybe I would say have them restart with first grade. If they go through it quickly, that's great, or if maybe you know they're taking it slow and they want to be really effective and make sure they're getting to mastered on all the skills, that might, again, make sure to fill in any gaps that they might have from the previous grade level standards.

I would say let your student maybe try it out, see how they're handling it, and then if for some reason they need a little bit more support, you can always go back to the previous grade level. I personally— I was a middle school math teacher—by the time students come to middle school, right, all different types of various experiences. I was always a big fan of spending a little bit of time reviewing. On the math side, I really think it's helpful for kiddos to feel confident and have some early wins.

Yeah, and Patty, I would add, you know, Tim Vandenberg who's a teacher who's been working with Jeremy on our teacher webinars, you know, his advice is to start from kindergarten, you know, regardless of what grade you're in. I think that gets over the stigma because everyone's starting at kindergarten and then getting practice and building up their skill set while kind of filling in the Swiss cheese gaps that Sal always talks about. So I don't think there's anything wrong with starting earlier if that's helpful; but obviously, every student and every child is going to be going at their own pace, and I think that's one of the great things that Khan Academy does is it helps you move you along if you're already there and helps fill in gaps if you have some gaps as well. So I think there's plenty of options available.

Yep, that's great! So Patty, we have a question from Pradeep. Any questions there? Any specific device to use—a Chromebook, laptop, or can an iPad be sufficient?

That's a great question, Pradeep. You can use any of those and also any sort of smartphone or browser that is available to you on a mobile device. So if your student— I would say, or child, is used to using a Chromebook, maybe go with that; right? Especially if they do have a Chromebook at home because potentially their district gave them to them, or if they're more comfortable with an iPad, then maybe go with that option. And if potentially you have multiple children at home, you can also always, you know, alternate potentially what device you have available, but really Khan Academy, including our younger tool, which is Khan Kids, is available through the iPad because it's an app. But Khan Academy, and everything that Shannon discussed, you can use any of those—Chromebook, laptop, iPad, mobile phone.

Perfect. And then Tamara asks, "Can I add my daughter's account from school to her home account?"

Yes, so this is where if you know, depending on the email address that your student is using at school versus the email address they're using at home, they might have two separate accounts. But the cool thing is, for you as a parent, you can have visibility into either. So we have, as part of our resources, a quick start guide on how to get started as a parent. So once you download, if you haven't yet, the slides for this webinar, I would look through there in that last section to be able to see one of the parent quick starts guides on how you can either add your daughter's school account or your daughter's home account, so you have visibility to both as a parent.

Great! So Shawna asks, "Once you do a course challenge, do you go back and complete each section of work, or if you have a score, do you move on to the challenge in the next grade level?"

Yeah, Shawna, I think this is a great question, often one we get from teachers in thinking about, you know, when is the right time to move a student through onto the next course, potentially, or also the next unit? So when it comes to the course challenge, I would say, you know, if your student or child gets through that and gets every single question correct, I would say the threshold is usually—if they get everything correct, then that student is showing that for the skills in that particular course, they're proficient; right? Like, they are pretty solid, and they have a very strong solid foundation, and they comprehend what is happening.

From there, I would say moving them on is a good idea—just letting them again go through the second course and moving on to the next course. If, for some reason, that student—I would say the threshold where we pause a little bit is if they get below an 80 percent. So after the course challenge, if they don't have the proficiency grasp on 80 percent of the course content, then it's a really good idea to have that student go through each unit again.

They might move a little bit faster through some units in that course; they might move a little bit slower through some units in this course. That is totally okay, but we want to make sure, again, like Dan mentioned earlier, that we're really not letting any of those gaps form. So students are really able to progress through content at a pace that makes sense for them. Check in a little bit, see how the course challenge goes, and kind of figure that out based on their score for that.

Perfect! Thank you, Patty. So we have a question from Micah: "Most schedules begin with math at the beginning of the day; is there significance to this order of math being first in the day?"

Yeah, so this is a great question, and of course, I must admit, as a former math teacher, I might have some bias here, and I think as many Khan folks being very fond of math. I think essentially, you know, at the beginning of the day, your mind is typically the most fresh, and when we think about students who are traditionally going to school at a certain time, we want to kind of mirror that same ability for students to have a really fresh mind to really dive deeper into the core subjects at the beginning of the day.

We know one of the core subjects is obviously math; they just had breakfast—hopefully, you know, they're ready to learn—which is why essentially we put math towards the beginning of the day, and that's what we recommend.

Yeah, perfect! So I think we have time for one more question. I can answer this, and you can chime in as well, Patty. Pamela asks, "Do we need a subscription to Khan Academy to access any or all of the materials on Khan Academy, or is this entirely free?"

So I would say this is entirely free! We ask for a subscription—there's no subscriptions, you basically need an email account to log in so that we can track progress, and we can serve, you know, and serve you the appropriate materials. But we're 100% free for parents, teachers, and students. Anything you want to add there, Patty?

No, I think you said it right, Dan. We're committed to being able to support all of you and being able to share all the wealth of resources and content that we have for free.

So I think that's all the time we have for live questions. So thanks, Shannon, for presenting, and thank you, Patty, for answering all of the questions. And then I wanted to thank you, the audience, for taking the time out of your busy evenings to be with us. We know this is an extremely busy time for all of you, and we appreciate you investing your time into this session.

If you missed anything or if you want to go back and review for those of you who registered, this recording will automatically be emailed to you once it gets posted. And then for those of you who might know of other folks who would be interested in this, we'll be making this available and posted online for reference. We also have quite a few other resources that we're building on a daily basis for you all, and this is available at khanacademy.org, so please come back and visit often.

We're building things, like I said, daily for you all. And then before we sign off, we'd ask you to do one more thing for us. There's a poll that pops up at the very end of this webinar, and we would like you to give us feedback on two things. First, how could we make future iterations of this session even better for you all? And then secondly, what kind of sessions would you like to see from us next?

In fact, this session was actually structured and created based on feedback from the first session we created. Many of you asked for more insights in terms of scheduling and finding content, and so I just want to let you all know that we're listening, we're here to support you, and your feedback is very welcome, and we try to incorporate it in everything that we do.

So thank you for that! And in closing, we just want you to know that we recognize you're juggling a lot as parents, guardians, grandparents, as well as nannies. I saw somebody post a call for nannies in the questions. This is uncharted territory for all of us, and we here at Khan Academy want to remind you that it's really important that you be kind to yourselves during this period. There's lots happening, and you're juggling work, parenting, and education all at the same time. We’re here to support you, and we want you to be kind to yourselves.

We want you to know that we recognize that you've got this! This is going to be something that you're going to do very well. And so with that, from all of us at Khan Academy, thanks again, and good night!