Khan Academy: Great Idea- With One Glaring Hole
I’ve been following the Khan Academy for a while now. I love the idea of putting learning online. I believe that there’s a big advantage to having access to a teacher’s think-aloud at any time of the day, anywhere in the world. That is an extremely powerful idea, and it wasn’t available or possible a few years ago. So- Salman Khan began making his videos for his cousins, putting them on YouTube, and we all started to take notice.
The idea of learning with the Internet finally began to take shape with Khan Academy, so I showed them to my students. I showed these videos to other teachers. I showed them to my neighbor and my dog. And the one clear problem that kept coming up: they were boring. And dreary. And long (20 minutes?)
So I, with the help of a colleague, created our own math channel called Mathademics (youtube.com/mathademics). I thought that math teachers could make their own mathcasts, and I thought our math teachers could do a better, more flavorful job doing this with SMART boards, ENO boards, Elmo cameras, and other tech. So far, it’s catching on. My aforementioned colleague created her own offshoot of Mathademics called Mathademics4kids (youtube.com/mathademics4kids) where the kids make the tutorials. Teachers have started to get their kids to teach other kids through math tutorials. Now more schools have started franchises of Mathademics (see here). Kids are engaged. Kids are having fun learning math! It’s not 2000 videos yet, but they’re not boring.
The Khan App
Now- Salman Khan has taken his 2000 math videos and tied them to an online curriculum of sorts: http://khanexercises.appspot.com/ I’ve been playing with this all day. I’m stumped. Basically, the App asks you to input answers to math questions. If you know the answer, you get another, then another, then another, then another- until you get ten in a row. Then you are considered proficient when you get 10 in a row. If you have trouble, you can watch one of his videos. Something is missing here. Well a couple things. First of all, I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s quote:
The simplest thought like the concept of the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning.
The Khan Academy is not teaching concepts and ideas. Khan Academy teaches answers. 1 + 1 = 2 . The concepts and the ideas are really what we want our students to understand, not the rote knowledge. We need a good teacher to facilitate the discussion of what the concept of numbers can be. Algorithms can represent video games, computers, life, and millions of other concepts, yet the Khan App teaches math like it’s a brain game. Get the answer, and move on. In Dan Pink’s book, Drive, we learn that rewards for deeds often backfire, and so I’m suspect about the Khan App’s “badge” reward system as well. I like the idea of data tracking on the backend that allows teachers to see the progress of their students. That’s neat, but it’s disingenuous for me to like that if I don’t like the math practice interactive.
But one glaring hole has yet to be undertaken: context. I’ve had my kids watch math videos, and, in fact, YouTube is full of them. However, when my students go home to engage in math learning, they need one huge thing that Khan Academy doesn’t have- their own teacher’s style, their own teacher’s examples as they relate to prior discussions in class, their own teacher’s process as they think through a problem, they need to see their own teacher mastering technology, mastering online publishing, and just plain being a master. Khan Academy is a symptom of a teaching profession where too many teachers are too shy or too old-school to jump into the publishing world. We need that to happen faster.
A student in my district sees their math teacher in middle school for 90 minutes per day. Khan Academy cannot give my students the context they need to make most of the connections they need to fully engage in these videos, I believe. Context is key. Ever wonder why so many of those math videos are boring? You’re missing the context by which they occur in.
I think the idea of putting math learning online is a great idea, but I’m not sold on the Khan Academy yet. Maybe it has a place as a practice tool among a larger, more thoughtfully guided application of concepts. Maybe it’s great for schools that have terrible teachers, and for students who need more practice in a world where their school is failing them (that could definitely be). Maybe it’s great to just help drive up SAT scores, which, also just ask for answers- not ideas.
Ideas- why can’t Khan Academy teach those?
Image Credit: Cayusa on Flickr
11:16 pm
We have been having a chat within our own district about this same resource. We are trying to encourage inquiry approaches to learning, especially in math and this type of a resource does not support that type of thinking. Just because it is free (or $0.99) does not make it a solid educational choice. A number of us of are also of the thought that resources that do not contribute to the skills and understandings we wish to promote can be detrimental to our students.
11:49 pm
totally agree with your thoughts, Dan. Khan Academy videos are GREAT for kids who are just trying to ‘get by’ or ‘get through’ a course. In no way do they allow students to fully take ownership of their learning nor do they help kids learn deeply through inquiry.
12:52 am
Can’t you see kids using Khan Academy to cram for something like the SAT or a state test? One would hope there is a good leader in the classroom to facilitate critical thinking application of the concepts, but my fear is that Khan will be used as a replacement for good teaching.
