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How well does Khan Academy teach?

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#51

Post by Jtsummers »

novalis wrote: post #6

"Comparing decimals. Decimal fractions (decimals for short — the numbers to the right of the decimal point) are a notoriously challenging topic in the elementary math curriculum." Just to point out this is the most ass backwards way to talk about decimal fractions I have ever witnessed, but nothing would stop said Valerie Strauss on pedagogical insufficiency spotting... "decimals for short — the numbers to the right…

The author isn't Valerie Strauss.

"Decimals" is (in the US at least) a common way of referring to decimal fractions (that is, numbers represented like: 12.345) vs the whole number or integer representation that the students would already be familiar with (like 12) or other fractional notations like 6 7/10.

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#52

Post by slurgfest »

rimantas wrote: post #44
Jabbles wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands (millions?) of teachers prepare mostly the same lessons every day. Whilst some preparation is obviously necessary, I see huge benefits for students and teachers from centralising this. I am looking forward to the future when a video lesson distributed to 20% of children on the Monday can have its feedback aggregated and analysed, with a patched version of the lesson pushed out on Tuesday. For example, imagi…

> teachers prepare mostly the same lessons every day That "mostly" hides a lot. A good teacher will prepare this lesson in a context: context of his pupils, their abilities, their knowledge of other material, etc. Centralized version will have none of that.

So who is making the site that will deliver more personalized instruction? Where is the research that site will use, telling all about which kinds of personalization are proven and how much effect they will have?

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#53

Post by lectrick »

mgurlitz wrote: post #23
latch wrote: post #9

This article is a critique of the traditional aspect of teaching (having a teacher lecture students). This is obviously important, so it's good to have professional educators provide feedback. However, I thought the aspects that was supposed to be "revolutionary" was detailed tracking and analysis of students and that feedback loop (either back into the system, to the student themselves or to teachers). They seem to…

I think one of the most groundbreaking ideas they have is "flipping the classroom" [1], where students watch Sal's videos at home before class for homework, then in class they work on problems with the teacher and other students. That's where the ability for teachers to track and target deficiencies really becomes powerful. [1]: http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-05-30/sal-kha...

I agree 200%. It also has a number of other nice side effects such as teaching teamwork/collaboration, etc.

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#54

Post by Jabbles »

rimantas wrote: post #44
Jabbles wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands (millions?) of teachers prepare mostly the same lessons every day. Whilst some preparation is obviously necessary, I see huge benefits for students and teachers from centralising this. I am looking forward to the future when a video lesson distributed to 20% of children on the Monday can have its feedback aggregated and analysed, with a patched version of the lesson pushed out on Tuesday. For example, imagi…

> teachers prepare mostly the same lessons every day That "mostly" hides a lot. A good teacher will prepare this lesson in a context: context of his pupils, their abilities, their knowledge of other material, etc. Centralized version will have none of that.

I don't see how an individual teacher has the advantage. Most classes have a huge range in ability and any lesson must be suitable for all. A centralised system could (in my dreams) deliver more than one version of each lesson and determine (from their enormous amounts of data) which lesson each child will benefit most from.

Of course if I'm dreaming that much I should point out that with each child able to learn at their own pace a single physical classroom could hold many different levels of the same subject at once, with children from different schools working together...

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#55

Post by lkbm »

ColinWright wrote: post #12

I spend a lot of my time in outreach, enhancement, and enrichment activities, and I've now met several people who have taken to watching lots of the Khan videos. Some of them are doing spectacularly well, possibly partly because of them, although correlation versus causation, etc. However, I have had some seriously worrying conversations with people who have some deep, deep misconceptions, and who believe they have b…

Derek Muller of the YouTube science channel Veritasium did a TED audition wherein he discussed this: http://talentsearch.ted.com/video/Derek-Muller-The-key-to-ef...

He found that just showing a video of the laws of motion made people more confident of their answers on a physics quiz, but just as wrong. They would actually have false memories of the video confirming their prior knowledge. What worked was first debunking misconceptions and then replacing them with the truth, even though those videos were rated much more confusing.

We're not teaching blank slates, and if you teach as if you are, you end up with what you (and Derek) described.

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#56

Post by crusso »

Jtsummers wrote: post #21
delinka wrote: post #13

tl;dr, with my own interpretation of the article: "although we are not students in today's world, we presume to know and understand the mind of today's student and can tell you from our own learned perspective that Khan just doesn't have what it takes to teach." I'm certain I read nothing more than snobbery in this article. It reads like "we didn't think of this free online disruptive academy first" or "how dare you…

I think you took something different from the article than I did. They provide a critique, strongly worded at times, but not totally bashing Khan Academy or the general approach. They specify their concerns, and even offer suggestions on ways it can be improved (specifically, examining existing pedagogy and coordinating with some of the top math and science teachers to generate better content). One of the authors is…

So an article on the Washington Post site based upon a for-profit founder's nit-picking of Khan's materials is representative of the right way to go about improving what Khan himself says is an effort to supplement other educational methods?

There's a difference between constructive criticism that's effectively administered vs a publicly-rendered smear attempt that tries to hide behind pedantry.

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#59

Post by jmcqk6 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #7

The main criticism of the article is a bit silly: Khan will put the video out there and see how people react to it. He perceives this to be a better approach than incorporating results of quality research projects into his instructional decisions. In the age of No Child Left Behind and its mandate for “scientifically based research” as the foundation for classroom instruction, this seems lazy. Yes, Khan is doing his…

Meant to reply to this, but didn't work, so copying and pasting:

In the debate about khan academy, there's an important fact that is continuously missed, it's not about effective instruction vs. ineffective instruction; it's about less effective vs. more effective.

The khan academy way may be better than trying to learn from the lower X% of math teachers out there. It's highly unlikely that it's going to be better than the top Y%.

Things like Khan academy will not "fix" education. Anything that standardizes and automates education will only do one thing: insure mediocrity. It will protect against the bad while eliminating the possibility of excellence.

Re: How well does Khan Academy teach?

#60

Post by philwise »

The article misses the point of Khan Academy. The point is that the world only ever has to find _one good example_ of how to teach something.

If someone comes up with a theory on a better way to teach something, cool. A/B test it and keep the winner.

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