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How Education Is Changing Thanks To Khan Academy
An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports on how freely-available lectures from Khan Academy are affecting both teaching methods and learning methods in classrooms across the country. From the article: 'Initially, Thordarson thought Khan Academy would merely be a helpful supplement to her normal instruction. But it quickly become far more than that. She's now on her way to "flipping" the way her class works. This involves replacing some of her lectures with Khan's videos, which students can watch at home. Then, in class, they focus on working problem sets. The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school. ... It's when they're doing homework that students are really grappling with a subject and are most likely to need someone to talk to. And now Thordarson can tell just when this grappling occurs: Khan Academy provides teachers with a dashboard application that lets her see the instant a student gets stuck. "I'm able to give specific, pinpointed help when needed, she says. The result is that Thordarson's students move at their own pace. Those who are struggling get surgically targeted guidance, while advanced kids ... rocket far ahead; once they're answering questions without making mistakes, Khan's site automatically recommends new topics to move on to.'"
KHAN!!!
Isn't this just doing what Salman Khan suggested in his TED talk? He proposed that teachers should use class time for supervising and assisting in problem solving, and that students should watch lessons at home.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
This is a great idea when it comes to the way kids learn and where they struggle.
I'm wondering, though, what happens when a student doesn't have a computer or internet access.
>But it quickly become far more than that.
>it quickly become far more
>become
wat.
From the summary: "This involves replacing some of her lectures with Khan's videos, which students can watch at home." So what do K-12 students without broadband at home do? Go to a public library every day?
I'm glad to see that this is finally happening. A "good" lecture on a subject needs to only be done once. It seem like a waste repeating the same thing year after year. Where students (speaking for myself) need help is in the actual implementation of the lecture subject. Now that the students are doing 'homework' in class, that resource is available. And if Kahn's methods don't work for you, then maybe there need to be 3-4 different teaching styles. One that is heavy on theory light on examples, heavy on examples and light on theory and some that mix it up a bit.
In college we would get together in study groups or the teacher or TA had office hours (hopefully). For elementary, middle and high school students this really isn't an option. They're usually in class all day and then go home. So if they get hung up on something simple they're essentially stalled. Resulting in frustration, loss of interest and possibly a bad grade. Thankfully my teachers would often assign at least one 'type' of problem where the answer was in the back of the book. If I didn't get it I could figure out how to get the right answer and then apply that to other problems.
This worked all the way up through this year when I took a graduate level linear algebra class. The teacher made Ben Stein look animated. The course material was very dry and it was way too theoretical (for myself). If a homework answer wasn't in the back of the book. I'd find a similar problem that did have the answer, work through it to get the solution and feel a bit more confident on the homework problems. I can't name the number of "Eureka!" moments I had while doing homework.
I'd much rather watch a video on how to do something (welding, car repair, etc) and have someone watch over my shoulder while I do it and be there for questions than have them lecture to me and then go "alright, now you get to do it blind". I'm glad to see that teachers are getting an opportunity to 'teach' rather than 'lecture'.
we still need to get rid of tech the test maybe also get rid of the some of the tests as well or make them more hands on.
In college and some cert tests it's so bad that you can cram for the test and pass but have no idea about how to use, setup, run the stuff covered in the course and at the same time you can have some know knows the course, stuff in a cert really well but sucks at testing and fails the test.
Why did it take 100+ years for people to think "Hey, read up on something at home, and we'll talk about it and work through problems in class tomorrow"? Actually, that sounds a lot like many smaller university classes I had. Wondering why this is suddenly capturing everyone's imagination. It's pretty obvious, but then again, many ideas are obvious yet don't catch on.
creation science book
Apparently some countries use terms cognate to "college" to mean secondary education, or what U.S. residents call "high school". Where I went to high school, after the final bell, students had five minutes to board the school bus. If a student chooses to stay late to spend time in the library, how is such a student expected to get home?
Why did it take 100+ years for people to think "Hey, read up on something at home, and we'll talk about it and work through problems in class tomorrow"?