1:18 am
great post Dan.
i see lots of benefits of Khan academy… but all fall into what you’ve mentioned.
until we move beyond standardized tests, and standardized curriculum, i especially think they can help in prep for those.
i also like that he’s made us aware of what’s possible, and how easy it is.
any means to share thinking, to model what goes on as we learn something, is huge. as opposed to answers.
and if we all start sharing that, in some sophisticated get-pivot style navigation system, that just provides more options for all of us.
1:25 am
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. If we continue to have discussions like this, then perhaps the next version of this tool or the ones that improve on it- will hear what we are saying. That’s what this is all about!
10:56 pm
@Daniel Rezac paranoia and over formalisation of education are the words. the concept of 1 does not need teaching. Those vids are just OER content, and who said that content is King? people who deliver and consume content individually or in teams are part of the bigger picture. Its drops though that makes the ocean.
6:57 pm
Idiot, Khan is not just for kids that are trying to get through courses, I watch all kinds of topics even if I’m not enrolled in the course at school, even the topics that I had no interest in before. I actually have an interest for Khan the man, and for his ‘thought experiments’. Funny how I was much more interested in the world before school narrowed my vision. He is saving me from intellectual suicide. You are severely mistaken; it is monotonous dreary lecture halls that breed blind memorization, by emphasizing the symbols we use to convey the values that haven’t yet been clearly defined with only a quick skim of the material’s essence. Since my discovery of Khan, I have never been more interested in learning in my life.
I was a national merit scholar runner up in high school, so I did well on my standardized tests, but I still cram all the time. I can’t stand my teacher’s lectures, and going to class for 6 to 9 times longer than it would take me to learn it in the comfort of my home. I like how Khan is much more straightforward though, so I can cram faster because I really am digesting it since he knows how to deliver the material in a way that anyone can relate to. I’ve always done well in school, however the difference Khan has made in my life, is that now I’m saving much more time, having fun while learning, and understand the material in much more depth. Another thing is that I don’t have to correct Khan’s mistakes as often. And when he does make a mistake, usually him, but maybe someone in the comments, will address it and clear the confusion. In the lectures sometimes when first learning material, no one confronts the teacher, and we are left teaching ourselves in the end.
Bottom line is some kids can cram better than others, and either way the kids who are gonna cram are gonna cram, so don’t blame Khan for that. At least with Khan academy they can cram more efficiently, and remember more.
9:35 am
What is Khan, but a monotonous, dreary lecture on video? It’s no different.
“I can cram faster.”
The simple fact that you are “cramming” for tests is proof positive that whatever system of assessment that you’ve been brought up on and are still a part of – is a system that’s not asking you to think. It’s asking to to recall information. Recall is the bottom of the barrel on the knowledge chain, and if that’s what Khan is making you so proud of- then we clearly aren’t doing our job as an educational institution- and you are the proof.
I apologize for our flawed system.
I think Khan has a great concept- but I think he can do better.
9:52 am
This is quite a harsh criticism, really. I enjoy the website because it allows me to (re)learn mathematics and dabble in other things. And because it’s FUN. The lectures and example exercises? I have watched over 400 of them and they are fine. And so what if a kid thinks class is too slow? Obviously, that kid is intellectually ready for the content – no sense in blaming a website for providing a person with the tools to learn a skill as quickly or slowly as needed.
4:59 pm
Mr. Daniel Philip Rezac , I think your critical thoughts on KhanAcademy.org’s scope of impact on student learning and achievement has been excellent. I think what you and the teachers’ community will see in the upcoming official report on effectiveness of khan academy against other learning modalities on the internet is: 1) Khan Academy performs above and beyond in comparison to individual-teacher-lesson-to-student modality in making students understand highly conceptual and imaginative subject material like statistics, math, physics, computer science, biology, chemistry and english grammar, visual arts, music and other language grammars [which Khan Academy will soon release].
2) Khan Academy.org performs equally well in comparison to individual-teacher-lesson-to-student in making students understand subjects with less conceptual theory and more real life tangible events such as business, finance, economics, history, law, art, music, philosophy, english literature, other language literature, psychology, political science, medicine and applied sciences like engineering and poly technique courses.
In your analysis you failed to state what Khan Academy’s founder, Salman Khan, himself stated in the TED talk about the purpose of its lessons and exercises. Khan himself emphasizes in the talk about “blocking and tackling” the core concepts through the khanacaemy.org before the students go into the class.
Of course this “blocking and tackling” is preparing students to learn the theory as fast as possible and gain ability to solve most of the home work questions assigned by their teachers and khan academy.org to get right answers to questions in the quickest way possible.
