Digital SAT Prep for School Districts - Khan Academy Districts

Hello and welcome to driving digital SAT success with Khan Academy! As teachers and students are navigating through the new digital SAT assessment this spring, we know how important it is to ensure your students are ready for the big day. My name is Elizabeth Hadley, and I am a District Success Manager with Khan Academy. Joining me today is Miss Corine Gorner from Oola County, Florida. Not only is Karine a former colleague of mine, but she is also an amazing math coach at Topa Kaga High School in Oola County.

Karine has taught math in high school for over two decades, and she is now a very seasoned math coach in Oola. In 2015, she discovered the benefits of using Khan Academy initially to help prepare her stepson for college. But today, she now implements it with all of her teachers at her high school in preparing all of her students to get ready for the SAT. We're really excited to have Karine with us today to share her insights on how she's implemented Khan Academy in her high school and how she motivates and engages teachers while keeping students motivated for the big test day.

Welcome, Karine! Thank you. To get us started, let's just remind everyone that at Khan Academy, we are the proud and official partners with the College Board. That means when your students are practicing with our digital SAT reading, writing, or digital math courses, those questions that they're practicing with are authentic practice questions that are truly designed to help students prepare for the digital SAT. Our two courses involve and include eight full-length practice tests, leveled exercises, video lessons, and strategies to help teach students all the skills that they need to know for the math or the reading and writing section.

Lastly, our courses provide our students instant feedback and progress tracking to identify students' strengths and weaknesses in the skills taught in our two courses. Let's go ahead and talk about some of the changes that your students can expect to see this spring with the new College Board digital SAT. First and foremost, it is a new, shorter test with a new format and no essay. The biggest change is that students will experience a multi-stage adaptive technology, meaning that students will answer a series of questions in the first module, which will dictate their experience in the second module. These are two stages, and each stage is called modules.

Students will also expect to see a shorter test for reading and writing, which is either 200 to 800 points for a score. They will experience 27 questions and have 32 minutes for that module. For my ELA teachers out there, the biggest change for your content area is that the students' question formats are quite different from years past. Students will now experience shorter chunks of text with a text-dependent question instead of reading long reading passages of 1200 words. Now, students will look at one short, quick piece of text and answer one text-dependent question on that short piece of text.

For my math folks listening here today, students will experience those same two modules, just like the ELA module one and module two. They will have 22 questions and 35 minutes to answer those questions. The biggest change for math teachers is a calculator is allowed on all questions of the digital SAT math portion this year. Students will have an embedded Desmos calculator embedded within the Blue Book platform or they're also allowed to have a handheld calculator with them as well.

I know all educators are so excited about this! We're looking at an approximate 2-hour testing experience, which is quite shorter than in years past. So, how can Khan Academy help our students actually prepare for this new testing format? Within our platform, we have the digital SAT reading and writing course and then the math course. Within those courses, teachers will expect to see units that contain in-depth lesson articles, videoed examples for students to practice with, and several practice exercises that measure their difficulty levels on easy, medium, and more challenging skills within the courses.

On the right-hand side of the screen, you'll see that the reading and writing course has hundreds of digital SAT items aligned within 11 skills, and with math, students will experience 37 unique skills and thousands of adapted practice items for them to practice. Our teachers love our course challenges, quizzes, and unit tests because it provides them with actual skill progress data so you can track exactly how your students are performing on these 11 skills in reading and writing and those 37 skills in math.

Now, moving over to Karine, with this transition to the digital SAT, for years, we've been working with our students on paper-based administration. How has Khan Academy this year helped you and your teachers and your students prepare for this upcoming switch to the digital platform?

Thank you, Elizabeth. I believe as an educator the best way we can always prepare our students is to have them as familiar as possible with the material that they're going to be exposed to. There is not any other tool out there, minus the little bit of practice tests that are within the Blue Book platform, that has this quantity of questions and this amount of practice that Khan Academy has. So, I think by allowing our students to get on there, to practice with it, and to become familiar with it over and over week after week that we've built into our curriculum, it's really given them the opportunity to feel confident in the moment.

It's not going to feel new, it's not going to feel surprising, it will feel comfortable. I think that's one of the best things we can do as teachers to support our students. As far as using this to support our teachers, one thing we've been really able to do within the Khan Academy platform is all the information about the digital SAT. We've been able to use a lot of that to train our teachers, but also for them to pass along to their students.

I've used that within a lot of small groups to work with groups of students that I've pulled out to make sure they're familiar, they're comfortable with what it's going to look like with the facts about the test, like you just mentioned in your previous slide, as well as with some of our dual enrollment students. On both ends of the spectrum, we've been focusing on making sure they're comfortable for test day. I think this is the best thing out there as far as giving them that familiarity with the platform.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, and I absolutely do believe this is the best way to just get our students used to answering questions and working through mathematical problems on a computer. So, let's go live and actually see what this content is, what do these questions look like for our students in the platform? I’m going to first navigate over to what Karine was just mentioning about the digital SAT.