Because it took 100+ years for home study to become stimulating enough to hold a child's interest, with audiovisual presentation of lecture material and automated drill and practice.
this seems to be the nearest to what I have been advocating since I was in my pre-tweens regardign the issuing of homework. If you can do the work why do you need to do homework as it's just a waste of my time and if I can't do the work at home how the ruddy hell do they expect me to be able to do it at home so again i am just wasting my time on a futile exercise.
you are laboring under the assumption that the alternative to "teaching to the test" is "teaching well" and have failed to consider the far more likely possibility of "not even teaching to the test..."
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on the late bus?
If my school district made such a "late bus" available while I was in school, I was never notified of it. Perhaps it's just the car culture prevalent in my country: parents are expected to own and use cars, and by the time the "late bus" would leave, the parent is expected to be off work.
You write like someone who would fail a Turing test.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
once upon a time i worked at an 'educational establishment' and somehow became involved with procuring an updated video for a teacher, to replace a series we had from the 1970s.
there was no process for doing this, it was all ad-hoc. i had to go to a bunch of websites and fill out a bunch of forms and then give them to a supervisor who then probably had to give them to another supervisor and another, and many weeks later the videos showed up... whereupon the teacher had to fill out a bunch of forms every time he wanted to borrow the videos to show in the classroom.
with Khan, he just says 'fuck you, educational bureaucracy' and tells the students to go on the web - what took dozens of hours of red tape now takes 30 seconds.
the only problem is how can Khan ever fund videos on really complicated stuff that requires a lot of money to produce? like say a high level biomedical video full of diagrams of cells and pathways and molecule interactions?
thats horrible. well, at least it's not wire coathangers.
Seriously, in the science arena the idea of the labs is to learn what was taught in a large lecture hall. That is when most learning occurs. So it has always made sense to have a lecturer separate from those who help with the class. Ideally, Khan should be revising his lectures based on feedback from the teachers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Who exactly is "that kid" that you're talking about? The minority youth whose only ambition in life is to become a "thug"? The one who goes out of his way to avoid getting any sort of an education? The one who speaks his native language like he's a fucking moron? The one who wears his pants at his ankles? The one who intentionally seeks out violence, and abuses drugs and alcohol?
No, nothing can be done for him. He's a failure. Some kids just are. Don't blame greater society, the schools or the educators for such youth doing everything in their power to fail at every aspect of life.
Yes, the answer is to marginalize such youth. There is no hope for them, and they are not worth our time to try to save. There are many more deserving youth who should get such attention instead. You know, the ones who come from impoverish backgrounds, but who actually want to learn.
Not sure if you're trying to be satirical.
Anyway, such things can be improved. Go into an inner-city school and watch a good talk on gender abuse. Boys who otherwise think it's normal to abuse their girlfriends often have a major breakthrough when they make the connection to child abuse--and pretty much everyone in that environment is familiar with child abuse. Lives can improve. People can improve.
Of course it's easier to marginalize, and to avoid that segment of society altogether, for the individual. But for society as a whole, we are far better off if we don't.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
We need to teach good writing and communication before anything else.
How can Wired write an entire article, and slashdot write a summary, all about a website, and nobody includes the link to Kahn Academy!?? Geesh
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Independent study has been around at least since the '60s, when I was in primary school. Khan Academy videos and the like supplement that experience, they don't change it. Unfortunately, independent study in primary/secondary education is not as widely available now as it was back then, probably because conservatives in the US don't want an educated electorate. They want an indoctrinated one, so they have been systematically reducing governmental support for higher education, where independent study is necessary, and legislatively dictating standards-based systems for primary and secondary education, which promote conformity over creativity.
There is even evidence that watching Khan videos leads to a false sense of learning. See Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos" It basically shows that while students think they're learning a lot by watching videos, their actual learning is minimal.
A great into to all this is Wieman's Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?" As he puts it, to increase learning, we need to use
At best, Khan Academy only does the third of these.
