iknowit.com is a math practice site designed for K-5 students. It’s currently a completely free resource, until August of 2018 (at which point it will cost several dollars per student). The site has over 25,000 Common Core aligned math practice questions across 300 lesson topics, and was designed with an eye towards engaging early elementary students.
In addition to being CCSS aligned, the resources also align with most common math textbooks and curriculums. It’s an excellent resource for elementary teachers, so let’s take a look!
In addition to being CCSS aligned, the resources also align with most common math textbooks and curriculums. It’s an excellent resource for elementary teachers, so let’s take a look!
To begin, you can sign up for a free teacher account to start exploring the resources and activities they have available. Teachers are able to see and preview all of the lessons before assigning them out to students. This also means you could share activities through an overhead projector or SMARTboard as well.
Lessons are broken down by grade level and then by topic. You can hover over a lesson to get an example of what the question types look like, as well as see the specific Common Core standard(s) the lesson is aligned with.
Lessons are broken down by grade level and then by topic. You can hover over a lesson to get an example of what the question types look like, as well as see the specific Common Core standard(s) the lesson is aligned with.
Each lesson contains a database of 100+ custom created questions. In other words, these questions are not being randomly generated, but have been created by iknowit’s teams of teachers in order to specifically address the skill that is being taught. This wide variety of questions also means that students can practice a topic for a long time without ever seeing a repeated question.
Once teachers find a lesson they like, they can assign it out to their students by clicking the checkmark next to the lesson.
There are also lots of differentiation possibilities when assigning lessons, which is great to see. Teachers can assign lessons to individual students, groups of students, or the entire class. Plus, when students are working through a lesson, they’ll only see if they’re on level “A”, “B”, or “C” and they won’t see the grade level. This means that students who are above or below grade level, will still see the same interface as other students in their class, which means teachers can worry less about students feeling self conscious about the level they’re at.
When students are working through a lesson, any question can be read aloud. Students will see their progress at the top right, and click to get a hint at the bottom left.
One of my favorite features is that if a student gets a question wrong, they will get specific feedback and instructions on how to solve the specific problem. That feedback is designed to be predominantly visual, and written at the appropriate reading level.
So many math apps I have seen do a terrible job at providing feedback like this, so it’s wonderful to see how much time the iknowit team as put into this part of the learning process.
When students get an answer correct, they’re rewarded with a fun animation from the character at the bottom right. They can change this character if they’d like to, opt for the more “adult” emoji option, or just remove that option altogether.
Students can also see their own overall progress as well, so they can know how they’ve done on the lessons they’ve completed. They can choose to look back through all previous questions, or only at the questions they got incorrect in case they’d like to review those.
On the teacher side, you’ll be able to see detailed reports of each individual student’s progress. The team is also adding in graphs and additional analytics in the coming weeks. My only thought here is that it would be beneficial for teachers to be able to see individual student and whole group progress towards a specific Common Core standard, which unfortunately is a feature that isn’t available.
Overall though, iknowit is an excellent resource. It was clearly designed with elementary students in mind, but beyond that, it’s incredibly easy for teachers to pick up and begin using. From assigning lessons, to seeing student progress, everything about the iknowit interface is intuitive and easy to use.
Plus, if students are using the site on an ipad, there’s a built in scratchpad option that students can use in order to take notes or work through problems.
For elementary math teachers looking for a classroom resource that can be used to easily supplement their current curriculum, and provide a wide array of engaging practice problems for their students, I absolutely recommend iknowit.com. Especially since the app is free until the start of the next school year, now is the perfect time to test it out in the classroom and see if it’s a good fit for your students!
The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
I was not compensated for writing this review.
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