Demoing here from a demo account, I'm going to start here on the teacher dashboard. This is what our teacher dashboard looks like for our teachers when they log in. If you are a Khan Academy District partner, your classes will be synced here with the rosters. But if at any time you would like to just preview what's in our courses, you can visit khanacademy.org, click on courses, and navigate right over to our digital SAT. You’ll see this brand new fancy button just to help navigate your eye to it.

When I get here to this landing page, I'm presented with the digital SAT Math and the digital SAT Reading and Writing. Let's go ahead and start with math. Karine, just double-checking, can you see the screen? Yes! Okay, thank you so much for confirming. All right, so here we are in the digital SAT Math. This is actually what it looks like for students. You can see all of the units that we have in this platform for math.

We have 13 units, and within these units are actual skills, exercises, and challenges for students to work through. Just like what Karine was talking about, here is that section: what is the new digital SAT? This can be used with teachers in small groups or PLCs, or after-school training, but it can also be used with students so they’re familiar with what is the digital SAT and what it will look like and how they can prepare.

There’s even videos, frequently asked questions, and a section about the digital SAT, PSAT, and MSQT. These can be assigned to students or again they can be used in whole group or with teacher training. Moving back over to the ELA course, this course also has the same unit at the very beginning about the digital SAT that walks students or teachers through the same type of content. Then you also see units 2, 3, and 4 and a grammar practice within our reading course.

Now, I'm going to travel back to the teacher dashboard because I want to show you how teachers can specifically assign any of the content that is in these courses. From that teacher dashboard, on the left side navigation, you'll see under assignments to assign. As soon as the teacher has selected the course they need to, you can click edit courses. You’re going to see a similar view that I was just showing you. Here's all those units in the digital SAT Math course, and all the teacher needs to do is expand out these units.

You can preview articles and videos and everything in that unit, and you can pick and choose to assign these specifically to students. So, I selected three pieces of content, clicked assign. I can assign this to one or all of my sections, one or all of my students, and I can select a start time and a due time for my students and hold them accountable for completing these exercises that I'm assigning them.

As you can see here in our math course, under "Preparing for the SAT," we have a section on calculators, time management, what to expect on test day, understanding scores, and again, all of these can be assigned to students. Down here, you can actually preview some of our content that's available in this platform. So, if I open up our Geometry and Trig unit, you can see it starts with area and volume, and there's an article, two videos, and an exercise within this lesson.

So, perhaps I want to assign an article, a video, and I want students to demonstrate their understanding with an exercise. Simply click those three items, click assign, choose your classes or choose your students, click assign, and it immediately goes to the students' accounts. Once students are finished and they've completed your exercises that you've assigned to them, visit the scores area, and you're able to see your student's name, the assignments that you assigned at the top, and the score that they received. If they watched a video, you'll get a checkmark, and that way you know they actually watched your video.

So, that is a brief overview of what's available in our courses and how you can assign content to students to keep them on track for the big test day. Now, I'm going to turn our attention back to Karine because this is something she's doing all the time on her campus with her teachers and helping support her math teachers. Our question is, Karine, how do you monitor and measure the success within our digital SAT courses on your campus? What do you look for? What do your teachers look for on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

I've made it a hard part of my Monday routine each week to set aside at least I aim for an hour, but in teacher time that's flexible. To get in there and to dig, I look for trends. Monday morning is part of my routine. I'm looking through all of our teachers, seeing if I can identify trends that are happening here or there. Whether there's a room and a period where the students are really excelling, I want to make sure I go in there and celebrate that.

I touch back with my admin to let them know that's a good spot to celebrate. Obviously, there's good things going on during that time. On the flip side of that, I like to kind of alert me to like, okay, something's going on with this certain teacher's fourth period. Let me touch base with them and see if there's maybe a classroom management issue that could be contributing to that. Does the level of learning in there need extra support, and is that a good place for me to spend the extra minutes I have in there weekly a couple of times, just to be an extra set of hands for my teachers?

So, I look through all those reports and I identify trends on the teacher's side, but I also look for a lot of individual students that I'm working with, like seniors that might be in danger of not graduating. I want to ensure they're making progress each week because in our state, we have the option to use the SAT score as a graduation requirement. I want to make sure those students are making progress, but also I have our high-achieving students, and I want to make sure they're not stuck on something.

I know I've got certain kids that I have my eyes on that are trying to get into some very competitive colleges, really trying to get their scores up. That can help me identify if they're stuck, and I want to check in with them to see if they just need some extra help getting past a hurdle they might be on. The same conversations are happening with the teachers. After seeing me do these sorts of things now for going on what will be three years, they're starting to model those same habits with their smaller group of students.

They see trends in their periods and are reaching out for me to come in and support them more, or again, the reward side as well to see who's doing really well to reward them. Great insights! Just for our audience, Karine and her district partner with us in the Khan Academy District side of things, and she’s able to look into her teachers' classrooms and help support them each Monday as she’s looking at the progress.