I have suffered so much through school because it wasn't my pace (too slow being the biggest problem, but not the only). I was full of energy as a child, fearless and adventurous and luckily my father patiently responded to a lot of my scientific curiously. The school system however has turned me off of conservative institutional learning for good. I've always been a good autodidact and pretty much all i know i looked up for myself. I have no particular desire to use Khan Academy, but i checked out some of the videos and i really enjoy the teaching style.
I still see so many sad, tired looking school kids (esp. boys) pass me by in the morning, and i see myself in them. Whether they're dreaded by the educational or the social aspect, i do not know, but it would fill me with tremendous joy to see the educational system change; to see capable minds thrive and less capable ones not be pushed through endless mental acrobatics worthless to their lives. On the latter point: I think teenagers should have a chance to be integrated into the working world early on, as it used to be. In my eyes school is not a healthy place for them to build character and productive social behavior, it's a zoo in many cases.
I had a math teacher who would assign you problems before she had explained how to do 'em in class.
That way, you'd read the book, try to do the problems, and then the next day, be pepared to ask questions on the stuff you were having difficulties with when she actually taught the lessons. She'd then give you another night to fix whatever you needed to on the homework before turning it in.
I found it so much better than just listening to a teacher droning on for an hour or more, then having to go and read the book to figure out what they should've been explaining.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
"They kids don't have to view them at home, they simple CAN if they want a refresher. They can do the same at the school itself after hours, or the public library."
In my country:
- not all kids have access to a computer and broadband at home
- school libraries are mostly not open after school closes at 4pm, lack of funding
- public libraries are not always within reach of school children
Those that can afford, get better. Lower income kids would fall behind.
"Yes, the answer is to marginalize such youth. There is no hope for them, and they are not worth our time to try to save. "
Writing off people is a dangerous and expensive game to play. Not spending an extra $10K, $20K on educating kids from marginalised/ messed up families now now means somebody who ten years down the line might well decide the only way to get on in society because they aren't literate and have no qualifications is to turn to crime, mug you/ steal your car/shoot somebody you know/ or similar, mess up several people's lives, then have to be kept in prison for 30 years on your tax payers money at probably a lot more than $10K a year.
You get to decide....
We volunteer on school programs, help on literacy schemes, get involved in also sorts of grassroots community programs that help support local communities become stronger and help each other. We'd love you to get involved.
I was glad to see that they are making a stand alone app to use with that Khan Academy. I bought iPads for my Girl Friends kids and I'd like to see them used for more than just games.
There have been a lot of very depressing headlines lately. I enjoyed reading this article quite a lot. It is nice to know that not *everything* is slowly sliding into ruin.
Are you unhappy about failing English, perhaps?
We need hands on AND teaching to the test. If you do not test students, how do you know what they learned? If you do NOT teach to the test, what are you testing them on? Do you remember taking those tests where the teacher included items not covered in the text or in the lectures? There is a fine line separating the right way and a wrong way to teach to the test, a line I like to refer to as common sense.
Maybe his English tests were great but he couldn't apply it.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Only white and oriental kids in TFA. ... is the real test.
Arguably the two groups that uptake instructions fastest.
How this goes down with blacks, hispanics,
This is very, very similar to what happened at Woodland Park High School in Colorado: http://www.webertube.com/video/242/never-lecture-in-class-again
KHAAAAAAN!
I predict that Khan's Academy will get put out of business by the government at some point, because his lectures are in direct competition with too many schools, who don't want prices going down, they are in competition with too many teachers, who don't want any new effective and efficient ways to make education more affordable and cheaper.
Especially if Khan starts charging a little bit for his lectures and actually creates a way to do a few tests and starts issuing diplomas, his business will probably become so efficient, that he'll become a major challenge for the public school system, never mind the private schools, who are at the public trough as well, he'll face the full wrath of government's force coming down upon him.
As to the question: what about kids, who don't have the Internet. Khan could for a small fee distribute DVDs with his lectures as well.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm pretty sure, "that kid," was referring to the young folks who effectively get excommunicated from social circles in school because they are the "poor kid," or the "smelly kid," or the "dirty kid," or, "the kid whose mom can't afford a car," the "kid who can't even afford school lunches," etc.