You view this as deleterious to the students learning – and I agree with you that it is IF the student’s teacher is sitting still and essential re-doing the same lectures that khan have already delivered.
However, this is NOT DELETERIOUS but ADVANTAGEOUS to the student if the teacher makes the effort to assign the “new type” of homework in class: PROJECT- and LAB- and/or SIMULATION-based assignments. Historically in the teaching cannon PROJECTS and LABS were good and cute. The enormous amount of time teachers would be occupied in preparing lesson plans for lessons, executing lectures, tests and exams would permit them of designing and implementing to students project-based learning may be at best 40% of the time.
With Khan Academy’s help teachers can forgo their “lecturing” obligations and fill in the additional available time with newer curriculum centred projects that students must do. This projects replace the traditional quizzes and tests beacuse unit projects and cumulative projects should in- and out- class can and should count for the majority of student grades.
And what’s best: these assignments are unique to a teacher since she or he design them and assign them to their OWN students.
What has scaled through KHANACADEMY.ORG is lectures NOT projects, NOT hands-on-learning, NOT Teacher-assigned Student Research Assignments.
From my own experience of seeing my younger cousins learn from their teachers, I found they INTERNALIZE their knowledge most when they actively apply their theoretical knowledge – learned 90% of the required theory of curriculum or so via khan academy ahead of class – in class room with their peers in projects that their TEACHERS have CUSTOM PUBLISHED FOR THEM.
Because khan academy.org takes care of the 70% of the lecturing time that teachers would traditionally have to do in class, you can have your son or daughter actively apply their theory in the CONTEXT of the TEACHER’s designed UNIQUE and CREATIVE PROJECT, i.e. determining the velocity of light OR making a collision resistant car whose occupant, an egg, survives high impact collisions from tops of skyscrapers OR Holding an in-school or in-city mock trial charging say, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of Treason, by defending and prosecuting lawyers (a group of students), et cetera.
Instead of lecturing 21 times a week in 3 different subjects, now a teacher has finally the freedom and blessing to himself or herself write, publish, teach and assign 21 unique in-class and/or take home project and research based assignments to their students that are far more intellectually stimulating for the teacher and the student.
Projects (hopefully updated every year) allow the formative assessment that most help students learn. Since teachers finally have the opportunity now to devote the majority of their energy and attention to this, my question to you, Mr. Rezac is: why do you feel they should NOT prioritize this new obligation and instead go back to re-inventing the wheel of delivering lectures and lessons which has been already scaled up and delivered to the student by khan academy.org?
2:17 am
There is an issue with context which is worth talking about, which is, if a student only learns something within the context of their teacher, have they really learned it? I agree with your points by the way, I have similar issues with the Khan Academy, and I was glad Sal brought the point up himself that he doesn’t see the Khan Academy as a replacement for teachers.
Your point about publishing your own videos and content for your students is also true. Creating a screen-cast is pretty easy now-a-days. I can remember trying to do this 7 years ago, and it was NOT a straight forward thing to do, only super geeks could do it. Now you just need to be slightly geeky, and one assumes that in a couple of years it will be very easy.
There is another glaring hole, which is related. The Khan Academy is focused on mathematics as an activity where you learn how to do computational mathematics. In my opinion, this is a dead-end in mathematics instruction. If you consider computational mathematics to be similar to learning grammar in English, and the vocabulary of mathematics to be similar to learning spelling, where in Mathematics class do you learn the equivalent of writing? You answer is, you don’t. In the vast majority of mathematics classes, virtually no synthesis, or higher order thinking skills are required. It is almost all drill & kill. You memorize a procedure for solving a problem, and that’s it, you are done. Those of us who are better at memorizing procedures are better at mathematics.
Where is the actual application of real math to solving messy problems?
4:40 pm
Stupid people, have stupid theories and comments. I seriously wonder why teachers are so highly regarded, there among the least educated professionals out of all industry’s.
“The Khan Academy is focused on mathematics as an activity where you learn how to do computational mathematics….In the vast majority of mathematics classes, virtually no synthesis, or
higher order thinking skills are required. It is almost all drill &
kill. You memorize a procedure for solving a problem, and that’s it, you
are done. Those of us who are better at memorizing procedures are
better at mathematics.”
Because “insert subject area” is drill and kill. Let me see you do it in your head before i can write it down and complete it before you.
Absolutely nothing is stopping the learner from having a pen + paper where they can write down the question, and using the excellent math techniques Kahn taught them to solve said question/problem (that u failed to do so)
The problem and the whole reason this blog is here, is because of you teachers in the first place. YOU people are so simple minded, did it ever occur to you hmmm well maybe kahnAcademy isnt a stand-alone replacement for your dumb Ass. You integrate it with other techniques and tasks.
