User Story: Elementary Teacher Shari Stewart On Her Experience Using Kids Academy Classroom

Hi! I'm Shari Stewart, a Texas-based  educator with a Batchelor of Science degree in Psychology and a Masters of Education in Early Childhood Education. I have over seven years of experience teaching elementary students in Grades from K to 5, and also working as an instructional coach, a curriculum writer for ELA  and a director at an edtech company. 

As a third-grade teacher at a Title 1 school in Irving, Texas, I was recently given the opportunity to test a beta version of the Classroom feature on Kids Academy. I have  primarily taught reading and social studies for the past 7 years, and I often find myself searching for engaging and effective activities for my students during our small group reading rotations. Gaining access to the  Classroom seemed promising, especially for integrating it during this time I struggled with filling. Through exploration of the application I enjoyed the timer feature, the classroom list feature, and the classroom library. 

Getting started with Classroom was very straightforward. I was able to quickly select my teaching grade and the subjects I was currently focusing on, namely Reading and Social Studies, although we did explore some Mathematics topics that aligned with the student’s ongoing curriculum. At the time, our class discussions centered on comparing and contrasting multiple stories, as well as understanding the structure of the three branches of government. The search function within Classroom was intuitive, allowing me to easily locate activities related to these topics.

3 Classroom Features I Liked the Most

1) Timer. One of the standout features of Classroom is the estimated completion timer listed for each activity, which greatly assisted in my planning. Each reading rotation lasts about 20 minutes, so I assigned five varied activities to keep the students engaged throughout this period. After setting up the students using the  access code feature, they were able to dive right into the activities with minimal instruction, quickly understanding the directions and navigating through the tasks easily.

2) Classroom List. Another particularly helpful feature is  the classroom list section. You can create a classroom and add each of your students' names to be able to look at different data that has been tracked such as,  average score and number of activities. This functionality proved  to be very useful as it helped me to identify common areas of difficulty among the students, which we could then address in our whole group discussions. You do have  to create an account in order to access this feature but, this can be done quickly and easily.

3) Classroom Library. The catalog of activities is very extensive with a good variety of worksheets, videos and quizzes on all the main subjects. What I personally would love to see is more activities like comprehension stories that focus on the fact that an expanded catalog of activities across all subjects would enable more frequent use of Classroom, enhancing its integration into daily learning routines.

How It Was Received by My Students

I searched for the topic at hand and then picked the work I felt would be best aligned for my students. It was very convenient as it only took a few minutes for them to get the code and to get to the website. They were able to click through pretty easily. The students said it was easy to use and I was able to witness that as I had very few questions asked. All my students were using the Classroom on Chromebooks. 

At times I  tended to have some students that would  rush through the activities without fully engaging, or guessed answers just to proceed to the next task. There was a check for accuracy however, students were able to progress even if they did not write and answer. A potential improvement could be a feature that restricts progress to the next activity until the current one is completed correctly. This would encourage a deeper understanding and more thoughtful engagement with the material. 

Conclusion

Overall, my experience with Kids Academy Classroom has been profoundly positive. The platform is user-friendly, aligns well with our curriculum for some subjects , and effectively maintains student engagement with rigorous, relevant content. The ability to monitor individual progress and customize learning experiences to meet diverse needs is particularly beneficial. I have recommended Classroom to my colleagues, who are looking forward to integrating this tool into their instructional strategies.