Parody Critiques Popular Khan Academy Videos

I'm reading these comments and I'm seeing these things:

* Khan makes mistakes and just leaves them in.

* Khan doesn't tell you how you could use these things in real life

* He's just using a procedural rule-based approach.

Um, did none of your school teachers ever make those mistakes!?!? Because mine did, all the time. And I had nowhere else to turn. The beauty of Khan, and all the other educational videos on youtube, is that you can get a second (or third or fourth or tenth) opinion on the matter by asking your school teacher or by doing some more google searching. This is amazingly better than it used to be.

The great thing about Khan is he's obviously having fun teaching you. He's laughing and having a good time, he makes little mistakes and he has to scribble things out or correct himself later, and it's OK. He draws in pretty colors. What does that convey to a kid? Math can be fun! There are people that like it! You can like it too! It's OK if you mess up, even the pros do! The first time my kids watched a Khan video they were simultaneously cracking up and getting excited about their new-found knowledge. They begged for more. It was awesome. I wish more teachers taught like Khan.

That's good, no teacher should be threatened by the Khan Academy content.

I've spoken with more than a few teachers who are abjectly opposed to KA content. While my own observation is that of a concerned parent (small sample size applies), I would suggest that there are some teachers who exhibit the behavior of having their approaches to teaching second-guessed (hence: threatened.) By a similar measure about "straw men", I would double-check any assumptions about teachers and their desires for students to simply learn. I've personally dealt with those in the teaching profession who resist the idea that there's more than one way to learn something.

As for KA criticism, I've yet to hear suggestions that would yield better results. I get that implementation/instruction goes against the grain of traditional teaching methods. But hey, maybe that's the point? I'm in no position to assess that, but I am in position to evaluate results.

My kids are proof positive that using KA works for them. I'm an engineer and excelled at math, and they understand concepts better with KA material than without, so I have some perspective as to whether their learning is what I consider well-grounded.

There are bad teachers everywhere, just like there are bad engineers, bad bartenders, and bad doctors. Focusing on them as a sample, representative or not, is wasting time. Just because a teacher doesn't believe that there's multiple ways to learn something doesn't mean they don't want students to learn. It means they're not very good at their job. Before I became a classroom teacher, I worked for the City of Boston, teaching elementary school teachers techniques to improve their math instruction[1]. I interacted with hundreds of teachers, and while I met some thick-headed jackasses, I never met one that didn't want his or her students to learn.

The implementation and instruction at Khan really doesn't go against traditional teaching methods. They are traditional teaching methods, transposed online. Learn via a one-size-fits-all lecture, practice via rote. It's a traditional method, mind you, because it's worked fro hundreds of years.

I'm not surprised it works for a number of students, and I'm glad it works. It's better than most alternatives out there, paid or free, which is damning with faint praise.

I'll be the first to admit: I can't match it, or beat it, because it's a herculean effort to do so. One of my best one-day lessons has probably taken me 15 hours of work outside the classroom to write, over the course of 5 years, and has seen a half-dozen revisions. I'm still not in love with it. If I complain, it's not because I want KA to go away, it's because I want it to improve.

[1]During my tenure there, we won the Broad Prize for Urban Education, and were specifically noted in the award for raising our 4th and 8th grade mathematics scores more dramatically than any other city in the country.

>> They're more interested in expanding their back-end currently, not improving their instruction.

I think the reason is simple. Khan came from india, where teacher quality is awful in many places. he want to offer good enough education to those who have awful education.