For example (for all u special needs teachers, who need extra help)
1). You get students to watch video
2). You get kids to practice through the program AND maybe, just maybe… you get them to write the question down and make them solve it, including showing working out.. WOW look at that. Your whole argument is now invalid. AND you can throw in some of your work sheets you’ve all been passing around the school like a used bible.
“It is almost all drill &
kill. You memorize a procedure for solving a problem, and that’s it, you
are done”
What else is there to a math problem??? real world context? like i previously said, EARN your bloody wage and give them one ALONGSIDE the kahn videos (the videos will beat your poor attempt to teach any day)
7:35 pm
It is opinions like yours that are killing our education system…teachers work their tails off because they are expected to do much more than teach in any given day.
My math students prepare to learn at home…viewing mini lessons on the internet, practicing problems, reading the material…then come to class to do. We write the steps to the problems, learn the vocabulary, apply concepts to new (and practical) situations, and create our own problems and video lessons that use learned concepts.I’d like to see you last a week in my “least educated” professional shoes. BTW, you misused “there” in your opening statement…should have used “they’re.”
2:24 am
I agree with your observations. I think Khan Academy has it’s place just like any tool used in the classroom, but it takes a skillful teacher to breath life (relevance) into the curriculum. Rigor, Relevance, Relationship…
6:29 am
very interesting – definitely see where you’re coming from, but at the same time, i think that understanding concepts frequently comes from rote repetition in math and hard sciences.
i say this as a philosophy major who definitely thinks certain things cant be taught through mindless grinding, but my other major (computer science) tells me that it works in some fields ;p
in any case, loved the post, and it gave me an excuse to watch his ted talk as well
3:27 pm
If you want to know more about how teachers are flipping their classes and are interested in those teachers making quality videos for their students you can goto http://youtube.com/learning4mastery and watch a couple of 2 min videos where we explain how we came up with the flipped class.
4:40 pm
Thanks, Jonathan!
I think you’ll be happy to know that I’ve shared this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4RkudFzlc with many teachers at some of my “Flipped Classroom” presentations and at my district. My colleague Scott Meech @smeech and I would love to talk with you more about your experience here. I’ve got three math teachers Flipping their classroom in April. It’s quite an exciting time for learning! Do you think you could DM me so we can talk further? I’d appreciate your expertise. @drezac
8:06 pm
Right now it’s an amazing supplement to learning. It can fill in the gaps where students have missed or misunderstood a lesson. Or even in cases where the teacher just isn’t getting the point across. It’s a great base to start with and I think it’s awesome that he’s attempting to expand the resource and make it even greater.
I might be reading a tone into this article that isn’t there, and if so I apologize, but why not funnel all the negativity about his approach to teaching into something positive? If you’ve got what you think are solutions to a problem, why not contact him and offer your feedback? If it does improve Khan Academy, you’ll be contributing to something great.
1:13 am
If I had to choose between competence and ideas, I’d choose competence. But it’s a false choice.
In fact the KA is a tremendous boon to teachers who want to devote their time to matters other than “drill and kill”. Inquiry based learning is an appealing approach, but if students get passed from teacher to teacher without reliably acquiring some basics, the enterprise will break down. With KA in the background to reliably teach and assess skills at each student’s own pace, teachers are able to focus on the “why” of it all.
4:22 am
http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/grniu/the_khan_academy_is_not_teaching_concepts_and/
These people disagree with you.
5:40 am
Thanks for the thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with some disagreement, because discourse is what this topic needs. The crux of my issue I bring up with KA is in your own discussion of this topic:
“I agree that Khan Academy teaches solutions, and not necessarily the concepts, but I find that all of my community college courses do the same thing. I really want to learn all the cool theory and concepts, especially the history behind equations.
The problem is that my college test is NOT about theory or concepts, its is about solutions. I need to learn the process of solving the multiple types of problems in order to ace my test, and Khan academy offers a relatively new way of doing so. Now I can read my book, and if I’m confused about something, check on khan academy for an alternative method. Especially useful for distance courses.”
The inherent problem in the statement above is that the TEST is not asking for concepts- which is problematic in most state standardized tests, and, of course, the SATs and ACTs. Our tests don’t ask for ideas- they ask for answers.
Are we interested in having students pass tests? Or… think? That’s two different things.
I want my students to think in a higher order, and my fear with KA is that it could be used for exactly the reason spoken above. What a poignant statement that a student is interested in acing a test, rather than solve critical issues and problems related to math in the real world.
