Khan Academy review: free maths practice with a teacher dashboard

Khan Academy offers an unusually complete free route through school maths: courses, short explanations, practice and a way for teachers to assign work. Its maths catalogue spans early number work through algebra and college-level topics. You can reach a lesson in a browser without paying; accounts become useful when you want progress to persist.

An explanation followed by a question

The useful loop is simple: find a topic, watch or read an explanation, try practice, and return to the explanation when stuck. Algebra 1, for example, is arranged into units rather than an endless mixed feed. That structure helps a learner who knows the topic but has forgotten a step.

The same breadth is a weakness if the learner does not know what they need. A parent can spend longer choosing between nearby units than practising. A teacher's short assignment or a diagnosed gap turns the library into a route.

What the dashboard can and cannot see

Free teacher tools let educators set work and inspect responses. This is helpful for spotting a stalled skill or a class-wide pattern. It does not show what a pupil was thinking when they chose an answer, and it cannot substitute for written working or a conversation about why a method works.

• Use the video as preparation, not the entire lesson: pause and ask for a prediction before the next worked step.
• Assign a narrow skill, then vary the numbers or representation in an offline follow-up.
• Check the account policy before putting a class on the platform; anonymous browsing and tracked assignments are different uses.