If a student is struggling with a skill, the Khan Academy system could automatically recommend any unpracticed skills that are considered prerequisites.
Alternatively, instead of an automated solution, there could be a button on coach reports for teachers to quickly recommend prerequisite skills for any student that is struggling.
Fabulous idea! I would also like for a mission to recommend prerequisite skills from EARLIER grade level missions. For example, if my 7th grader is struggling on 7th grade mission fundamentals, KA will recommend even LOWER prerequisite skills. (like, they can't do division word problems with fractions, so Khan bumps them down to division word problems with whole numbers, to scaffold)
I feel like this would be difficult to do well -- multiple students might be struggling with a particular skill for different reasons. If the skill is subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, for example, one student might have trouble with the concept of common denominators, another might be struggling with multiplying, another might not understand simplifying fractions, another might not understand borrowing when using mixed numbers.
This is where a teacher is needed to step in and figure out why the student is struggling and make a remediation assignment on an individual basis.
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