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Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

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Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#141

Post by jamal-kumar »

bnralt wrote: post #125
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #104

Very favorable comments all around from the very online crowd who comments here. I’m much more skeptical. I have no doubt this will work well for some students, but as someone who taught online for the better part of two years I can say with certainty that the experience is very different and (for the wide majority of students) worse than being in person. My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss (…

In my experience, in-person educators often do a rather poor job with online education. There's often a lot of effort to emulate in-person learning, instead of an acceptance that online education is its own thing. They also often approach online education with a bias against it, which I doubt helps things. In-person educators trying to do online learning, getting poor results, and then saying it's the fault of online…

This is a really important insight and I think everyone should take note of it for pedagogy going forward for the next years

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#142

Post by mattmcknight »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #104

Very favorable comments all around from the very online crowd who comments here. I’m much more skeptical. I have no doubt this will work well for some students, but as someone who taught online for the better part of two years I can say with certainty that the experience is very different and (for the wide majority of students) worse than being in person. My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss (…

I think the key advantage of this kind of method is that rather than proceeding at a single pace, the students can stay on a topic until they master it, and then move on. It's kind of a way of ensuring every student gets at least a 90% in a course, but the amount of time it takes them to get there can vary.

While this is obviously a little more difficult in a classroom format, I have seen it done in the 80s completely offline for math where the whole grade of students take a bunch of pretests at the beginning of the year (including the tests for the prior year material) and then are assigned to two week groups or classes for the topics they need. After two weeks, they get a post test. If they haven't passed at 90%, they stay in that topic until they complete it. If they have, they move on to the next topic. It got a little complicated as a few people were in groups that went down to one person after a while, and they were just giving me worksheets and then I would ask if I had a question, but I was able to proceed at more than 2x the normal pace for a few glorious years.

So, maybe doing the Khan Academy thing in the building, where you have a supervisor there to keep kids on task and prevent cheating, as well as ample people to whom one can ask questions, could be a net improvement.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#143

Post by mattmcknight »

sandworm101 wrote: post #116
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #104

Very favorable comments all around from the very online crowd who comments here. I’m much more skeptical. I have no doubt this will work well for some students, but as someone who taught online for the better part of two years I can say with certainty that the experience is very different and (for the wide majority of students) worse than being in person. My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss (…

In person is obviously better for actual learning. I went to highschool before online was an option. But a few years ago I was talking to a kid who had the option to do classes online, at their own pace . They were free to take final exams whenever they wanted. If I could complete classes like that I would probably have finished highschool in a couple months. I might not have "learned" as much, but who here actually…

School would be vastly improved by the ability to pre-test out of topics or subjects. I actually went to an elementary school that let you do that for math and it was great.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#144

Post by narrator »

Has anyone ever evaluated different online education approaches and how they work for the not smart kids?

I know it is sacrilege to say that some kids are naturally more or less talented than others, but most of the unending and relentless crisis in education it seems is with the kids who are not naturally talented.

Maybe these online courses could do a better job at finding out what people are actually good at and focus their learning in those areas?

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#145

Post by petesergeant »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #137
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #104

Very favorable comments all around from the very online crowd who comments here. I’m much more skeptical. I have no doubt this will work well for some students, but as someone who taught online for the better part of two years I can say with certainty that the experience is very different and (for the wide majority of students) worse than being in person. My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss (…

Damn I spent the whole pandemic reading books and doing my best to get ahead as such How did everyone else mess it up so bad? I'm just reading this and thinking back to my resolve to use this time as positively as possible, like study and doing my best with savings was the most obvious thing at the time to me Might be something to do with me living in the third world and adaptation culture being different

> How did everyone else mess it up so bad

Kids. A different set of mental-health challenges. Being worried about losing their job. Being more dependent on their non-coliving family than you are. Being more worried about their family than you are. Having a job that they're not used to doing online. Having a job that's hard to do online. Having a job that couldn't be done online. Being deprived of life-long hobbies and interests that can't be done online or in the home. etc etc.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#147

Post by photochemsyn »

bnralt wrote: post #125
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #104

Very favorable comments all around from the very online crowd who comments here. I’m much more skeptical. I have no doubt this will work well for some students, but as someone who taught online for the better part of two years I can say with certainty that the experience is very different and (for the wide majority of students) worse than being in person. My colleagues and I can attest to both general learning loss (…

In my experience, in-person educators often do a rather poor job with online education. There's often a lot of effort to emulate in-person learning, instead of an acceptance that online education is its own thing. They also often approach online education with a bias against it, which I doubt helps things. In-person educators trying to do online learning, getting poor results, and then saying it's the fault of online…

In both online and inperson, a major choke point occurs when students get stuck on a problem and have nowhere to go to get help, or when students don't get useful feedback after submitting their work. This is directly related to the teacher-student ratio, regardless of whether it's online or not.

I imagine a huge factor is also parental involvement, when it comes to encouraging students to set aside several hours each night for study and homework. In the absence of parental involvement or in cases of parental neglect and indifference (woefully common in many situations), the role of the teacher becomes far more important in encouraging the student to develop good study habits. This might be more difficult in the online situation.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#148

Post by zozbot234 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #147
bnralt wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, in-person educators often do a rather poor job with online education. There's often a lot of effort to emulate in-person learning, instead of an acceptance that online education is its own thing. They also often approach online education with a bias against it, which I doubt helps things. In-person educators trying to do online learning, getting poor results, and then saying it's the fault of online…

In both online and inperson, a major choke point occurs when students get stuck on a problem and have nowhere to go to get help, or when students don't get useful feedback after submitting their work. This is directly related to the teacher-student ratio, regardless of whether it's online or not. I imagine a huge factor is also parental involvement, when it comes to encouraging students to set aside several hours eac…

That's why you should use a "flipped classroom" model, to focus in-person effort on these limited chokepoints. That still leaves everything else that can largely be done non-interactively and at the best pace for each student.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#149

Post by lolinder »

MrBlueIncognito wrote: post #127
PretzelPirate wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re researchers able to separate the negative effects on children of online learning from the negative effects from other causes such as global panic and uncertainty, the inability to see friends, etc…?

> the inability to see friends At least that last factor is directly correlated with online learning. Also I know from experience that most students in online classes aren’t even actively listening. A good chunk of them end up on YouTube or Instagram.

My experience in a physical classroom in the pre-smartphone era is much the same: a good chunk of the students are spacing off throughout any given lecture. At that time it was passing notes, doodling, or just staring out the window rather than online distractions.

It might be worth considering whether synchronously sitting in a lecture with 30 other kids isn't, in fact, a good model for learning in any environment, online or otherwise.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#150

Post by the__alchemist »

abrax3141 wrote: post #74
Marcan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you say that? Can you elaborate? As far as I'm concerned, it is a great free online resource which makes learning accessible to everyone. Sal Khan is also an excellent teacher.

There’s like 500 way better online resources for any given KA topic. Take any KA video and compare it with the same topic from Numberphile, VSauce, or even just a random person who knows how to teach.

Have you watched all of the above? Kahn is learning-grade, while the others are high-quality pop-sci/math.
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