I'm so excited that you joined us today.

Not just because, Khan Academy really wants

to support you during this challenging time,

but as a former kindergarten teacher,

this session that's dedicated to elementary

school education and elementary school students,

is one that's near and dear to my heart,

and that's why I'm so excited to introduce you

to Lisa Orcutt, who's one of our

amazing Khan Academy Ambassadors.

Like me, Lisa is based in California,

and is currently in the same boat as everyone else,

trying to serve her fourth graders remotely

with the tools that are at her disposal.

So that being said we'll get into Khan Academy

in a second Lisa,

but if you wouldn't mind opening up with a little bit

about your background as an educator,

I think that would help folks understand

where you're coming from.

- So I started off as a sub when I was working

through my masters program.

And, at the time I didn't wanna be a teacher

it was just an easy way for me to do, all the curriculum

that's required for a master's degree,

while, having the ability to be flexible in your schedule.

Anybody who's taken a masters program

even if it's online like mine was, it's a lot of work.

And, what ended up happening is it backfired.

I fell in love with teaching,

and decided that that's what I wanted to do.

And so I finished up my masters program

and then entered my credentialing program.

And if everything goes right even with the shut-downs,

I will be, induction next year

but I've been teaching full-time

in the classroom since 2017.

So I'm on my, third school year,

teaching pretty much as the teacher on record.

And, that's where my journey has taken me so far

but it's five to six years, counting my sub years.

- Very cool.

I'm guessing when you were back in your

teacher education days it never prepared you

for teaching remotely during a pandemic, so here we are.

- No. (laughing)

- Well, that being said, if we just rewind

the tape a little bit- - (mumbles) completely

prepared us for. - That's right.

If we just go back a little bit to like your

sort of beginning with Khan Academy,

tell us a little bit about, why you chose Khan Academy

and why it was sort of useful for you and your students.

- So, I was long term subbing at a Russian

charter school, and I had a student.

And for people who wonder why there's a Russian

charter school, (clears throat)

the Slavic community in Northern California is very large.

And a lot of them...

A lot of people in the Slavic community

wanna keep their culture and their language.

Because we know through social science

that that's something that gets lost very quickly.

And they didn't wanna lose that.

And so they set up a public charter school

where they take any students,

but one of the things that is mandatory

is they have Russian class, which teaches

the language and the culture and the food.

And I got hired on to long term sub for them

in a fourth grade class of all things.

And I had a student who was testing,

six, seventh, eighth grade math.

Well at fourth grade when most of your students

are classified as English Language Learners,

you're pretty slow going on math

because this is where the word problems get really intense.

But she was breezing through the work.

And we all know that when kids get bored,

they act out, they get distracted,

they start doing things they shouldn't.

So I went and got one of the middle school books,

and was having her work on those.

She was breezing through that, she wasn't...

She was bored, everything was coming out.

And, I started looking at things that my husband

had recommended, and those were more geared

towards college students so it didn't work for her either.

And finally, I reached out to a colleague and I was going,

"What do I do for this young lady?

"She is too fast for the rest of the class

"and if I go at her speed, the rest of the class

"is going to fall behind."

And she recommended Khan Academy,

because she used it to study for her CSET.

And for those of you not in California

the CSET is what we use to test for our

initial credentialing process in California.

And so I pulled it up and I was like, "Oh, this is amazing."

And I set her up on grade four, so on our grade level

and at the very bottom of the grade level page,

it has something called Course Challenge.

And what that is, is it tests you on all

the major standards of that grade.

I said' "Start here, take this."

"If you get less than an 80,

"that's where we're going to figure out where you

"need to do your work."

And, she hit seventh, eighth grade word problems

and that's where she kind of hit the brick wall.

But she spent the rest of the time

listening to our math lessons, and doing the Khan Academy

to work on those seventh, eighth grade word problems.

And, I was able to slow down and go

the pace with my fourth graders.

And she loved it, her mom loved it.

Her mom especially loved it because when she went

back to her dad's, cause her dad lived out of country,

during the summer, she would have some way

to stay up on her schooling.

And I fell in love with it after that.