If you reread deniable's comment you will see that he is making reference to the fact that young people have an exceptional talent at marginalizing and ignoring other kids due to social status. If a kid's family can't afford a computer or internet access, you can bet your ass he is going to get shit for that growing up, and, if its anything like my school, this will continue to the point where he has one or two close friends and most everyone else ignores him.
I think that is the kid and the problem deniable was referring to. But please don't let that stop your angry rant about evil young people and how they should be treated like animals.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
We home schooled our children for the majority of their elementary school years. When we did send them to public charter schools eventually, they were typically one or two years ahead of their peers in all subjects. My wife struggles with math and didn't think she did very well teaching that subject, but our kids still ended up at the top of their classes in that subject. This leads me to think that the personal attention of one-on-one teaching is really the differentiator.
I think the public school system should come up with ways to help parents do home schooling during those grammar years, even if the kids are attending regular public school. By providing outlines for teaching, coaching on how to teach certain subjects (when requested), Web resources for tracking progress, and links to excellent content like that provided by the Khan Academy, kids can get the one-on-one help they need. Teachers should be resources for parents, and not the other way around.
It is my experience that parents really want their kids to succeed, and they will help them, but only if they have the tools to know 1) where their kid needs help 2) what to teach and 3) how to teach it, including knowing what teaching tools to use. When parents don't feel like they know what to do, they feel powerless and uncomfortable, so they ignore the issues.
Not sure if you're trying to be satirical.
I sure hope so, but the more I see people discussing my city (Newark), the more sure I am that people like him actually believe the shit that they say.
Clearly, this is the case for your english spelling and grammar education.
If you want "prior art", the learning journals method of Tim McGee's SuperStar Student videos from the 90s already teaches this. Go over the material before class, take notes, and come to class for reinforcement.
Here's an important disconnect between academics and the rest of us. Academics are primarily researchers - they spend their days trying to produce new knowledge about things (at least, in theory). The rest of us just want to learn this knowledge in order to know how things work so we could do something better. Even if you are a scientist and are learning about something outside your field of research, your primary goal is to learn how something works, not how to do further research on it.
Take the PP's complaint about gravitation. The student does not want to be a gravity researcher - he wants to understand what gravity is. Even if he wants to be one, he still has to understand what it is first. The author of the textbook, on the other hand, is likely the expert on the subject - a researcher in the field. A researcher is primarily concerned with communicating how he find this stuff out. Hence the emphasis on sourcing the formulas, providing proofs, describing experimental methods, and noting what is known and what is not known and to what exact degree.
The student doesn't care about any of that, at least not at first. He wants to know how the damn thing works so he can make use of it. He does not care about your clever proofs and experiments, because only their existence is important - not their nature. To a student, or heck, to anybody who is not going to be doing research on the subject, the only important aspect is the practical result. The theory and proofs of correctness are of no use to him. It is important that those exist, of course, so he knows that the results are correct, but he is not going to do his own experiments to verify them. He just wants to use the results: to be an engineer, not a scientist.
Take the gravity complaint for example. The PP scientist complains that the student will not get to see how the central force problem was solved through history, how all the fancy mathematics can derive these equations from a handful of first principles, or how to do experiments to demonstrate that gravity does indeed follow the inverse square law. The student does not care. An spacecraft engineer needs to know that gravity exists and how to calculate its effects. He does not need to know how to derive the formulas or how to prove them correct. Those tasks are not his job. Those tasks are the scientist's job.
Academics being in charge of higher education are primarily interested in producing more academics - more scientists, rather than more engineers. Hence the emphasis on theory, experiments, proofs, etc., because those are the things that scientists do. Engineers take the results and actually do useful stuff with them. Engineers do not stage controlled experiments or rigorously prove that their equations work. They only need to calculate what practical designs these equations dictate.
