Khan Academy: The future of education?

We visited a class in the Los Altos school district outside San Francisco where the new Khan Academy software is being piloted.

[Teacher Courtney Cadwell: Grab your computer, log in and then open Khan Academy...]

Right away you notice something different. There are no textbooks and no teacher lecturing at the blackboard. Instead, students watch Khan videos at home the night before to learn a concept, then they come to class the next day and do problem sets called "modules," to make sure they understand.

If they get stuck they can get one-on-one help from the teacher. Less lecturing, more interaction. What you think of as homework you do at school, and school work you do at home. It's called "flipping the classroom" and 7th grader Laurine Forget says using Khan Academy at home has given her math a big boost.

Laurine Forget: I'm not a big fan of textbooks. I thought that Khan Academy was a lot easier 'cause it's on a screen. It's easy to find the concept you wanna do.

Gupta: And now with the videos, do you find yourself rewinding it? Playing it again if you need to?

Forget: A lot, yeah.

Gupta: Do that at home?

Forget: Yeah, usually when I watch videos it's because I'm having trouble on the practices. So if I don't understand the video, I can always rewind it or pause it so that I can go back to the module and do what I learned.

Gupta: But what's the hardest part about learning this way?

Forget: I don't really think there is a hard part.

Even kids who don't have a computer at home can "flip the classroom." Eastside Prep in east Palo Alto keeps its computer labs open until 10 p.m. so kids like sixth grader Alex Hernandez can take as much time as they need to learn a concept.

Alex Hernandez: My mom, she went to school in Mexico. Some things she can explain to me, but some like she can't. So like, I take long to, like, try to finish my homework.

Gupta: How did you used to do in math?

Hernandez: Pretty bad. Like at a third grade level math. So, you know, Khan Academy has helped me. It's like, opened doors that I couldn't open. It's helped a lot.

Gupta: A lot of people have talked about the idea that "flipping the classroom" is sort of what's happening here. You take a little bit of issue with that.

Khan: I kind of view that as a step in the direction. The ideal direction is using something like Khan Academy for every student to work at their own pace, to master concepts before moving on, and then the teacher using Khan Academy as a tool so that you can have a room of 20 or 30 kids all working on different things, but you can still kind of administrate that chaos.

Khan academy has created a dashboard so teachers like Courtney Cadwell can monitor each student's progress.

Gupta: So right now, they're all working on things. And you can see that real time?

Courtney Cadwell: Yes.

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[backpacktv]

Khan Academy is a great resource but not just for the videos. The practice exercises are excellent, and the only way to get good at anything is through practice.

-Joe Wagner
Founder, Backpack TV
www.backpack.tv

[lvenable07]

I have been encouraged by my administration to "embed videos into my curriculum". I already do what Khan does. "I'll go buy five textbooks in it. And I'll try to read every textbook. I'll read whatever I can find on the Internet." Then I write clear guided notes and related practice and application problems for each lesson. 8 homework problems a night - 4 that review that day's lesson, and 4 that review past lessons. I can barely get kids to do the 8 problems. How am I going to get the 25% who refuse to do homework to watch the video (and I see that for many 1-day lessons, there might be more than one video required) at home? At least in class I know they are actively, listening, taking notes and participating EVERY DAY. Why would I replace the instruction with a video that does not have relationship, interaction (smiles and compliments), and feedback (correction, warnings, and adjustment)?

I conducted a test trial with a 14-point survey when I was out of school one day. Students had to watch the equivalent of 12 minutes of video lessons from Khan academy. Then they anonymously completed the survey. Across the board for every point in question, and on a 1-4 scale, Khan rated 1.3 and I rated 3.7. Frequent comments were: Please don't use video instruction. I will not watch videos for homework. They are boring. You're doing a great job, keep up the good work! I might also mention that behavior for my substitute is usually very good. That day it was not! Quite a few kiddos were writing letters of apology the next day.

I failed to mention that I have all the freshman and year-2 sophomores for algebra, including special ed, but NO accelerated students. Last year I had a 98% pass rate on the state Regents.

[jumarqui]

Khan Academy is revolutionary, but Sal's thinking is probably even more than his site. KA as currently constituted has a serious shortcoming in that it can only teach basic / repetitive /standardized skills and thus cannot educate the types of innovative and creative learners that are needed to support an information based society. That said, what the Academy does is free teachers from some of the burden of helping students develop those basic skills so they have more time for individualized attention with students and can use that time to help them become innovators. Not to mention that this provides a vehicle for bridging educational divides by helping ALL students reach mastery of core skills and concepts. And it can and does function on a global level to create world-wide educational opportunities. It's a great concept and should continue to develop and reach more people. For more of my take on the Khan Academy: http://******/A0qNr2
@drjwmarquis

[fscbs2012]

report from the trenches: my daughter was having trouble balancing equations for her chemistry class. Khan explained the process and gave examples. she achieved one the highest scores on the followup quiz. would have been a long, tearful weekend otherwise.