And when I got hired on as a teacher where I work now,

I started doing it, to help backlog

and support my students because I teach in a very

low income, low academic, scoring demographic.

So I use it to kind of help catch up my students

who are struggling, as well as my students who are advanced,

so that I can focus our solo math time

where I am teaching in the classroom, on grade level stuff,

but they still have that extra support

and scaffolding that they may need.

- I love that story cause it really brings out sort of

the essence of why Sal Khan built this in the first place.

- Exactly! - No just to have

a bunch of worksheets online,

but to actually differentiate and serve students

at scale, whether they're far ahead or far behind.

I have a couple more questions for you Lisa

before we go to the audience questions.

I wanna cut to the chase here and address

the 800 pound gorilla in the room,

which is... - Yeah.

- If someone was starting with Khan Academy today,

and there are literally thousands of elementary

educators trying to do exactly that this week.

What would you recommend for them, to get set up quickly?

How can they bring Khan Academy

to their students in an effective way,

even in this remote learning environment?

- So first of all, don't panic.

There is a learning curve for Khan Academy

even for teachers.

Thankfully though, Sal and his team of developers,

bless them, I mean, bless them,

because they have made it so smooth

you can import your Google classroom

if you already have one set up.

The only thing you have to do manually,

is like our district, the Google class...

The Google names in Google Classroom

are actually the, student ID numbers.

So you as the teacher have to go in and manually

change to their first and last name,

but you can actually import, everybody.

Which means you don't have to send out invites,

you don't have to wait for them to log in

and, you don't even technically have to assign anything.

You can just tell them where to start.

And so, that's what I usually do

at the beginning of the year,

is I import my students for the first day.

And then I don't assign anything yet.

Because what I do, is the first couple weeks

we're getting in standards, what I expect of you,

what our expectations, what are their behaviors.

And I introduced them to Khan Academy.

And I tell them to play with the website.

Have some fun, get used to it, figure it out.

If you have questions, I'll help you,

because I'm teaching them, what we call

intermediate, elementary level.

So my students are a little bit more independent,

so they can play around with it and figure it out

and then I can be, a little hands off.

After that I explain what we're gonna be using it for.

And one of the things that I instruct

them on, is I tell them, "This is how

"you're going to be using it."

And I show them how to find that challenge test.

And then I get out the toys.

And as an ambassador, I have several pencils

that were gifted to me.

And I have some other prizes, like I have some pencils

that my students have gotten over the years,

they don't wanna keep from parties and things like that.

I put some of my crocheted goodies in there

because I make my own stuff.

I buy a lot of stuff off of Wish Geek.

So like I have, let me pull it out, where is it?

So I have stuff like this, and I get them in bulk.

And I tell my students, that for every grade level

you complete, you get a prize.

If you complete the one for our grade level

you get one of the Khan Academy pencils,

and another prize from the price bin.

So now there's this incentive for them to wanna do it.

But the rule is, you have to have, an 80

or higher, on the grade level challenge test.

And you have to complete, all

of the lessons for fourth grade.

And I kind of let the kids go it that way

because when they hit that 80%

that means they're proficient.

I'm not expecting perfection,

these are children, it's not gonna work.

Kids are gonna get bored, they're gonna mentally check out.

When they hit less than 80% I tell them,

"That's where your struggle is.

"And it'll tell you what section

"of that grade level you're struggling with.

"Those are the mastery lessons that you need to take.

"That'll help you get caught up on our grade level."

And I don't use it as my sole means of teaching.

I use this as a scaffold, this is strictly for support.

Because by law, in California keep this in mind.

By law in California, students have to be exposed

to all grade level materials, so this is my scaffold.

Now, if I have a student when we do our initial tests

cause in California, we do those kind of benchmark testing.

Where we find out where they are at the beginning

of the year, in the middle of the year

and the end of the year.

If I have some of these tests (mumbles) higher,

I have them start at fourth grade and work their way up.

And this is my way of giving them those challenges

because again, higher performing students get bored

easily they start getting in trouble

and then we have a whole mess.

Don't freak out if your kids are going very slow.

Because for some students, this is going to be new,