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

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#41

Post by MrBlueIncognito » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:45 AM UTC

frontman1988 wrote: post #18

azinman2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there’s more to high school than just classes. It’s important to learn how to deal with people as well. A purely virtual high school experience sounds extremely lonely and thin for the soul.

Social learning can happen outside school in sports or other hobby related activities. High school is actually quite a weird place to learn social skills.

Not every kid is going to be a part of sports and hobbies clubs. A lot of us never had any friends outside of school.

We need some kind of institution to facilitate social interactions between children. Till date that has been the function of schools.

Moving away from this model, without proper deliberation, is sure to cause problems afterwards. And then we’ll all look back and ask why the world’s feeling more isolated than ever.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#42

Post by sinuhe69 » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:47 AM UTC

Kosirich wrote: post #21

In my mind a "better high school of tomorrow" would be the one that utilizes the best available classes and material available online in a physical class room environment, except for classes that are unique to the national curriculum. So a school would have people employed in some new role of mentor/teacher with whom you take the classes online with help and guidance. What would be the stoppers from implementation of…

Yep, it calls blended learning and already implemented/practiced in many schools. https://study.com/academy/popular/top-50-blended-learning-hi...

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#43

Post by zozbot234 » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:49 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #36

vincentmarle wrote: post #2

The concept of an online high school may sound terrible, but sooner or later it’s bound to happen: quality education will keep consolidating until there’s one super school left. Outlier is doing the same thing but on the college level: why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by the best?

> why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by the best? Because…you actually can’t. Static media (like books and non-interactive lectures) scales easily, but that’s not teaching (even if, especially in large lower-division courses, that’s what university faculty essentially does.) Human interactivity, which is what teaching fundamentally is, doesn’t scale, which is why those large lecture cla…

To be fair, there are "interactive" teaching methods that scale very well. In old-time schools, it was common for a single teacher to teach a large number of students, who would rote learn a teacher-prepared "lesson" and chant it back word-for-word when prompted. Students would similarly be introduced to practice in e.g. grammar or math, simply by hearing problem questions from the teacher and shouting back the right answers. Thus they were prepared for anything that might turn up on a later test. This education system could be carried forward to quite advanced levels, equivalent to a modern high school education or even to some parts of community college. Abraham Lincoln was taught in this way, and like many other students he had a habit of rehearsing his material out loud while going to school and back. It was not ineffective, though individual tutoring would've been the gold standard even back then.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#44

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:51 AM UTC

DocTomoe wrote: post #30

azinman2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there’s more to high school than just classes. It’s important to learn how to deal with people as well. A purely virtual high school experience sounds extremely lonely and thin for the soul.

And we all know the best way to learn about how to deal with people is putting them in a group of incompatible people in a high-stress, prison-like environment. What could possibly go wrong? As long as high schools are facilities that push some people to extreme actions I think the 'social education' you would get there is too expensive for society as a whole.

[deleted]

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#45

Post by _tom_ » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:51 AM UTC

ASU has an online college program. It's basically a bad port of their in person program. Recorded lectures by whoever is teaching the class this quarter, not a "master teacher", low production values (think webcam, not "myth busters" as someone suggested ), little to no interaction with teachers. (Just recorded videos) and no community at all.

Even my local community college is doing better.

Not sure why khan academy went with them. They do have infrastructure set up for online. They just manifestly don't know how to design online courses. Maybe khan can help them with that.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#46

Post by andrewinardeer » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:52 AM UTC

DocTomoe wrote: post #30

azinman2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there’s more to high school than just classes. It’s important to learn how to deal with people as well. A purely virtual high school experience sounds extremely lonely and thin for the soul.

And we all know the best way to learn about how to deal with people is putting them in a group of incompatible people in a high-stress, prison-like environment. What could possibly go wrong? As long as high schools are facilities that push some people to extreme actions I think the 'social education' you would get there is too expensive for society as a whole.

I find that your first paragraph is very negative and has an insular posture.

Dealing and managing with other people who are incompatible with your ethics and morality is an important skill to learn. Not only does it help you learn asseriveness and diplomacy it also allows one to gain an insight into your own personal bias and teaches you how to respond and not react. A lot of grown, so called 'adults' still need to learn this skill set from my observations in day to day life.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#47

Post by vosper » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:53 AM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #39

Online learning resources are amazing. Compared to pre-internet, the depth, quality and accessibility is amazing. It really does open an opportunity route for a lot of people. However... Institutional learning, whether it's K-12, colleges, techs or whatnot have barely changed. The same fundamental dynamics exist, whether it's tertiary sorting and prestige or primary teaching methods. Education still serves and fails…

> I really hope to see online resources develop in such a way that schools can be built around them.

You might be interested to know that Salman Khan has built a physical school

https://www.khanlabschool.org/about/about-kls

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#48

Post by MrBlueIncognito » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:54 AM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #39

Online learning resources are amazing. Compared to pre-internet, the depth, quality and accessibility is amazing. It really does open an opportunity route for a lot of people. However... Institutional learning, whether it's K-12, colleges, techs or whatnot have barely changed. The same fundamental dynamics exist, whether it's tertiary sorting and prestige or primary teaching methods. Education still serves and fails…

Agreed. What we might need is a mix of online resources for teaching with offline schools for other aspects of child psychological development.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#49

Post by sinuhe69 » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:55 AM UTC

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #3

so this is specifically for US students only? also, is this like a permanent school? like you can be registered in khan world high school and not be enrolled in any "physical" school? do you drop out of your previous/current school? what about if you want to join this school as well as your existing school?

Because the school is an online school in-person presence format, I think compatible time zones play an important role, too. Even though, I can imagine a flexible organization for discussion groups and collaborations.

Re: Khan Academy launches Khan World School online high school

#50

Post by dalbasal » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 8:56 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #36

vincentmarle wrote: post #2

The concept of an online high school may sound terrible, but sooner or later it’s bound to happen: quality education will keep consolidating until there’s one super school left. Outlier is doing the same thing but on the college level: why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by the best?

> why deal with a mediocre local math teacher if you can get taught by the best? Because…you actually can’t. Static media (like books and non-interactive lectures) scales easily, but that’s not teaching (even if, especially in large lower-division courses, that’s what university faculty essentially does.) Human interactivity, which is what teaching fundamentally is, doesn’t scale, which is why those large lecture cla…

I don't think you can usefully define what teaching fundamentally is.

Learning is the anchor, not teaching. Teaching is defined relative to learning. Anything that enables, delivers, structures or otherwise makes learning happen.

For me, classroom teaching was never helpful. I zoned out in classes from first class to university (where I just didn't attend lectures). I had a little private tutoring in 12th class that was very helpful. In college, small group tutorials where we reviewed homework problems also worked for me. The majority of "teaching" hours were entirely irrelevant.

Past very early grades, I would estimate the useless/useful ratio of teaching hours at Anyway, I did benefit from educational structure. Essays, exams, teachers nagging. I don't think online-only would have worked for me. I needed eyes on me, and parents wouldn't have been sufficient.

If I were to design an educational system for child me it would have: (1) 0 hours of large class time. (2) 1-2 hours per day of intense small group learning. (3) 1-2 hours per day of private or semi private tuition. (4) self paced learning with a coach encouraging progress.