I don’t de-value the entire Khan system, but it’s clear what I’m getting at. The fact that a student would say it so utterly clear like that is a testament to the situation our educational system is in. What are we reaching for?
4:33 pm
Someone once said, “Quantity has a quality all its own.” Understanding of ideas and concepts will follow once a foundation of what you are pleased to call “rote learning” has been laid. A student with a foundation in computational mathematics has tools at his disposal that allow him to move into other areas.
8:05 pm
Stalin said that…
3:17 am
Yep. I agree 100%: http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/tag/khan-academy/
As does Sylvia Martinez: http://blog.genyes.org/index.php/2011/04/06/monday-someday/
Thanks for sharing your criticisms and concerns as well!
7:07 am
Interesting points… however, I think you miss the mark a bit on how to teach “ideas”
Here is your video on the Pythagorean Theorem from Mathademics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuZl0tkK-kw
It basically shows a student how to plug numbers in a formula with no understanding of why it works.
Compare this to Sal, who has videos on the formula, how to do problems, but ALSO a visual proof:
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/visual-pythagorean-theorem-proof?playlist=ck12.org%20Algebra%201%20Examples
It’s pretty clear that Sal went through much greater effort to teach ideas than your instructor.
6:22 pm
Sure, but the nice part about Mathademics is that the teachers can follow up with their students the next day. It’s about context. Not just robo-videos.
5:23 pm
From this and your post itself, I can determine that you really know nothing about Khan Academy. Its more than a video collection, and besides that, its far from claiming to be a “virtual academy”, intended to be used as a full solution. You devalue the quality of the videos, however I (and many others) find them far better than any bag of beans teacher who does exactly what you blame Khan Academy over. Generically, I very well understand your point. However, you seem to have evaluated things in reverse.
I’d rather criticize the videos’ inferior sound encoding, which seems to cause slight pain in my ears after a long time of watching. Also, it would be nice have a concept-infrastructures presented with each video connecting to other videos (similar/overlapping concepts, prerequisites and advancements).
I think Salman is teaching very near to perfection, at least by a manner appropriate for the standard math-education model. Rather, you should be criticizing the way -everyone- today learns Algebra and is introduced to mathematics. I think we should teach similar to the classics, of course along with some rote practice (its neccessary), but not with the same material (WAY too hard).
4:55 pm
I’m a little late to the party here, but I completely agree about context. I’m an educator and a filmmaker. In my experience, from an audience inside a movie theater to my students inside the classroom, how you view and who you view content with is crucial. Great educators are key – motivation, critical thinking, assessment, feedback. Educators just don’t have the time they need to create this kind of engaging tech-forward content for themselves, and very few pieces exist. Or finding them is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Right now, we are still in development, but I would love your feedback with what we are doing at Currix. Take a look at http:www.currix.com
12:22 pm
Sal shares his knowledge with empathy not as a job and it works …its in his voice like an interesting conversation that is stimulating …I don’t see how anyone can say they were bored listening to his 10min videos …The world is a better place for the Khan Academy..
Another interesting gentleman to listen to is Sir Ken Robinson on Ted…
1:58 pm
Let me share with you a comment from below: “The problem is that my college test is NOT about theory or concepts, its is about solutions. I need to learn the process of solving the multiple types of problems in order to ace my test, and Khan academy offers a relatively new way of doing so. ”
This comment is worrisome for me, because it proves that folks are going to use Khan as a method to “ace the test.” To drill and kill. Standardized tests like the SATs, as you probably know, focus on answers, not concepts or ideas. That’s a hole that I’d like to see us get out of.
4:47 pm
I’d concur, I’ve never been bored listening to Sal talk, he conveys information with such enthusiasm. I’m in the UK studying A levels (college), I think a lot of schools/colleges have crap teachers, I love the Khan academy because I can fill in the gaps my teachers leave.
@drezac:disqus ”This comment is worrisome for me, because it proves that folks are going to use Khan as a method to “ace the test.” To drill and kill. Standardized tests like the SATs, as you probably know, focus on answers, not concepts or ideas. That’s a hole that I’d like to see us get out of.”
In my opinion from my experience in being taught, currently, tests are just ‘necessary’ evil, How else will I get into university? So Khan academy lets you drill until you can do the questions without any thinking? You can do that with a textbook, that’s just how the student chooses to use the resource, another student may take the time to sit down watch Sal’s videos and gain the intuition that Sal’s trying to instill in the student. All educational resources can be ‘abused’ (though I’d argue it doesn’t matter how a resource is used). Just because you want students to UNDERSTAND the concepts (Trust me, I’d want all my peers to understand stuff, but some of them just don’t care…) doesn’t mean that’s the right thing for the student; some people want to get into top universities like Cambridge & Oxford, they NEED to be able to “ace the test” as you put it, so education is in a state, there’s not much I can do, As student I can’t see how I’m meant to ‘get around’ this. I don’t understand the problem with people acing tests by using the Khan academy, because students use all the other resources around them to ace tests. I watch Sal’s videos to gain understanding of the theories, I don’t think there is a problem.
