Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school • Hacker News Board

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#261

Post by odessacubbage » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 11:42 AM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #241

waterhouse wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this isn't common is mind-boggling to me. If a student can prove that they know the subject well enough that them sitting in that class would be a waste, then why does anyone think it's a good idea to make them continue sitting in that class? My first guess is "there are some pushy parents who will want their kid to be in a higher class even when their kid isn't qualified for it". The answer to this is,…

For some subjects it seems that the issue is not level, but quantity of work. They don't want to be seen as letting students get away with less work. Maybe there's also something of a resentment about them not being needed when they encounter an autodidact? I had problems with an AP chemistry teacher who was angry that I was doing the homework in class instead of listening to the lecture. When I said that I thought t…

bruised egos are an understated problem when it comes to teaching. in my experience there are many teachers who react very poorly if you learn differently than their way. one straight up refused to give me a syllabus after transferring schools to patch over the gaps in my knowledge because she 'planned it all in her head'

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#262

Post by leaflets2 » Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

tkgally wrote: post #256

leaflets2 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok :-) > I learn as much from them as they do from me. Sounds like a nice job :-) Paul Halmos, cool to have had such a person as one's teacher. (Was that in the US? I wonder how he was like, as a teacher and person)

I seem to have bragged before about studying with Paul Halmos: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... He seemed a bit formal and intimidating at first, but he turned out to be a warm, considerate person. He and his wife had me and several other students over to their house for dinner a couple of times, and he enjoyed talking with us about whatever youthful nerdish topics we were interested in…

Thanks! Seems like a lovely teacher and person.

Also, interesting to read about the Moore method (I found vid the Algolia link). If I'll ever do some teaching stuff, I'll try Halmos' flavor of that method :-)

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#263

Post by mbrodersen » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 4:25 AM UTC

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 (…

Have you considered that you might have to drastically change how you teach to be effective online? Simply trying to copy what you do offline to online will most definitely not work well. Doing live online lectures for example is frankly a waste of time. So perhaps instead record your lecture once and let the students watch it offline, submit questions, and only then discuss those questions online. Or even better: find the best online recording of your subject matter and let the students watch that instead. The likelihood of you being the best lecturer to present the material is low. So go find the best one out there and use that instead. And customise your online interactions to the specific problems your students have instead.