101–110 of 119 posts
Colin once again submits an article from the United States popular press, here a co-authored op-ed piece, about mathematics education reform in the United States, one of my main topics of personal research for more than a decade. The regular opinion column to which this guest piece was submitted, the "Answer Sheet" edited by Valerie Strauss, is basically propaganda for the current school system, and has been caught h…
Colin once again submits an article from the United States popular press, here a co-authored op-ed piece, about mathematics education reform in the United States, one of my main topics of personal research for more than a decade. The regular opinion column to which this guest piece was submitted, the "Answer Sheet" edited by Valerie Strauss, is basically propaganda for the current school system, and has been caught h…
""The teachers are eager and able to learn. I vividly remember one summer class when I taught why the multiplication algorithm works for two-digit numbers using base ten blocks. I have no difficulty doing this with third graders, but this particular class was all elementary school teachers. At the end of the half hour, one third-grade teacher raised her hand. 'Why wasn’t I told this secret before?' she demanded. It w…
What would be meant, in the original article, by the "multiplication algorithm"?
I know that's a bizarre question, but actually I don't think I could explain what that means to someone myself, so I'd better ask.
Colin once again submits an article from the United States popular press, here a co-authored op-ed piece, about mathematics education reform in the United States, one of my main topics of personal research for more than a decade. The regular opinion column to which this guest piece was submitted, the "Answer Sheet" edited by Valerie Strauss, is basically propaganda for the current school system, and has been caught h…
Granted that there is a lot wrong with the current system, I'm curious what you think about the specific criticisms levelled against Khan in the OP's article. Is there any merit in the charge that he introduces the equality operator without enough explanation? Or that there ought to be more discussion in his lessons about the meaning of the decimal point?
The vast majority of contact hours in the vast majority of educational institutions consist of chalk-and-talk - someone writing things on a board and talking. The available evidence shows that there is no clear benefit to doing this in the flesh over delivering the same approach through video, and that there might be significant benefits to providing it in a modular format that can be paused and rewound. Sal might not be the greatest math teacher on earth, but soon enough, somewhere on the internet will be lessons by 99th percentile teachers on every imaginable topic.
If your best argument is "We can do what the internet does, only marginally better", then you're in deep trouble - we've seen how well that has played out for any number of people. The economies of scale are too great, the rate of iteration too rapid. You're just not going to beat the internet at supplying data. Educators and schools have to work out what they are uniquely equipped to do, or face the same inevitable obsolescence that is befalling libraries and travel agents and local newspapers and record stores and myriad other businesses.
I'm really starting to believe that these "critiques" of Khan Academy are just teachers and professors terrified of becoming irrelevant. The question shouldn't be "How well does Khan Academy teach" (well, maybe someday). The important question right now is "Is Khan Academy a better learning tool than most high school and college teachers?". In my experience, the answer overwhelmingly is "yes". I did have some truly f…
I'm really starting to believe that these "critiques" of Khan Academy are just teachers and professors terrified of becoming irrelevant. I try not to ascribe unstated motives to people, but I really wonder at the smell of pedantry and elitism in an article like that. Khan offers a free educational service that is very popular. That is a Good Thing(tm)... PERIOD. People are logging in to his site to learn things. Khan…
> This type of headline sensationalism designed to take down someone doing a good thing is just sad.
What happened to "I try not to ascribe unstated motives to people".
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 found the examples the article gave about students' common misconceptions interesting. I'm wondering whether the tracking and analysis by Khan Academy picks up these misconceptions as well. For example, in one of the examples (8 + 4 = _ + 5) many students answer 12 or 17. Khan Academy should be ideally placed to find such misconceptions if only because their sample size is much bigger than the average classroom.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
""The teachers are eager and able to learn. I vividly remember one summer class when I taught why the multiplication algorithm works for two-digit numbers using base ten blocks. I have no difficulty doing this with third graders, but this particular class was all elementary school teachers. At the end of the half hour, one third-grade teacher raised her hand. 'Why wasn’t I told this secret before?' she demanded. It w…
Thank you. I had no idea what the "secret" was myself. What would be meant, in the original article, by the "multiplication algorithm"? I know that's a bizarre question, but actually I don't think I could explain what that means to someone myself, so I'd better ask.
for each digit in the bottom number, starting with the ones digit:
begin a new line beneath the current state.
write a number of trailing zeroes equal to the number of digits of the bottom number you've already processed.
for each digit in the top number, starting with the ones digit:
write (carry + top digit * bottom digit) % 10 to the left of the leftmost digit on the bottom line of the state.
the carry for the next digit of the top number will be (carry + top digit * bottom digit) / 10
use the addition algorithm to compute the sum of all the numbers you wrote this way.
I'm really starting to believe that these "critiques" of Khan Academy are just teachers and professors terrified of becoming irrelevant. The question shouldn't be "How well does Khan Academy teach" (well, maybe someday). The important question right now is "Is Khan Academy a better learning tool than most high school and college teachers?". In my experience, the answer overwhelmingly is "yes". I did have some truly f…
I'm really starting to believe that these "critiques" of Khan Academy are just teachers and professors terrified of becoming irrelevant. I try not to ascribe unstated motives to people, but I really wonder at the smell of pedantry and elitism in an article like that. Khan offers a free educational service that is very popular. That is a Good Thing(tm)... PERIOD. People are logging in to his site to learn things. Khan…
Yes, because when something is popular and free, its got to be good. cough religion anyone cough.
If that is considered to be the measure of quality these days, our society is doomed. Education is an important thing, ignoring it and treating this one man as some "messiah" of education when he clearly introduces wrong and obtrusive concepts for the sake of "getting it out to the masses" is not education.
Colin once again submits an article from the United States popular press, here a co-authored op-ed piece, about mathematics education reform in the United States, one of my main topics of personal research for more than a decade. The regular opinion column to which this guest piece was submitted, the "Answer Sheet" edited by Valerie Strauss, is basically propaganda for the current school system, and has been caught h…
Colin once again submits an article from the United States popular press, here a co-authored op-ed piece, about mathematics education reform in the United States, one of my main topics of personal research for more than a decade. The regular opinion column to which this guest piece was submitted, the "Answer Sheet" edited by Valerie Strauss, is basically propaganda for the current school system, and has been caught h…
and the Khan Academy developers have been listening, and I have had interesting off-forum email interaction And THERE is the difference between genuinely-given constructive criticism and the questionably-motivated smearing that those folks working with the Washington Post are attempting to deliver. Thank you very much for the links. I've already sent some of them on to my wife so that she and I can research them a bi…