What is Khan Academy?
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Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ is a personalized learning resource for all ages. Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. Subjects include: math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more. Teachers can log in and create an entire classroom where they can track students and individualize learning. Students can also use the site to get extra practice at home. Some districts are experimenting with a "flipped classroom" approach as the video mentions.
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Here is an example of an instructional video:
Value to teaching and learning with the internet
The goal at Khan Academy is to improve quality of student learning through the various opportunities offered. They do not intend to be a technological adjunct just for technology sake, but seek to support what is already happening in the face to face classroom.
Many students are visual learners. When used in combination with what is being taught in the classroom, Khan Academy’s lessons and video instructions offer the visual activities that many students need to really grasp the material.
The academy’s variety of video and interactive lessons offer student-learning activities presented in multiple ways and ultimately reinforce the exchange that takes place in the classroom. In addition, Khan Academy supports the technological integration that is necessary for today’s students to embrace 21st century skills.
Khan Academy’s ability to transform education varies depending on who you ask. There are certainly many individuals who tout the system’s ability to reach a limitless number of students giving each of them instantaneous feedback and the customized time they need to master a skill. Some individuals also support the use of KA as a means to better inform instructors so they can differentiate class time and/or provide more collaborative and creative use of school day learning since the KA online portion can be completed anywhere.
Another possible way that KA can transform education is by forcing a discussion. The system seems to be controversial and causes individuals to take sides. Some feel that KA is too uniform, too much controlled by the minds, opinions, and decisions of a select few, and too focused on methods of instruction that are known to be inferior. But, regardless of its effectiveness, KA has created some powerful technology based instruction. The organization also has an incredible donor base as well as a bright public spotlight. Hopefully, the massive exposure of KA can provide a foundation for a common belief that technology CAN BE transformative, but that it can only be transformative if utilized correctly. Perhaps the skeptics of KA can use the site to explain why the way we teach must change, not just the mechanism by which we deliver education
Many students are visual learners. When used in combination with what is being taught in the classroom, Khan Academy’s lessons and video instructions offer the visual activities that many students need to really grasp the material.
The academy’s variety of video and interactive lessons offer student-learning activities presented in multiple ways and ultimately reinforce the exchange that takes place in the classroom. In addition, Khan Academy supports the technological integration that is necessary for today’s students to embrace 21st century skills.
Khan Academy’s ability to transform education varies depending on who you ask. There are certainly many individuals who tout the system’s ability to reach a limitless number of students giving each of them instantaneous feedback and the customized time they need to master a skill. Some individuals also support the use of KA as a means to better inform instructors so they can differentiate class time and/or provide more collaborative and creative use of school day learning since the KA online portion can be completed anywhere.
Another possible way that KA can transform education is by forcing a discussion. The system seems to be controversial and causes individuals to take sides. Some feel that KA is too uniform, too much controlled by the minds, opinions, and decisions of a select few, and too focused on methods of instruction that are known to be inferior. But, regardless of its effectiveness, KA has created some powerful technology based instruction. The organization also has an incredible donor base as well as a bright public spotlight. Hopefully, the massive exposure of KA can provide a foundation for a common belief that technology CAN BE transformative, but that it can only be transformative if utilized correctly. Perhaps the skeptics of KA can use the site to explain why the way we teach must change, not just the mechanism by which we deliver education
Uses
1) A powerful teaching tool that uses technology to enhance student-centered instruction: Teachers can use it as a study tool for their own education or bring it in as an alternative way for students in classes to learn a subject. It’s simple and free, mastery based, interactive, students practice topics at their own pace.
2) Students can be given the opportunity to take ownership of their learning: Allows students to jump back to the material they need help on. They can take as long as necessary to actually learn it. They gain a sense of success and accomplishment when they progress, no matter where their starting point was. They finally see a path in which they can improve, and they take responsibility for their learning. Provides students more information about their performance, which helps students identify precisely what they need to do to make progress. There is an increase in engagement, confidence, and ownership of the learning process.
3) Teachers are more important than ever: Instead of spending time on grading homework or giving the same lecture over and over again, they can use real-time data to ensure they use their time most effectively. They can personally interact and provide guidance to every student. They have time to facilitate more collaborative activities with students actively interacting with each other.
4) Helps meet students’ learning goals: It allows users to assign specific material to their students, automatically sends students electronic alerts about their new assignments, and provides dashboards allowing teachers and students to monitor student progress. It acts as an additional practice tool, as an intervention for students who had fallen behind, as an enrichment activity for advanced students, and as an accountability tool to monitor student progress.