[pgleroy]

The Khan Academy is fine, but please, don't act as if it is revolutionary in its approach to education.

The real revolution is that someone has gotten these children to do their homework every night.

I've taken classes where you were expected to study a section in the book for homework and come in the next day prepared to discuss or apply what you learned from your reading. The Khan Academy differs only from this approach in its use of technology. Old school, if you didn't understand the section, you would go back and reread it and study the examples again. New school, you replay the video. In either case, if you have further questions, you are out of luck until you get to school the next day.

What the Khan Academy does in math that the old school approach didn't do is that Khan is explaining the examples as they are being illustrated, so the connection between the words and examples is probably made clearer. Self-pacing for students is also not unique to the Khan academy. Teachers have been doing this for decades using text books and ancillary materials.

So it all gets back to the revolution: getting students to do their homework. If you could ensure that students always did their homework, I doubt that you would find the results much different in a textbook driven class from what the Khan Academy achieves. See how successful the Khan approach would be if the students did not go home each night and study the material that they get through their computers.

[Scimajor]

Sal's work is to be applauded but it's far from a adequate replacement for a classroom. You might as well just had a kid a textbook and say "Have fun with that.".

I view Sal's work more as another tool that a teacher might use to help instruct students as well as something students can view at home to help refresh their memory on what they already learned in class.

[Mike_in_USA]

So long as the teacher teaches. Also you forget, he is not hampered and constrained by the government, unions and the lawyers as to how to teach. He is allowed to teach the subject without the 'benefit' of being Politically Correct. Makes a difference doesn't it?

[Scimajor]

Point taken but we're really talking about apples and oranges here. Sal's videos are not the same thing as being in a classroom. Sal's videos are tools that could be used to supplement teaching.

They can be used in addtion to teaching but not as a replacement for teaching.

[Oak32Min14]

Great. Now we can do away with good ole American teachers in the classroom - just have para-educators that walk around with an iPad - no, sorry, cheaply made alternative manufactured in Mexico. Kids can just log into Tehran or Mumbai and get all the education they need. No more Pledge of Allegiance, no more prayer. Endorse your paycheck over to MIT, and send your kids out the door to watch YouTube and eat cardboard. Well, I guess that about does it for America. We are doomed. And Bill Gates likes it!

[maryteachesmath]

Sal Khan said he doesn't want to do away with teachers. The Khan Academy is a resource - like a paid Math tutor that you don't have to pay for. I wish I had Sal Khan in college.

[dore83]

As a teacher of AP and Gifted Economics students, I was really excited at first when I heard about The Kahn Academy's video lessons on all things economics. Then I viewed them - and was sorely disappointed. They were dead boring, somewhat disorganized, and sometimes even misleading. My students would be asleep in 30 seconds. If this is what passes for good teaching, no wonder our schools are in trouble. I'm not sure why Mr. Kahn fancies himself such a great instructor - must be some of that Wall Street hubris he still carries with him. Perhaps he would do better to hire the best teachers in each subject to staff his "Academy." Even then, I am not sure how useful these video lessons would be for complex subjects. My students seem to benefit from the give and take of a live classroom setting. These videos harken back to the idea that teaching is simply telling. If it were that easy, anyone, including Mr. Kahn, could do it.

[rubber_biscuit]

There are many Sal Kahns on the internet making instructional videos, and the quality ranges from dull to inspired. Bravo to Sal for making 3000 of them, but in the age of search engines and Youtube, one stop shopping for education is needlessly limiting.

[maryteachesmath]

I have been using Khan Academy as supplemental for three years. I teach middle school in a fairly affluent district. Our district uses a course management system called "MOODLE" that is free and open sourced. My classes each have a MOODLE where I post assignments and extra help links. My students love the Khan Academy because of many things mentioned in the story. Pausing, rewinding and replaying the videos is prevelant. A soothing voice - no fancy bells and whistles. I do not use the online practice - mainly because I can't put a laptop in front of every student every day. Also to follow Common Core I have to cover things not in his sequence. When parents ask if I can recommend a tutor I have them check out Khan Academy first and if they feel it won't help call back and I will direct them to a tutor. They don't call back!

[JBergland]

Some aspects of the Khan Academy are very similar to Sophia... http://www.sophia.org/. Education is changing every day and the use of tech. is becoming more and more important.

[maryteachesmath]

thank you very much I didn't know about Sophia.