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What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

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Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#21

Post by mikemajzoub »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #12

I've noticed with most critiques of KA that they set up a straw man of what KA is trying to accomplish, and then they attack that, almost always without giving a better alternative. The fact is KA is a great tool for learning many subjects, and will only continue to improve. The biggest take aways should be: - spaced repetition of subject matter is extremely useful for long term memorization - bite sized, repeatable…

+1 to your point of what it gives parents.

KhanAcademy is a powerful force for good in education, especially in instances where a parent wants to help his or her child with homework, but does not possess the educational foundation necessary to do so.

Additionally, when I was a middle school teacher, my students would always have questions about topics we wouldn't have time to get to in class. KhanAcademy and TED were invaluable resources to point them towards to encourage their curiosity.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#22

Post by spicyj »

zanny wrote: post #20
spicyj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work at Khan Academy.) > The Khan Academy developers have devoted a lot of thought to hope to computerize problems rather than exercises, and they are still working on building new problem types for the mathematics lessons. I'm actually quite impressed with some of the problem types that show up in more advanced mathematics lessons on Khan Academy that go beyond the eighth grade level implied by current United Sta…

> that test reasoning and explanation in a non-automated way > early experiments that take a much more interactive approach > we're exploring strategies like peer grading Are you guys working on any genetic / learning algorithm implementations of AI sufficient enough to evaluate responses to arbitrary prompts? It sounds both like something that should be feasible with modern tech, especially when time to response can…

No, not currently.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#23

Post by kamens »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #12

I've noticed with most critiques of KA that they set up a straw man of what KA is trying to accomplish, and then they attack that, almost always without giving a better alternative. The fact is KA is a great tool for learning many subjects, and will only continue to improve. The biggest take aways should be: - spaced repetition of subject matter is extremely useful for long term memorization - bite sized, repeatable…

(I'm one of many behind Khan Academy)

One thing that can't be said enough — which we internalize deeply at KA but is often confused outside our office — is that KA intends to be a resource for education, not a complete solution.

It's a resource for students who wouldn't otherwise have access to this content and for those having trouble with whatever education they're currently getting. And it's a resource for teachers who want a tool to help make sure students cover core skills at their own pace — so they can spend their class time getting students to work together, using those skills in all sorts of creative ways, and generally adding the highest value teachers can add.

I mostly find Dan's advice (and the article's comments) constructive. But taking a step back, it makes me proud that an educational resource covering this amount of content is free, open to this sort of critique, and constantly improving itself. See the comment from Justin Helps, one of our content creators, on Dan's post.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#24

Post by zo1 »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #16
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #12

I've noticed with most critiques of KA that they set up a straw man of what KA is trying to accomplish, and then they attack that, almost always without giving a better alternative. The fact is KA is a great tool for learning many subjects, and will only continue to improve. The biggest take aways should be: - spaced repetition of subject matter is extremely useful for long term memorization - bite sized, repeatable…

It should be noted that there are huge vested interests who want to tear down Khan academy and similar sites.

Which "huge vested interests" are you referring to specifically? I can understand that if the Khan academy were to really take off, it'd shake quite a lot of educational institutions. Everything from universities, state-funded schools, teachers unions, the works. And I don't think a lot of them would like that, as I it would appear to the individuals running/manning them that their jobs are on the line.

The reason I say state-funded schools wouldn't like this is because they work on a false premise. Supposedly that education is not free/cheap enough, and that government funding is required to make it work for the masses. You take away that, and public/state schools become glorified daycare so that the parents can stay productive instead of having to babysit their offspring.

One addition: I've just setup a recurring donation to the Khan academy. One small step at proving that society can function without state-coercion.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#25

Post by aroberge »

zanny wrote: post #20
spicyj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work at Khan Academy.) > The Khan Academy developers have devoted a lot of thought to hope to computerize problems rather than exercises, and they are still working on building new problem types for the mathematics lessons. I'm actually quite impressed with some of the problem types that show up in more advanced mathematics lessons on Khan Academy that go beyond the eighth grade level implied by current United Sta…

> that test reasoning and explanation in a non-automated way > early experiments that take a much more interactive approach > we're exploring strategies like peer grading Are you guys working on any genetic / learning algorithm implementations of AI sufficient enough to evaluate responses to arbitrary prompts? It sounds both like something that should be feasible with modern tech, especially when time to response can…

False positives or false negatives in this type of fuzzy correction could be very detrimental to students. Khan Academy is doing an excellent job at what it is currently aiming to do. Doing less well by trying to do more would decrease its value.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#26

Post by WalterBright »

iandanforth wrote: post #4

Please for the love of maths do not "align" with the common core standards. It would be the saddest, most disheartening thing imaginable* for Khan Academy to become a feeder to the American standardized testing system. The author writes: "If one of Khan Academy’s goals is to prepare students for success in Common Core mathematics, they’re emphasizing the wrong set of skills." I would like nothing better than the acad…

> good at math and passing math tests are orthogonal concepts.

What good is being good at math yet being unable to answer any questions about it? Would you get on board an airliner with a pilot who flunked the flight certification tests but assures you that he's really good at flying anyway?

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#27

Post by WalterBright »

jwmerrill wrote: post #10
Spooky23 wrote: post #2

Reading this article reinforced a perception I walked away with at an event where parents were complaining about common core related topics. The professional educator dialect of English is not very approachable for the layman. To many people it sounds like somebody throwing out $10 words to make the arguments sound more intelligent.

