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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

#151

Post by kwhitefoot »

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…

> who here actually learned anything inside a highschool classroom

Perhaps my junior and senior high schools, in the south west England in the late '60s, early '70s, were better than yours, or perhaps they just suited me better than yours suited you, but I learned a lot. We also did Shakespeare but I don't remember anyone having to memorize it unless they were actually putting on a play.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#152

Post by itronitron »

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 (…

Not many people here are distinguishing between online learning and online classrooms.

In my experience from observing my own children who universally despise online classes, Khan Academy has been excellent (with the exception of their Physics curriculum which is a complete mess.) I have no doubt that if I enrolled them in the 'classes' that they would absolutely hate it, especially based on that Daily Seminar image that looks like a Zoom meeting.

With the shift to enrolled classes it seems like they are pivoting towards the Educational Industrial Complex, which is unfortunate. That discourages me from donating to them again. Although I am always happy to pay for quality learning material and workbooks I'm not interested in supporting online classrooms.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#153

Post by huitzitziltzin »

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…

I don't entirely disagree, but I partially disagree.

Personally I was desperate in March 2020 (as were my colleagues) for any tips about what would work online. I didn't want my classes to suck, nor did my colleagues. There was very little information available at the beginning about what worked.

But what's worse (and what makes me disagree with your comment) is that even after a year of being online it still wasn't clear how to make it not suck! Basically no one had discovered anything which made students like it OR perform well.

I polled my students every midterm and final exam (and gave them actual points for their answers!) on whatever they had found to work in any of their online classes. Collectively they were exposed to several hundred other professors at my university. While they did have some suggestions (which I did implement), nothing really worked.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#154

Post by photochemsyn »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #118
andrepd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be mistaken if you think that is not by design.

Care to explain how you think that is by design? I think it's more a side effect of trying to measure everything or design a system that is easy to measure.

When a culture/society becomes intensely class-stratified and divides into an aristocratic (British posh) and serf (British prole) structure, this kind of educational system (one tier for the aristocrats, another for the serfs) is very likely to arise. It may not be 'by design' as much as something that develops over time and becomes an unconscious social norm.

The driving force behind this is that the well-paid jobs requiring certain skills like facility with maths, excellent reading and writing and verbal communication (presentation) skills, etc. end up being reserved for members of the aristocratic class and are obtained more by social connections than by some open competitive process. These include professions like lawyers, corporate managers, etc.

Hence, the educational programs for the serfs are cut down to the bone (as the serfs are not going to need those skills in their jobs as assembly line workers, miners, agricultural field hands, janitors, etc.). This of course helps perpetuate the class division in such stratified societies. Incidentally, encouraging contempt for education and skill development in the serf class is part of this whole problem. "What, do you think you're smarter than everyone else?" etc. Kids getting bullied for getting straight A's etc.

There has always been a strange borderland between these two zones, however, where the technologically adept can arise and prosper. Michael Faraday is perhaps the best example of a member of the serf class who broke the pattern.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#155

Post by itronitron »

freemint wrote: post #113
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 intro classes in our department, mean grades have been a whole standard deviation lower than the long run pre-pandemic average. Have you ever considered that the digital teaching methods you employed are subpar compared to those a dedicated online only teaching platform might have. I don't mean to suggest you did not try.

> a dedicated online only teaching platform

Can you provide links to any?

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#156

Post by huitzitziltzin »

tkgally wrote: post #136
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 (…

One minority data point here. I teach at a university in Japan. I have been teaching my classes exclusively online—live using Zoom—for more than two years, and overall the experience has been better than with the in-person classes I taught for many years before. The class discussions have been meatier and more focused than in person, and the students have been turning in better papers. I recognize that the results wo…

Please tell me your secret. Is there anything you do differently, relative to in person? Or do you just end up with a selected sample of super motivated students?

This in particular:

> The class discussions have been meatier...

is a literal miracle.

I think it might be this:

> I am fortunate to teach small classes of motivated students with good study skills.

I teach an honors and a regular section of one of my classes. The honors students (who are more serious and motivated in general) definitely are affected less.

If you are teaching grad students that is also not going to be representative of the overall population. Those guys are definitely in the right tail of motivation.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#157

Post by Bedon292 »

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 (…

While there certainly have been some negative outcomes as far as grades go. There have also been studies saying that school going online has improved the mental health of some students [1]. There was a decrease in anxiety, and a decrease in the severity of depression. Students who had lower wellbeing pre-pandemic were the ones who saw a significant increase in wellbeing going to school online.

Now this is speculation on my part but the students who may be suffering from bullying (leading to that anxiety and depression) now have more control of their environment and connections. Its easy to ignore someone typing in some chat room (and maybe even mute them entirely) that you can't ignore when they are physically in the same location as you.

And I know being able to control my environment, and fidget or move around, or whatever I want to do allows me to work better than being stuck in some classroom bored and daydreaming. So for certain people there are definitely positive outcomes. Even if they are a minority. And a service like this might be a great asset to those people.

[1] https://sphr.nihr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Young-Peo...

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#158

Post by huitzitziltzin »

freemint wrote: post #113
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 intro classes in our department, mean grades have been a whole standard deviation lower than the long run pre-pandemic average. Have you ever considered that the digital teaching methods you employed are subpar compared to those a dedicated online only teaching platform might have. I don't mean to suggest you did not try.

I think it's obvious that the digital teaching methods we employed were not effective, but there was no information available at all about what worked. Also: we tried many different things. Certainly I did!

Moreover (as I replied to a different comment above) even after a year of being online the students were unable to identify things that made any of their online classes work. At that point they had resigned to their classes sucking. (Not just my class - I asked my students to tell me what worked in any of their online classes. Collectively that's asking about the teaching methods of a few hundred professors.)

If you have information about some methods which work, I would have loved to have them. I would still love to have them! (If you can provide some evidence about whether and how they are known to work that would be better still.)

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#159

Post by Bedon292 »

visarga wrote: post #83
gsatic wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online resources are not very different than having access to good libraries. Great libraries have existed for thousands of years but you won't find examples, anywhere in the world, where kids are just left at the library to learn. One of the fundamental aspects of learning is practice. Teachers/coaches/guides and mentors play a big role in keeping kids on track. It's not just about the best quality content. Or getti…

> It's about keeping ppl on track when the repetition and practice gets boring. That's the missing ingredient for online learning. I think being part of a class, having friends there, and not wanting to be left behind plays a huge role.

But the inverse can also be true. When you don't have friends there, and are already ahead of most of the class you have no motivation or incentive to keep going.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#160

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #154
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain how you think that is by design? I think it's more a side effect of trying to measure everything or design a system that is easy to measure.

When a culture/society becomes intensely class-stratified and divides into an aristocratic (British posh) and serf (British prole) structure, this kind of educational system (one tier for the aristocrats, another for the serfs) is very likely to arise. It may not be 'by design' as much as something that develops over time and becomes an unconscious social norm. The driving force behind this is that the well-paid jobs…

So it's not by design. I like your response though, good jumping off point.
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