5) Using Khan Academy to facilitate self-directed learning: Students can take on significantly more personal responsibility for directing and managing their own learning. Technology plays a significant role in facilitating this approach. It is focused on helping students learn how to set learning goals, they hold themselves responsible for meeting those goals, and evaluate their own progress continuously along the way. It encourages students to learn how to advocate for themselves as learners.
6) Support teacher-led whole-class instruction: It helps mainly high-poverty population students to catch up, given the significant number of students who were several grade levels behind in math upon entering school. Helps students to devote more structured, productive time to practice activities designed to help them fill in gaps in their math knowledge/skills and reinforce skills covered by the teacher in their daily lesson.
Other examples of uses:
The most complete collection of Khan Academy resources is the K-12 mathematics program. (https://www.khanacademy.org/coach-res/k12-classrooms) Teachers can sign up, enroll students, have students work through tutorials at an individual pace, and receive feedback on their progress. It seems that Khan Academy sees their current role in school to be a utilization of this format. The teacher can then use class time as he sees fit based on the data collected by Khan Academy.
There don’t appear to be complete setups with quizzes, badges, data collection, etc for other subjects. There are modules for history, science, and other topics, but individual teachers would need to determine how to incorporate the modules into the classroom.
It is also possible to use Khan Academy in a way that is quite dissimilar to its intended use. Students could be asked to find mistakes in the videos, propose alternate examples, critique the choice of examples, offer alternate teaching strategies, or engage in another activity that forces them to question the content put in front of them. Students could present their findings via a variety of mediums and be encouraged to create and share a collaborative dialogue where they discuss the merit of a K.A. video. Students could also be asked to take the videos to a deeper level. They could explain how the facts delivered by Khan were discovered. For example, in the history videos, Sal essentially recites facts. Students could be responsible for searching for primary sources that either corroborate or invalidate Sal’s videos. In math, they could be tasked with creating a model to explain why the math presented works. The model could be physical or virtual as needed. Students could also use the videos to explore whether or not lecture based videos and repeated drill lead to long term retention and mastery of conceptual understanding. Students could propose hypothesis and set up tests to determine the results. This could lead to an in depth statistical analysis and argumentative paper. Students could explore the implications of massive scale learning under Sal’s approach. Indeed, it is possible to bring the Khan Academy model into the classroom through avenues that are highly different than the creator’s original intention.
2) Students can be given the opportunity to take ownership of their learning: Allows students to jump back to the material they need help on. They can take as long as necessary to actually learn it. They gain a sense of success and accomplishment when they progress, no matter where their starting point was. They finally see a path in which they can improve, and they take responsibility for their learning. Provides students more information about their performance, which helps students identify precisely what they need to do to make progress. There is an increase in engagement, confidence, and ownership of the learning process.
3) Teachers are more important than ever: Instead of spending time on grading homework or giving the same lecture over and over again, they can use real-time data to ensure they use their time most effectively. They can personally interact and provide guidance to every student. They have time to facilitate more collaborative activities with students actively interacting with each other.
4) Helps meet students’ learning goals: It allows users to assign specific material to their students, automatically sends students electronic alerts about their new assignments, and provides dashboards allowing teachers and students to monitor student progress. It acts as an additional practice tool, as an intervention for students who had fallen behind, as an enrichment activity for advanced students, and as an accountability tool to monitor student progress.
5) Using Khan Academy to facilitate self-directed learning: Students can take on significantly more personal responsibility for directing and managing their own learning. Technology plays a significant role in facilitating this approach. It is focused on helping students learn how to set learning goals, they hold themselves responsible for meeting those goals, and evaluate their own progress continuously along the way. It encourages students to learn how to advocate for themselves as learners.
6) Support teacher-led whole-class instruction: It helps mainly high-poverty population students to catch up, given the significant number of students who were several grade levels behind in math upon entering school. Helps students to devote more structured, productive time to practice activities designed to help them fill in gaps in their math knowledge/skills and reinforce skills covered by the teacher in their daily lesson.
Other examples of uses:
The most complete collection of Khan Academy resources is the K-12 mathematics program. (https://www.khanacademy.org/coach-res/k12-classrooms) Teachers can sign up, enroll students, have students work through tutorials at an individual pace, and receive feedback on their progress. It seems that Khan Academy sees their current role in school to be a utilization of this format. The teacher can then use class time as he sees fit based on the data collected by Khan Academy.
There don’t appear to be complete setups with quizzes, badges, data collection, etc for other subjects. There are modules for history, science, and other topics, but individual teachers would need to determine how to incorporate the modules into the classroom.