What we need is to have more teachers who are engineers, not scientists, and who concentrate on how to use science instead of just how to create more of it. Most people do not want to be scientists, and are bored by abstract results. Teach practical applications first - that will show people that science can be useful. Then, if some of them want to be scientists, they can research the methods and proofs and whatever on their own time.
I don't see how your assumption is any more logical. If the test is a fundamentally flawed metric of understanding, which is a fairly popular point of view (yes, I know, that's an appeal to authority, but that's the best either of us can realistically have, so it must suffice), then teaching to it is going to be a fundamentally flawed approach. OP has hinged his argument upon an assumption that the test is generally flawed, and that teachers are generally good. Yours hinges upon an assumption that the test is generally good (or at least neutral), and that teachers are generally bad.
More likely, some teachers are good while some are bad. In an ideal world, we are able to encourage good teachers to become teachers (in the real world, we tend to pay them uncompetitive salaries), and encourage bad teachers to do something else (in the real world, we've made it nearly impossible to fire ineffective teachers). Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world, but since many of the qualities of a good teacher are self-selecting (mostly the intangibles, really, but we should take whatever good news we can get) the result is that many are quite good.
If we then assume, somewhat reasonably, that a good teacher is a good with or without a test, and a bad teacher is bad with or without a test, then we are left with four likely outcomes: that a good teacher will adequately teach students so they do well on a test, that a good teacher will adequately teach students so they understand a subject, that a poor teacher will inadequately teach students so they do poorly on a test, and that a poor teacher will inadequately teach students so they do not understand a subject. Obviously, treating these values as binary is an oversimplification, but I didn't want to get bogged down in details regarding generalized statements.
If the test is a good indicator of understanding, then the first two options are essentially identical, if it is not a good indicator, then the first two options are profoundly different. For the latter options however, it probably doesn't make much of a difference. In the absence of information indicating that having a test to teach to makes bad teachers better, it doesn't seem that such tests add much to the equation beyond questions regarding the validity of the test.
Full disclosure: I am an academic underachiever from a family of educators and academic overachievers. I generally core in the top quartile or higher on standardized tests, yet have dropped out of college on three separate occasions. My own experience with high test scores is that they mean absolutely nothing, and at best show casual correlation to intellectual and academic potential.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
You must be of the school that believes you can fatten a pig by weighing it.
A test culture means little learning, just endless revision and practicing exam technique.
Anyone who has taken a high school English class will know that when work (such as reading a chapter of a book) is set to be done at home so that discussion can be done in class, many people won't do the work. This is problematic because much of the lesson is then either lost on those who didn't do the work or wasted on catching them up. In particular, this really sucks when good students are stuck doing group work with students who haven't watched the lectures. This was true in English 10 class and it will likely be true in any alternate curriculum. What's more, actually asking people to do something at home, even if it is watching a video, is the definition of homework.
The problem with education in the west is not really instructional, it's cultural. It's not cool to be smart in North America. It's cool to be a jock or a cheerleader, an emo or a hommie, a skater or a thug. While this might seem like an immutable reality of young age, that is not the case. Young children are being so inundated with branding and advertising, and every sub-culture is so heavily commercialized and catered to, that kids get their cultural values from corporations and mass media than from family and community. This wouldn't be so bad if the interests of the corporations and their media arms weren't so different than those of parents. I've been to school in several Asian and Middle Eastern countries where the smart guys were seen as cool and got the girls. Once smart == getting laid, everything else will sort itself out - that is an immutable reality of young age.
Love the math curriculum, great fun. I did about 10 years of school math in 2 days. No wonder I hated math in school, it moved glacially slowly! Having so much packed into such a small time frame has been a great refresher course, and Khan rewards me with points and achievements. Holy cow, learning doesn't have to be painful! Who knew!?
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
sweet fucking crap your grammar is painful to read.
Too obvious?
His implication is that general public policy has to accommodate people that are afraid of everything
People that are afraid of everything vote. People that are afraid of everything form advocacy groups that speak up and get greased like squeaky wheels.