10:35 pm
Standardized testing is a culture- not one that I think we should just be complacent with, and KA seems to be like a symptom of that culture. If you read In the Plex, by Steven Levy, there’s a chapter in there that discusses how Google picks their employees. As much as I admire Google for their innovation, they ask for SAT scores for every employee they hire regardless of their age or accomplishments. The reasoning here is that SAT scores are the only data that these individuals “worked hard” in high school. It brings into question the idea of what is meaningful work in school. What SAT scores don’t measure is divergent thinking.
I know plenty of people who have had great SAT scores- who have lots of trouble coming up with original ideas. This world needs ideas- and those don’t always come from people who can simply spout back facts. I think of a story of a beekeeper in Haiti who had a unique and innovative method for making beeswax, though I don’t think he knew how to read.
The best ideas often come from people who take risks and play outside the rules. I wonder how many of those people got good scores on standardized tests.
9:11 am
Its fairly obvious most of the critics of KA have not spent much time on the site. I have watched about a quarter of the content–about 500 videos– these are my conclusions–
1. kahn led princeton review type classed while in college, and there is a fair amount of content aimed at standardized test taking. However, a;; of the videos relating to math and science are highly conceptual and do not stress testing at all. What first struck me about the site were the number of interesting proofs included that were passed over in my calculus class. See with and without calculus videos on centripetal force.
2. the site is much less comprehensive than generally assumed. the only “course” that i would characterize as fully comprehensive is the linear algebra playlist. I think this is currently the most realized implementation of Khan’s approach and I must say it is exceptionally well done–far better that G. Strang’s mit.ocw lectures–which are also quite good. I hope kahn stays focused in the k3-k12, AP world–I fear will become distracted by his noteriety, relentless curiouslity and other programmatic aspects of KA.
3. Whatever “it” is, Sal has it. i see alot of math stuff on you tube–some of it very good. But
Khan has a unique chairisma. When i read user comments–it apparent that kids are drawing both understanding and energy from these videos.
4. Kahn has a number of unique educational ideas beyound the use of videos–
and i recommend a look at the speech he gave to the mit club of northern california.
10:23 pm
I don’t doubt Khan is a smart guy, but Binet was a smart guy too, and I know that he didn’t intend for the Stanford-Binet test to be used as an “IQ” test. That was a slippery slope. My fear with Khan appears to be realizing in that students are using his videos as drill and kill. I’ve heard similar stories of students using the BrainPop quizzes the same way: watch them over and over until you get them all correct, take the test, pass it- then what? Will those kids be able to remember that information in a few months down the road? I doubt it. I only wish that there was a critical thinking aspect built into Khan, or at least that he addressed that in the Khan App. Remind students at least that these are the basics, but you need to apply what you have learned. Standardized testing is a culture- and it’s one that ‘s hard to shake. Khan needs to listen to Sir Ken Robinson a bit more, IMO.
2:45 pm
I find that illustrative notes or a play-by-play of the reasoning and logic involve in solving a math problems works better. You must provide a clear connection from the beginning to end and explain why. Then it becomes more than procedural, this is some bit of desire to understand.
6:45 pm
Mr. Rezac your article has had 2,000 plus views as compared to the Khan Academy site with
61 million views.It seems rathers ridiculous for you to be critical of anything regarding Khan Academy given
numbers of views of the site.
I find it very difficult to believe that Khan Academy students are bored with his videos given
his apparent success.
2:24 pm
I am creating an online resource that lists everything you need to know in Algebra Two linked with videos I have made for my students. Check out my YouTube channel, my username is drmikedcook. Also check out my class webpage @ drmikedcook.com
9:13 pm
I have heard of Kahn Academy before but only just recently I’ve explored it in some depth and purpose. Your critical review of the Academy is unwarranted and a bit misguided. First of all, the Academy is not only for kids but for everyone of all ages not only in the United States but for anyone in the world with simply a connection to the internet and a passion to learn. Secondly, the Academy is not an academic institution that offers degrees or certifications; it was not designed to compete, replace, or as a substitute to the traditional classrooms. It is an on-line elearning, self-service tutorial platform. Furthermore, Kahn has extended his contributions to you as educators and administrators to grab whatever you think is useful into your schools and adapt accordingly to your teaching methodology. I find Kahn’s teaching technique rather unique and demonstratively effective. And lastly, I think Kahn’s approach has the potential to scale. I don’t think your idea can although your points are well taken within its contextual framework.
