Newsletter #8 Week 8
With the stark reality that was discussed during yesterday’s congressional hearings, the reality of a normal Fall opening. Online solutions will need to be implemented in a possible reopening by staggering students entering classrooms to an every other day A/B format. There could even be an A/B/C format to limit the population and chance of exposure. The secondary challenge will be handling students who ceased learning any curriculum when the schools were shut down.
The Flipped Classroom
Since 2009 I have been speaking about the flipped classroom concept but not for the reasons of a pandemic, but to allow teachers to spend more quality time with their students by having more lab time and allowing for 1 on 1 mentoring for those who need it. We learn most by doing but they need to be seeded with quality instruction first. The concept started years earlier by math teachers and Khan Academy.
Overcoming the Summer/COVID-19 Slump
Another real challenge is the dreaded slump, made worse by the pandemic. Many states gave students a free pass which created an environment where the impetus to learn was destroyed with the lack or necessity for testing. Since they lost 8-16 weeks of instruction, how do you proceed with students continuing your program. You can’t let a student continue without knowing how to make a bechamel. How do you have them relearn those materials and qualify them for culinary arts. I don’t know what administration will do if at all to make a requirement to qualify them to continue but here at KP we have a plan that could help.
For those who used KP during the shutdown your students all will retain their data when starting next year. This means you will know how has Mastered each concept, instantly qualifying them to move on. You will also know who has gaps and immediately qualify them. The remaining students can be put in a Makeup Class.
For those new to KP, you can craft a Makeup Class and have students go through that content on their own time. I don’t know how you can enforce participation without administration support so all you can do for now you can just say “it’s for your own good.” I’m sure employers will be extra concerned about the lack of skill development.
How KP Can Help You
When we first started KP, our vision is to provide help to teachers by giving students a way to learn using the pedagogy that resonates with them the most. KP is designed to live best in a hybrid/blended environment but not in the way most teachers flip the classroom. Most people consider flipping by videotaping a lesson, or worse yet, death by PowerPoint, a one hour recording of a teacher reading powerpoint slides. That was the current standard then(and now) and we felt that kids will be disengaged by that method. We dug into research and especially the research we love most, Video Games!!!
KP Are All Gamers
Yes, in addition to programmers we are all avid video gamers. I would say that I probably have a PhD in video games considering how much time I spent playing games in my youth/adulthood. We asked ourselves how can we make curriculum more engaging but not create a video game. The key is to not create a video game for many reasons but the most important is that if you do, it would be compared to other video games and deemed corny. What we did was create a challenging and engaging mastery system that adapts to each student using AI. Using the psychological cues that make video games addicting, we can simulate much of that.
I go into an in-depth analysis in talks I give at conferences. If you are interested in learning more, watch this engaging and fun hour long talk I gave at SREB. This will help you understand your students/children.
https://youtu.be/IhqxSmqA0GE
Planning Over the Summer
Our system is already set up so you can launch in less than a day but over the summer we can help you plan for Fall. We’ve done this hundreds of times and know what obstacles you will encounter and overcome.
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