Now, I'm going to jump back into Khan Academy to show the audience here what it looks like for the teacher view. In this teacher account, they’re able to track on a classroom or class period basis which students are working by learning minutes and how many skills the students have leveled up within a particular course in any given date range. Now, Karine, at your campus this year, you’ve been focusing on how many skills the students have leveled up, correct?

Right! So, we had two different competitions that we decided to run this year. Our first semester competition was focused on skills leveled up. We were looking for classes among each type of class, AP classes, preparing for graduation classes, honors classes, that had students with the most skills leveled up. We celebrated them, and then this semester, our focus is on individual students that reach a certain percentage of their skills to proficiency.

We’re going to be reaching out and celebrating those kids with, we do a woot woot wagon, so we’ll be celebrating those kids as well through that. Yeah, and some of my team members are really excited to participate in that! So, here you see Karine on a very special day. Last year, we had the pleasure to visit her campus and see some of her students getting the big news that they were going to graduate because they had increased their SAT scores after using Khan Academy.

We appreciate your partnership, Karine, and we know how special you are to our partnership there in Oola County and all the great work that you've done. As part of our Khan Academy districts, we pride ourselves in that as students are working and your schools are working, and your administrators and coaches are working. As administrators, you are able to save time and see actionable reports.

That's what Karine was just speaking about—that, you know, every Monday, she’s able to tap into all of her teachers and take a look at who may need support this week or who's actually doing okay and may not need her support, really looking at the skills the students are exceeding in and maybe altering curriculum.

With Khan Academy districts, you also receive automatic rostering of teachers, which also saves time with students logging in and helps your district and your leaders see the progress that your students are achieving. With Khan Academy districts, you also receive the support of a District Success Manager like myself. I work with lots of school districts and we are proud to help align the content you see in our digital SAT courses to the curriculum maps and the curriculum content that your teachers are actually teaching in the classroom.

So, it just makes sense for not only the student but also the teacher and, of course, our administrator dashboard is unique to our Academy District partners. Here, you're able to look at trends on a district-wide or school-wide level, unlike any other reporting tools. This helps you drive departmental decisions and helps you, your coaches, and your leaders think about next steps in instruction.

Now, we have worked quite a while with Oola County, Florida, and specifically with Karine in implementing a culture surrounding Khan Academy on her campus and really helping students believe that they can increase their SAT scores. So, Karine, I would love for you just to highlight your journey and the time you've worked with us at Khan Academy, and just describe the culture that I know you've worked really hard to create at your high school, Topa Kaga, surrounding Khan Academy.

I think you touched on it back when you introduced me in the beginning about how I really saw the value of it. My first kind of introduction was all just kind of figuring it out myself, using it as a stepmom to a kid that needed a better SAT score. I started having conversations with his friends' parents, etc., and really becoming more comfortable and using it in my Algebra 1 classroom—not even just through the SAT lens at that point with my ninth graders, but just in the Algebra 1 content itself as I was still learning and getting my feet wet.

At that time, we did not have any district partnership with Khan Academy, so any sort of learning and support I was finding on YouTube, emailing Khan Academy, finding someone else that knew what they were doing, listening at a conference, whatever it might have been. Over the past several years, it's really come to my attention that there are so many things in education that come and go and change. There's a lot of curriculum that sort of fits what you need it to fit, whether it's curriculum for a specific course or a test like the SAT.

A lot of things are close to fitting, or they're melded to fit, but honestly, tried and true, this is correct, and this does fit. I feel like that’s why I've fallen so in love with it and committed to making sure that the students are receiving the benefit of that. When I changed from being a classroom teacher to helping others create what works in their classrooms in the role I'm in now, this was one of the very first things I spoke to them about.

I said like this is, it’s not going away; it's here to stay, and it’s correct. The questions give the right answers; the support is there. Things that you run into with other platforms and other programs, I did not run into with Khan Academy, and I think that really helped with the buy-in from my teachers as well. Having that standard of it works, it's correct, and we're getting results helped immensely.

When we started using it at my school three years ago, we had a massive shift in test scores, not just SAT test scores, but also test scores for end-of-course tests and district common assessments. We really started to realize that this has been the biggest force of change we've used as far as the curriculum side. Obviously, something's happening, and that really helped with the buy-in, and the students were seeing a difference too in their data.

Yeah, just like that picture we showed a moment ago—that was a really proud day where that student learned her future was very bright. Well, Karine, it was such a pleasure having you today and speaking with you and having you share your insights. We thank you so much for all the hard work that you do every single day for not only your students but your educators.

For those watching, we thank you so much for joining our webinar today and learning how to prepare your students for the digital SAT. If you have any questions or would like more information about any content we spoke about today, please feel free to contact us at districts@khanacademy.org. Again, thank you so much for joining, and have a wonderful day!