1:36 am
You say that “the Academy is not an academic institution” but if it’s calling itself an “academy” then clearly it pretends to be. Maybe it should be renamed “Khan’s collection of video lectures?”
Also, the ability to scale doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if it’s not effective. We don’t want to scale activity, we want to scale outcomes.
12:15 pm
When I was in high school some 20 years ago, our calculus teacher assigned us a chapter, with homework problems. Then then next day, students who were able to do problem would go up to the board and go through the problem in detail from start to finish. Then we would get brief lecture (proof, or new concept) for the next chapter and we’d repeat. Class time was spent working through problems and having our teacher explain particularly difficult concepts. Classic flipped classroom. All analog.
1:17 am
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3:10 pm
Honestly, I’m kind of surprised by the dislike of Khan’s website. My whole life, I’ve had math teachers try to explain math to me in a way in which I don’t think. I’ve struggled with the topic for many years; even though I’d put two to three times the amount of effort into my math classes as other subjects and often supplemented that with tutoring, I’d still end up with C’s and D’s while getting mostly A’s with the occasional B in my other subjects.
I discovered the site last year and the way he goes about explaining things is the first time I’ve actually really ‘got it’. Last semester when I started using his lectures, my math grade jumped to a B+. It’s an A this semester.
The site has literally changed my life. I now experience joy when it comes to math and physics rather than dread, embarrassment, and shame.
To those that say I just had bad math teachers, I guess I can’t absolutely refute it, but I’ve had the fortune of going to some of the best schools in my state which are feeder schools for a lot of the top engineering universities in the country so I doubt this is the case.
10:12 pm
It’s a good thing that you have found someone or some platform that speaks to your learning style. My push, especially with this article, is to push the education establishment and the current crop of teachers to “be their own Khans.” I have no doubt that thousands of excellent teachers could be doing exactly what he is doing, and better. Kids would be better served if their own teachers were also master publishers.
Quick question- what’s the determinant factor for getting into engineering school?
9:18 am
First off, I’d like to apologize for the terrible grammar of that post. It was a long day and I was trying to get my thoughts down on paper. I should have edited it for clarity and ease of reading before posting.
I couldn’t tell you exactly what the determining factor is for getting into engineering school as I’m going to school for physics and public relations rather than engineering.
However, my high school had a three year course in computer programming; many engineering-specific classes that used AutoCAD and Inventor; a multi-year robotics class which includes AI programming; metal-work and fabrication; math in-house up to calculus 2; and basic electrical engineering.
If I had to guess, the combination of computer science, hands-on work, higher-level math, and experience with prototyping are probably significant factors. I couldn’t say for certain though as I only participated in one year of the robotics course and the three years of computer science.
Strangely enough, even though I was close to failing math before I found Khan, I was getting A’s in computer programming despite it heavily using the principles I was failing to learn in my math course from each previous year. I think ultimately it came down to the fact that I understood math when I was figuring out not only how to calculate the equations, but more importantly, why I was determining which equations to use.
This is where I believe Khan does an excellent job. Math teachers often run through the mechanics, maybe a proof or two, and throw in a few word problems to show real-world applications. This may be because of the way they were taught and so it’s the way they naturally think to teach it or it may be due to time constraints and having to ‘teach for the test’ so I don’t inherently blame them.
Khan, at least in his higher level lectures, weaves concepts together into a web. He’ll teach one mechanic or concept. Then when teaching another down the line, he’ll relate it back and show how the entire puzzle fits together. It’s akin to illustrating how a watch works. One might start by explaining how to tell time, moving onto the winding mechanism, etc. But when one gets to explaining the gears, they would take a few minutes to show how the gear shape and placement’s effect on timing relates back to the original lecture about the movements of the hands.
Beyond just strengthening these concepts by tying them to each other, it taps into that child-like yearning for discovery that fuels passion in a subject.
5:16 am
To be frank, while Khan helps us to pass tests which contain information most don’t give a f* about once the exam is over, I expect the learning institutions to make the levels harder and harder, even to the point where people will have to pass exams where questions are so difficult that no one knows the answer until a student solves it while doing the exam.
So, in the end, the institutions will make the levels incredibly hard. To the point where no one will be able to truly learn anything and just cram with Khan’s resources. In the end it’s just a way to cheat the educational system, themselves and after this it will be harder to filter out people who are truly interested in the topic and those who only ‘studied it’ because their parents told them to do so.