> The professional educator dialect of English is not very approachable for the layman. I think Dan's blog is largely pitched at other professional educators. All professions develop their own technical vocabulary. As an analogy, I recently enjoyed an article about the implementation of the v8 garbage collector by Jay Conrod: http://jayconrod.com/posts/55/a-tour-of-v8-garbage-collectio... Here's a sample paragraph: "…

> "the professional compiler engineer dialect of English is not very approachable to the layman."

We compiler guys do that on purpose in order to keep our salaries high!

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#28

Post by VLM »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #11
iandanforth wrote: post #4

Please for the love of maths do not "align" with the common core standards. It would be the saddest, most disheartening thing imaginable* for Khan Academy to become a feeder to the American standardized testing system. The author writes: "If one of Khan Academy’s goals is to prepare students for success in Common Core mathematics, they’re emphasizing the wrong set of skills." I would like nothing better than the acad…

Consider a well designed test of an important curriculum. This means the topics are important for $REASONS, and the test is highly correlated with knowledge of the topics. If a student asks "why is this important", you can reply "$REASONS". And you can "teach to the test" secure in the knowledge that you are teaching useful materials. Now, if you believe the curriculum is poorly designed or the test is poorly correla…

I can't speak for OP, although I basically agree with you and OP simultaneously.

However, look at it as an optimization problem. CC testing standards and format may be ideal testing tools for 49 minutes 5th period after lunch 5 days a week in a 40 person classroom, performed in perfect lock step by all 40 students, only failure mode is repeating the entire class or developing a hatred of the topic, aka standard public school experience.

However, what does "alignment" WRT KA mean when the educational experience has completely changed? Its analog, you can watch a video 50 times will you get it, jump back and forth, all that. I'd propose the "best" testing technique for that environment probably looks a lot like KA and not so much CC because you need instant feedback and simple questions. Its not quite as good as personal 1 on 1 tutoring, but its better than sitting in class, more importantly the experience is inherently different than sitting in class...

The proposal in the linked article seems to be that KA epic fails, solely in "alignment", because it doesn't test like CC, which is trivial to test and prove and analyze statistically. Factually looks like a good study. Maybe it fails the relevance test because "alignment" is fuzzy to me (maybe it has a special jargon meaning among CC teachers?) I think MAYBE OP and I are concerned that KA aligns pretty well to a decent curriculum (CC) WRT topics and order of topics and presentation standards, and I hope KA doesn't ruin the KA assessment portion to better match CC assessments solely to get a checkbox somewhere.

Maybe we can abstract out KA from the discussion. I'm tolerably good at math and have tutored people. If you define alignment with CC as slavishly following their assessment technique at all times even though I'm 1 on 1 in an ongoing human conversation, such that everything I speak must statistically match the CC assessment percentages in style, tone, and technique, that's ridiculous. If you defined alignment as I'm talking about sets of linear equations with infinite solution set the same general time, order, and way the CC talks about it, thats OK, even if I assess a tutored student the "wrong way" by asking the wrong type of questions (which may very well be the right question for that kid at that moment while also being on average the wrong way to teach all American Kids in a 40 person classroom)

Its seems reasonably non controversial that CC curriculum and assessment are local maxima on society wide averages for teaching math. It seems reasonably non controversial that KAs assessment tools seem to be a local maxima for computerized delivery of help to kids that need extra help. I (and possibly OP) don't think it reasonable to trash talk KA because the local maxima of effectiveness for society as an average whole in a classroom setting doesn't necessarily match KAs local maxima of effectiveness for "kids who need help at home". The danger is screwing up KA enough to make it useless for the kids who need it after school, just to achieve a marketing checkmark.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#29

Post by VLM »

jwmerrill wrote: post #10
Spooky23 wrote: post #2

Reading this article reinforced a perception I walked away with at an event where parents were complaining about common core related topics. The professional educator dialect of English is not very approachable for the layman. To many people it sounds like somebody throwing out $10 words to make the arguments sound more intelligent.

> The professional educator dialect of English is not very approachable for the layman. I think Dan's blog is largely pitched at other professional educators. All professions develop their own technical vocabulary. As an analogy, I recently enjoyed an article about the implementation of the v8 garbage collector by Jay Conrod: http://jayconrod.com/posts/55/a-tour-of-v8-garbage-collectio... Here's a sample paragraph: "…

One sophistry problem is we will "ALL" theoretically take and pass Algebra, so the teacher does not have the luxury of specialized jargon, the teacher MUST be able to present it to the entire general public. A general education teacher is expected to present effectively to the general public as the core of their job, its not a nice to have or wouldn't it be interesting if it were possible.

On the other hand, only maybe 1% of the population has to suffer thru garbage collector theory in CS classes, and of that 1%, maybe only 0.0001% ever implement a GC "in the real world" and can understand that post. There just aren't that many GC programmers and there are a lot of humans in the general public. In that case jargon is perfectly acceptable, even expected. Also the core of a programmers job is rarely making public presentations.

Re: What Students Do (And Don't Do) in Khan Academy

#30

Post by jimmaswell »

21echoes wrote: post #19
mathu7 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yay down-votes. I'm not gonna delete the comment. I'll just make a new account

in case you missed why your comment didn't add to the conversation: Khan Academy and the article are both not about coding or learning to code. This article is about math.

Khan Academy did start to include a programming portion at some point.
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