KnowRe is an online adaptive Math learning platform that drives students to succeed in Math by assessing, providing personalized attention and engaging them with game-like features, attractive graphics and social learning.
Its main focus is to understand & win the gaps in student learning. KnowRe’s technology takes a Math question, breaks it into its individual components and assesses where in the process the student got the question wrong. It works like a digitized version of a teacher assessing a student’s homework. KnowRe’s algorithm determines where the student got the question wrong & from that data, it creates a personalized curriculum for each individual student that focuses on their individual strengths and weaknesses. It also provides teachers with data that lets them work with each individual student and also adjust their lesson plans. Team KnowRe used to regularly survey the educators in their pilot program about how effectively they’re using KnowRe. They’ve planned to release a four part series highlighting some of the teachers’ views and their ways of using KnowRe in the classroom. Let’s learn about what educators have suggested on the usage of KnowRe in the classroom.
Interview with Paul Payne:
Mr. Paul Payne is a Math teacher at Los Angeles River School, a KnowRe pilot school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He has shared his practices of using KnowRe in his classroom and the exclusive information about it is as follows.
“KnowRe encourages behaviors like persistence and self-drivenness, which are things I want to instill in my students. I like how kids can re-try problems until they have mastered it. And I especially like the walk-me-through feature, which helps students self-diagnose and learn from their mistakes. I also find KnowRe’s interface to be intuitive. Sometimes, when using an online program like this, I have to be both a computer teacher AND a math teacher. On KnowRe, I’m spending less time dealing with technical issues and spending most of my time teaching math.”
Paul Payne says that his class students use Macbooks for use of platforms like KnowRe. When asked about how often his classroom uses KnowRe, he has shared that his Algebra I students work on KnowRe 2-3 times a week for the whole class period. In the remedial class, which he co-teaches, they have the kids use KnowRe every day. He usually has the kids on KnowRe for part of the time in each class. He believes that doing the right amount of online work really matters and recommends that 30-40 minutes is usually optimal for engagement.
Integration of KnowRe into Curriculum:
When asked about how he integrates KnowRe into his classroom,
“I will spend a class teaching a lesson, and then have them work on KnowRe the following day. The lessons that I’m teaching are more conceptual, so by the time they use KnowRe, it’s a bit of a review. I’ve found that sometimes when kids get ahead, they get frustrated, so I try to stagger it so that KnowRe is used for review and support.”, said Paul.
KnowRe’s dashboard:
Paul says that he likes the simplicity of KnowRe’s dashboard and also shared that he uses it for multiple actions like assessing, assigning, tracking progress, etc.
Source: The Many Faces of KnowRe in the Classroom- Part I
Interview with Danielle Kostevich:
Ms. Danielle Kostevich is a middle school Math teacher at Downtown College Preparatory Alum Rock, a charter school in San Jose, California. Her practices of using KnowRe in the classroom are as follows:
KnowRe usage in classroom:
Danielle says that firstly she splits her class into 2 sections and has about 16 students sitting in the front-half of the class, listening to her lectures. The other 16 or so students are sitting in the back-half of the class with headphones, working on KnowRe. Then she flips the first half with the second half, to work onKnowRe half of the time, every day. Her classroom has two 40-minute sections… so every student is on KnowRe for close to 35 minutes a day. She assigns new KnowRe every Friday, which is then due on the following Thursday.
How KnowRe helped Danielle in her teaching:
“It’s very difficult for a teacher to teach, give them practice and have them apply it, so it’s great that KnowRe offers those”, said Danielle.
Students’ response to KnowRe as well as their performance after using KnowRe:
Danielle says that KnowRe engages students with videos and drives them to go through lessons much faster, compared to some other programs they’ve used. KnowRe builds confidence and has also improved the performance of low grade students.
“I’m seeing the lower level students really improving. They’re getting high scores, which is different from what we’ve seen with other programs we’ve used in the past”, added Danielle.
Source: The Many Faces of KnowRe in the Classroom- Part II
We hope this information helps you to know about a few practices and advantages of using KnowRe in the classroom. We’d like to hear your views as well if you’re using KnowRe or other similar platforms. The next two parts of this four part series will be updated soon at KnowRe
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