I would rather have a surgeon who got there because of careful training and extreme passion who is good at it than someone who only crammed for tests and doesn’t give a s* about even knowing if his gloves are clean or not before the operation and just waits for the paycheck their parents and relatives brag about monthly.
4:20 pm
Great article. I have been working with teachers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the US to transform teaching practices to align more with an inquiry mindset. I think Khan Academy is a tool with some usefulness, but it is not a replacement for great teaching. Some have claimed it is the ‘future of education’ without thinking about the importance of the context of learning, creativity, and critical-thinking. I’ll be linking this to my blog for me readers to consider. Thank you for your effort and thoughtful replies. You may appreciate the following interview… http://www1.channelnewsasia.com/amlive/2012/03/05/interviews-shifting-education-paradigms/
8:56 am
The following time I learn a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to learn, but I truly thought youd have one thing attention-grabbing to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you would repair should you werent too busy on the lookout for attention.
10:18 am
This article as well as the replies are just a bunch of haters! You go so far into saying what you dont like when truly your points are misguided.
8:49 am
It’s hard for me to take your article seriously as a independent critique of Khan Academy when you put a plug in for your competition for it. My experience with KA has been relatively short, but from what I have seen, it has been quite the opposite of your assessment. I’m an working aerospace engineer with a masters, and I have used KA to brush up on topics that I haven’t used in a while and to just check it out to see what it’s all about. Just yesterday I watched a couple of videos on linear algebra, and rather than just teaching how to get an inverse matrix, he describes what an inverse matrix is and how it is used. The same goes for differential equations. The exercises section that you speak of is simply a place where several questions are asked to test a students conceptual understanding, not unlike homework or tests. I don’t think that this will replace teachers at all, but I do think that teachers that oppose KA, or really just the concept of KA, because they feel it’s ‘boring’ or they find it threatening or any number of other reasons, do so at the expense of their students. KA and other online lessons like it are a wonderful tool that teachers have at their disposal now.
2:26 pm
You are so mistaken. At first I thought this guy has a point, since most videos on Khan are focussed on SAT and such, but a lot of times Khan does explain concepts, in most cases he starts with a real world analogy. Also he understands all concepts in such great depth, as hardly any math teacher can. I looked at Mathademics videos and oh my god, all of the ‘best’ videos have no concepts or analogies to real life at all! Come on! Don’t criticize someone if you clearly are not doing better than him.
11:58 pm
I’m going to guess that you’re either a programmer or in higher education. Most of the comments supporting Khan in this thread harken to higher ed or come from folks who clearly favor answers without ideas.
I know that it’s hard to get rid of that SAT mindset. The testing mentality is a tough beast of burden; hard to eradicate. Consider a student in eighth grade who, instead of testing has to undergo a real world simulation. There’s no context in Khan’s video for real world. There’s only his App, which is contrived and about rote memorization of skill.
Maybe it will improve. Or maybe people will just continue to believe that since they’re really good memorizers- we all should strive to be like them.
9:04 am
Daniel,
Michiel said “a lot of times Khan does explain concepts, in most cases he starts with a real world analogy,” and that Mathademics videos that he has watched “have no concepts or analogies to real life at all.” From your comment, it appears that you either didn’t read his comment at all, or you are ignoring it and just saying what you want to say.
9:41 pm
Kevin/ Michiel- The concepts and the context- happens in the classroom. That’s why you see real teachers in Mathademics videos. The connections to real life are being made in school when you can’t see.
With Khan- we have no guarantee that real world connections are being made. Maybe a teacher is working with a student on these, or maybe a student is just going rogue and looking for a tutorial that will help them cram for the SAT. We’re learning math for math’s sake, not for the sake of some greater problem to be solved or some great, big algorithm that needs to be created.
DR
8:54 pm
I wonder how many students around the world will be able to pursue STEM careers, be admitted to Ivy League Colleges, win Putman or International Math Olympiad competition, or solve the next Millenium Math Problem. Watching the videos and never having a real good teacher to look at and assess students’ work, not just routine problem, authentic problems that require deep understanding of math coupled with high procedural fluency. Not the type of work that could be checked with multiple choice or gridded response answers on-line. Have anybody here seen MathCounts competition webcast? How do you think those kids learn math. Not by watching videos-I can bet my life on that. More than 30 years ago I myself was one of the winners in a team math national competition – in another country. God, you can’t even imagine how we learned math. I feel sorry for the generations of Americans that are mathematically crippled by all these educational fads. I wonder how Mr. Salman Khan himself learned math.