Most of the people who criticise this guy do not offer any demonstrated solution - actually developed and tested, either to modify the contents or totally redone as an "Open Education Software". There are three kinds of intelligence - gasoline type - just show these students some concept and they will work the rest on their own, the second type is - charcoal - you need to fire it first and then it will start firing itself and finally the banana type- when fire or some is added to make it ripe quickly, it will produce ethylene gas and kill the fire itself. Thus about 10% of students have gasoline type intelligence, about 80% charcoal type which needs hand holding, repetition and tons of home work and the last 10% can not be taught. So, Khan's academy is geared to the 80% of average students which most school fail to take care of. So, before you criticise the guy, make some contribution to wards better education in the USA.
Khan, go back to Pakistan. You are not needed here.
I count Kahn right up there with google, wikipedia and wolfram alpha for truly great and useful content.
Especially for morons like myself who have trouble comphrehending the depths of the amount of things they forgot or should have known.
wow this is really neat. So many real life things have changed so much in my life time thanks to technology (ATM's? Lasers? wireless phones?). Most changes really expand the flexibility of something already done, which is of course impressive enough.
THIS might be world-shaking. NEVER seen anything that empowered customers (students) workers (teachers) and heirarchs/companies (the schools) all at once.
in the real world, we tend to pay them uncompetitive salaries
[citation] please.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
google.com
Compared to others with equivalent education, teachers are paid less than private-sector employees.
They are given some nifty benefits to partially make up for the gap, but they are still paid less.
Hence, we tend to pay them uncompetitive salaries.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
So, each time the student finds herself stuck, she asks a teacher. The helping hand is right next to her.
What, if this helping hand is missing in life? Trying to solve problems alone not only strengthens stamina but also gives possibility for faster maturing. The more I can achieve alone, the more autonomous I am, the more mature I tend to be.
I think learning stuff, one does not enjoy, is not one of the nice sides of life, but that it is. And things should be taken the way they are.
I've seen a lot of academic resistance to the Kahn Academy. I want to take a brief moment to respond to a large portion of it. I'm sure that those making such studied arguments are familiar with the second chapter of "To Kill A Mocking Bird." The critiques coming from this corner of academia sound just like Miss Caroline denouncing Scout because she has learned to read in an "unapproved" way.
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Any teacher who can find enough time to pre-record a lecture can do this.
That allows the teacher to establish that his/her lectures implement the mandates. Shoot, you could run the (possibly scripted) lecture on the projector and then walk around and actually answer individual students' questions while it plays.
And, yeah, I'm sure some school districts would find some reason to try to get that stopped, too. But it's worth a try.
Another possibility is recording the lecture as given and putting it on-line immediately for students to review. That would not be as efficient in use of student time, but would be a lot harder for stupid, jealous, anti-education co-workers to try to block.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
That would not fly in Japan.
My kid's drowning in homework, and the best I can do is try to get him over to a (metaphorical) life-preserver or handy piece of driftwood every now and then because his mother won't let me take him out of the water.
(I love my wife, but her traditions are really deeply ingrained in her thinking.)
There is benefit in homework, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the kids studying for real. That's the real problem in education, getting the teachers to learn how to stand back and let the students learn at appropriate times.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Well, if that's all you're getting out of church, ...
hmmm. No, I'm not going to offer some advice about that because chances are whatever advice I could give would be wrong.
Well, anyway, the point of church is supposed to be about what we sometimes used to call face time before facebook.
If we move the scriptures from a book to a movie, that may change some things, but we still need the human interaction.
I think that's also true of education.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
ouch.
I'm another of those who complain about teaching the test.
On the other hand, I've been at odds with myself over the last several months because, in my job as a glorified (English language) teaching assistant in Japan, I've been enabling the teachers to do exactly that. And it has been bothering my conscience. Thanks for pointing out what I'd forgotten, that without my help they'd have trouble even teaching the tests.
And now I can remember that my being willing to break the rules and use Japanese (judiciously, so the students still complain a bit) with the students is one of my tools for helping the students who don't want to be ruled by the tests.