It is also possible to use Khan Academy in a way that is quite dissimilar to its intended use. Students could be asked to find mistakes in the videos, propose alternate examples, critique the choice of examples, offer alternate teaching strategies, or engage in another activity that forces them to question the content put in front of them. Students could present their findings via a variety of mediums and be encouraged to create and share a collaborative dialogue where they discuss the merit of a K.A. video. Students could also be asked to take the videos to a deeper level. They could explain how the facts delivered by Khan were discovered. For example, in the history videos, Sal essentially recites facts. Students could be responsible for searching for primary sources that either corroborate or invalidate Sal’s videos. In math, they could be tasked with creating a model to explain why the math presented works. The model could be physical or virtual as needed. Students could also use the videos to explore whether or not lecture based videos and repeated drill lead to long term retention and mastery of conceptual understanding. Students could propose hypothesis and set up tests to determine the results. This could lead to an in depth statistical analysis and argumentative paper. Students could explore the implications of massive scale learning under Sal’s approach. Indeed, it is possible to bring the Khan Academy model into the classroom through avenues that are highly different than the creator’s original intention.
Concerns
While Khan Academy does offer self-paced learning and ample opportunity for practice of different academic skills, there are some areas in which the website falls short. One shortcoming is that the lessons and practice questions limit the successful teaching of academic subjects to those which have clear cut right and wrong answers. While Khan is useful for math, science, and even art history other subjects in which answers are debatable and fall into a grey area lend themselves less to this format of teaching and assessment. Along these same lines, some teachers and educational professionals are displeased with the software and tutorials, alleging that they “encourage uncreative, repetitive drilling” (Wired, 2011).
A related argument could be made that while Khan Academy takes advantage of the internet and technology to make education accessible to a large percent of the population, the mastery-based learning approach of the software and videos fail to help students utilize the internet to build 21st century skills. The Khan Academy program only provides students with learning experiences that allow them to bank knowledge rather than using the internet and technology to construct their own knowledge and understanding. Khan Academy is innovative in as much as it makes learning more accessible to many people, but the content provided is often not that different from other software and programs available to teachers. In an article about Khan Academy on Wired magazine, Clive Thompson wrote “The videos and software modules . . . are just a high tech version of that most hoary of teaching techniques – lecturing and drilling.”
References:
“How Khan Academy is Changing the Rules of Education”, Clive Thompson, Wired, July 15 2015
Other criticism:
http://hackeducation.com/2011/07/19/the-wrath-against-khan-why-some-educators-are-questioning-khan-academy/
Every kid gets the same lesson. There's no flexibility there. Some students might finally have a topic or skill click when it's explained a different way, but Khan doesn't allow for that.
As an aside, we are not convinced that math, science, and art history have clear cut right and wrong answers. Unfortunately, many teachers (along with much of society) believe that and thus their beliefs are incorrectly transferred on to students. We could just as arbitrarily say that writing/art has clear cut right and wrong answers based on a predetermined standard. Exploration and creativity should be encouraged and deemed the norm in any class!
A related argument could be made that while Khan Academy takes advantage of the internet and technology to make education accessible to a large percent of the population, the mastery-based learning approach of the software and videos fail to help students utilize the internet to build 21st century skills. The Khan Academy program only provides students with learning experiences that allow them to bank knowledge rather than using the internet and technology to construct their own knowledge and understanding. Khan Academy is innovative in as much as it makes learning more accessible to many people, but the content provided is often not that different from other software and programs available to teachers. In an article about Khan Academy on Wired magazine, Clive Thompson wrote “The videos and software modules . . . are just a high tech version of that most hoary of teaching techniques – lecturing and drilling.”
References:
“How Khan Academy is Changing the Rules of Education”, Clive Thompson, Wired, July 15 2015
Other criticism:
http://hackeducation.com/2011/07/19/the-wrath-against-khan-why-some-educators-are-questioning-khan-academy/
Every kid gets the same lesson. There's no flexibility there. Some students might finally have a topic or skill click when it's explained a different way, but Khan doesn't allow for that.
As an aside, we are not convinced that math, science, and art history have clear cut right and wrong answers. Unfortunately, many teachers (along with much of society) believe that and thus their beliefs are incorrectly transferred on to students. We could just as arbitrarily say that writing/art has clear cut right and wrong answers based on a predetermined standard. Exploration and creativity should be encouraged and deemed the norm in any class!
Created by: Scott Jenkins, Amruta Warwatkar, Maren Skyberg, Jenna Golden, Ben Whitcomb