I like teaching at the elementary schools, too, but I've been really worn out this year. Passed the JLPT, that wasn't too bad, now I'm trying to pass the LPIC, to open up my options next year a bit, and that is really wearing me down. Maybe I should just abandon CS/IT and start my attack on the Nihongo Kentei.
(And my wife thinks all my time on slashdot is wasted.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I'm pretty sure about everyone on this thread has been to the website, or is at least aware of it and knows how to get there.
It was an oversight, but not a surprising one.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Isn't that kind of the point of the article, teachers are using Kahn's lectures (or following the example and making their own) to do one part of the educational process and finding more time to work on the other two thirds.
We aren't talking about replacing teachers with Kahn videos, we're talking about using the videos as tools that allow us to focus more on the stuff that the student has had to go looking elsewhere for in the past because the teacher hasn't had the time.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
There are many things from Khan's videos that are great. But there are also a bunch of things that come short from Khan's virtual classroom, including students' previous misconceptions and lack of socialization:
http://tech.xlab.si/2011/07/on-the-future-of-learning/
School system now sucks, if this will help bring better students out of it, i suggest we move this to a vote, and just force the school systems to adopt this new method of teaching, it would be great for our kids and the future of our country!
I was working towards this as my goal with my education, but looks like someone beat me to the punch. After all, why do we send kids home to work with parents and bore them with lectures during class time? More importantly, why does a physics professor have to come to a lecture hall of 200-300 students, half of which are on Facebook or reading a paper, when he can just make them watch it online? If you lecture live, a person has to hear it the first time you go through the material (I'm not a morning person at all... so a 8:50am lecture doesn't sink in for me) - with online you can play it when you are most alert and replay it if you don't get it the first time. Anyway, glad to see that at least one teacher gets that we need to rethink how we educate....
Average Teacher Salaries K-12 Across US And remember they are required to have a state specific teaching certificate that includes a minimum of 3 years college education (usually 4). How much do you get paid following a four year college education?
Also, teachers already require students to pre-learn topics before coming to class (why do you think required reading is assigned?). Giving an option to pre-learn the material via lecture vs. required reading is actually quite handy for a number of students.
Remember, according to the OECD as of Dec 2010 for K-12 education measured by knowledge of 15 yr olds, the US is ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math. Anyone else think maybe, just maybe, this is an indication that the educational system needs to try SOMETHING, ANYTHING different?
Like, oh I don't know, maybe study the systems in place in South Korea, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia, or The Netherlands (the only countries in the top ten in all three categories) to see what they have implemented that works? I mean as long as we are talking education reform.
"Good" educators have been using this strategy for lets say...forever. We've all had that one teacher/professor, who may not have had the specific technology but used this teaching formula.
for Khaaaan!
I've got a fast connection so I don't have to wait
for Khaaaan!
* iifk.ytmnd.com - never has that been more relevant!
Also, the introduction: Finally, I get to teach a whole lesson, all by my self! I'm going to teach something relevant, something modern!
Please see replies to peragrin's comment.
Research at Columbia University released today -- "Community-College Students Perform Worse Online Than Face to Face... Community-college students enrolled in online courses fail and drop out more often than those whose coursework is classroom-based, according to a new study released by the Community College Research Center at the Teachers College at Columbia University.... "People assume this generation is super-technologically sophisticated, but that's not necessarily true, especially in the community-college population, which tends to be low income, disadvantaged, and includes more older students," Ms. Jaggars said."
So this is kind of another example in the epic run of education experiments which work great at a small-scale and with self-selected students, but may greatly struggle to expand and benefit "all" students. Another example: That study in the South a few months ago that students who take an optional Advanced Algebra course are the most likely to succeed in college (proposed solution: now make it mandatory). The fact that someone even thinks to look outside the classroom for additional math information immediately puts them leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. The actual technical content need not be terribly helpful (and Columbia is showing online courses can actually be detrimental on average).
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes