Yesterday I posted a critique of the Khan Academy videos.
Salman Khan responds here, on Valerie Strauss’s blog in the Washington Post, where the criticism first appeared.
But now that Khan has become so high-profile, the debate intensifies.
Two professors of math education review the Khan Academy videos and conclude that they are not good educational tools.
If Salman Khan responds to the latest analysis above, I’ll post that too.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Odd how easily everyone jumps on the teacher bashing bandwagon when the philanthrocapitalists spin their false data on the state of education….it is all the teachers’ faults…get rid of teachers, tenure, collective bargaining. Everyone believes it all at face value because a billionaire (Gates) says so.
However, when a non educator is criticized for making mistakes everyone defends him.
Can you imagine what Michelle Rhee would do with a video made by a teacher that had multiple errors and misstatements? Very few would be defending the lowly public school teacher….that I know for sure. It would be made into a national commercial to skewer the entire profession and to humiliate teachers everywhere.
However, with KA they defend a Gates supported man who is only trying to help the poor kids stuck in the horrible public schools, so he made a few mistakes. What’s the big deal?
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Thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy. You are so right.
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The difference is he isn’t using scarce taxpayer funds to run his academy, he isn’t part of a union lobbying for controversial benefits for his staff and swaying elections, and he isn’t working to prevent alternatives to his forum for education.
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To me the most important aspect of the two math teachers critique of Kahn’s work is the difference between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PDK). It’s the reason not all English speakers can teach language arts/English classes. That’s why sometimes the native speaking Spanish teacher struggles with teaching Spanish as a second language, as they haven’t gone through the process of learning Spanish as a second language and don’t know all the “sticky points” in the teaching and learning of Spanish. I had not heard the term used exactly like they have but it is a good term-pedagogical content knowledge.
PDK can also serve to inform us why administrators, especially in post elementary schools where many times teachers and students have specific content/subject classes, struggle with being able to adequately guide struggling teachers. And it points to the need to have subject area mentors to guide new teachers.
PDK also serves to inform us why just having an undergraduate degree does not usually prepare one for teaching if they haven’t taken corresponding educational methods, assessment, etc. . . classes. It points to why the “trainers” (I don’t know that I can call them teachers) and students (recruits?) of the Match and Relay “graduate” schools rely so heavily on the “drill sergeant” method and routines of total domination supposed class room management.
It is not enough just to have content knowledge to become a “master” teacher (nor administrator for that matter, won’t get into that critique now).
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In 2010 he stated his mission was” a vision of teaching the entire world, for free. His not-for-profit Khan Academy has the mission of “providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.” .
When I first came upon his website several years ago, it was very modest, and had a tenth of what it has now. I watched him present his ideas at several venues, http://gelconference.com and TED.com and he seemed earnest in his dream of making providing access to education to anyone.
As I have watched his website grow, gain funding, and add hundreds of videos it almost seems like watching the performers on America’s Got Talent, people with a dream and a talent get scooped up by a promoter with lots of money to “Manage” their talent.
I don’t think, and I am sure many will tell me I am wrong, his ORIGINAL intent was to advocate that his videos could replace public schools. There are mistakes in the presentations and yes Rhee would jump on them but we all make mistakes in our presentations and we should know she is full of it and ignore her and empathize with the mistakes.
It seems that as KA has grown it has suffered like so many innocent attempts to do good and has been promoted to be something it isn’t and used for something it was never intended. Many of the first users would comment that they lived in countries with far flung educational facilities, could not afford a tutor and were seeking to understand a class they were taking or were somehow unable to leave home to attend school. I thought at the time and still do that his original mission was a good one. Perhaps in some of the voucher schools his videos might be substituted for their own DVDs. I have used is videos to give students another way to explain something that no matter how I tried to explain it, they didn’t understand. I preview the videos first and there have been very very few I didn’t use due to the way the content is presented. It seems to me that we should not excuse his mistakes so much as emphasize with them. A local math teacher who is respected and and outstanding classroom educator with high expectations uses KA as an at home resource for her students.
There are many good ones and they are accessible to ANYONE ANYWHERE. That is good I believe, since we often forget that there are places in the world that do not have the battles for public schools we have here in America because there are not schools or only some citizens may attend them or civil war and unrest prevent students from reaching them. A school in many places is dirt and a stick and perhaps a 1967 issue of National Geographic magazine. While his videos may not all be of the quality we strive for, and should not be treated like the replacement for teachers that has been voiced, they do serve his original purpose. We have schools in the US where good teachers struggle with the effects of poverty, lack of resources and supplies in classrooms crammed with students who want to meet their students needs but are overwhelmed with obstacles. The videos can be a tool, not a cure, and no respectable professional educator would just turn on KA and let it run!
In his TED talk in 2011 he speaks of “flipping” classrooms. Using the videos to present information at home to students who then work with activities and projects which apply the concepts introduced at home. Will KA meet the needs of every student every place? NO and that was not his intent. Parents who home-school or help kids with homework and teachers know their students and can make the decision to use the videos or not. Listen to what he is saying. He is not trying to replace us in 2011, he is saying we can use his videos as support. The site is free. It helps many kids and adults who need another way to fill in what they missed or didn’t understand. He advocates peer tutoring, teachers concentrating on the kids who are stuck and the use of data to help the teachers know what is going on with their students. Not replace them. He states that some kids just take longer to grasp some concepts and giving them another tool to use can make all the difference in their success. All professional educators love to have the time to sit with a student and help them understand and master a topic. If we let a peer do this or a video or another teacher it doesn’t lessen us as a teacher, if anything it is a compliment to that teacher for being able to find the tool the child needed.
It is unfortunate that with the funding I am sure he celebrated, come the strings that are always attached and the suspicion of the motives. It is usual in the press to exaggerate and put spin to get headlines read. I think his motives are the same and the attention and fame being brought to him do not seem to be part of his motives. In the future perhaps my opinion will change, I hope not.
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Whatever the motives of Khan, whatever his stated desires, the fact is that he has been co-opted by Gates, Duncan, et al. and WILL be used to destroy teachers and public schools no matter his personal take. And anyone who truly believes that the Gates Foundation gives millions with no strings attached then you need to do some research.
Does the Khan Academy achieve some good things? I would say yes. But it is not a new idea, just a popular one at this moment. Oxford’s Open University (1969) which is not free if you want credit, MIT Open CourseWare project (2001) which is free, Education-Portal.com (2002) are just 3 examples of the predecessors of Khan Academy.
Does every institution that does some good things rise above criticism and deserve to be excluded from close scrutiny to see how it all works out? Are we called to overlook potential problems that may arise from a service because it is free and accessible to many (though not all — not everyone has a computer or Internet connection available)? That way leads to unintended consequences, as history so clearly teaches.
I do find it fascinating how vociferous and passionate the defenders are and how easily they tend to ignore historical precedent in overlooking how so many good ideas became perverted weapons in the hands of unscrupulous ideologues.
It is clear to me that they are not defending Khan Academy per se but rather in proving a tightly held belief about education in general , or an innate belief that Khan Academy is a very useful tool in discrediting public schools and public school teachers, or that Khan Academy is the answer to the question What are we going to do about the schools? It is easy, it is fairly inexpensive, it is a panacea, in other words.
See! We were right that “throwing money at schools” is not an answer. We were right when we said that teacher education and certification are a terrible joke and deserve to be discredited. We were right that the use of public tax money to fund schools is a terrible crime against tax payers! I don’t see or hear Khan Academy caring much at all about those who make these dangerous arguments, do you?
Teachers are right to be skeptical, defensive, and questioning of any and all reforms that are proposed. It’s sad that so many decry this as unfair attacks and call for passive acceptance and rose-colored glasses in order to be “fair”. American society has degenerated to a perilous place and this is a prime example of how we have lost the ability to think critically and evaluate scientifically.
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Interesting comments. First, though, let me instantly correct Diane’s accidental promotion of me to professor. I hold no doctorate and am currently an independent mathematics education consultant, coach, tutor, etc. I have been a lecturer, adjunct, and/or graduate teaching assistant in English (back in the ’70s) and mathematics/math ed in the last 20 years at various universities. Christopher Danielson has a Ph.D in mathematics education from Michigan State University and is a professor in Minnesota.
Now, as to Khan being a selfless do-gooder, let’s say that I’m skeptical. There are almost definitely plans afoot in Khanland to make money from schools and districts with some spin-off of KA. But let’s pretend he’s just a generous ex-hedge fund manager who has enough dough to do something else (it doesn’t hurt to get over $10 million in donations from guys like Bill Gates). He still gets a salary from his non-profit. It might not be six figures. I don’t know if he makes more than, say, a veteran tenured K-12 teacher in a decent-paying Connecticut public school (some of those do pay six figures or did so a decade and a half ago). None of that excuses the poor pedagogy and lack of thought that goes into his efforts. His haphazard approach reminds me of my son’s middle school math teacher who told me when I came to watch my son in his class that I could help out. When I asked if my son had told him I was a math educator he said, “No, but it’s only middle school math: anyone can do it.” I was floored. That’s from a “professional,” mind you.
Sal Khan is, on a video-by-video basis, lazy and terribly careless. He’d be fired from any decent math department based on his “product.” But of course, since it’s free and there’s so MUCH of it, he gets a pass from a lot of people. His apotheosis as St. Sal, the long-lost son of Mother Teresa, doesn’t ring true to me. His hedge-fund past looms over everything he does. His contempt for real teachers, for mathematics itself as a discipline and art, and for kids as critical thinkers – not empty-headed consumers of ‘product’ of the least-nutritious, cheapest intellectual junk-food available makes him worse than someone making no effort at all.
Of course, that’s merely my viewpoint. It’s not as if I have any idea what makes for effective mathematics teaching or learning, or what comprises anything more than the most surface level of mathematical knowing or doing.
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I’m with “Cofused”, and his or her comment below. You don’t know his salary, you don’t know his intentions , but for someone who doesn’t know much you seem to have a strong viewpoint, based on stuff you don’t know. My dad was a math teacher ( taught my sister at the kitchen table when she was little and she went to MIT as a math major) and I’m a software engineer, I use all kinds of math, matlab , Mathematica , and do quite a bit of image processing and numerical computing for medical and scientific applications. I think khan academy, open course ware, math tutor DVD guy, etc are great resources and perhaps flipping the classroom is worth a try. In literature classes, people often have a flipped classroom where they read at home and then discuss in class. Will a flipped classroom work in elementary grades? Seems less likely. I’m old enough to see educational fads come and go. My daughter was in elementary school about 15 years ago. I recall then that we heard that they weren’t going to learn their multiplication tables. I could here my dad rolling over in his grave….anyways I said fine and we enrolled my daughter in Kumon as a supplement. Because knowing how to multiply comes in handy. The thing that still gets me POd is the use of the TI graphing calculator…..really, still ? When macs ship with a nice 3d graphing calculator for free, and if you want to teach them a bit of programming ( limits etc ) use java for Pete’s sake. All the freshman that end up in engineering school end up taking matlab 101, their TI graphing calculator buried in their desk at their parents house. So, yea Sal Khan, yea Gilbert Strang, yea math tutor DVD guy, and yea public school teachers ( like my dad, my wife, and my daughter). I think there’s room for everyone here .
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Just for the full context, much of the recent Khanversation has been sparked by Mystery Teacher Theatre 2000 Episode 1. You can find a history of the whole dialogue from this summer here: http://www.edtechresearcher.com/mtt2k-contest/.
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Micheal,
Could you provide links to the info on Mr. Khans contempt for real teachers? I really want to find out the truth about him and like I said I have see and used his site and then the GelConference and TED.com presentations. I appreciate this very much, sometimes finding all the information is a challenge.
Thank you!
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The huge popularity and coverage of Khan Academy says less about the quality of Khan videos per se; and a great deal more about the status quo public education system and it’s failure to use the same freely available tools that Sal used.
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Maybe the public school teachers don’t use “the freely available tools” because they realize that they are garbage.
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How would you even know about teachers who have
devised their own methods and tools to use with their students and share in their schools everyday? Many have and it stays local.
Not all of us have the time or desire to seek the approval of King Gates and therefore, due to his vast knowledge in teaching we would then be allowed to spread our strategies far and wide.
We are quite busy teaching full time and beating off all the haters, such as yourself.
And when you have time, can you define the status quo?
Education has been nothing but changes to changes and reform after reform, so I will wait anxiously your definition.
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Duane, Linda: Well, it’s obvious to almost everyone except the diehard defenders of Big-Box, 1940’s-labor-model, teacher-as-lone-wolf style education. Read books like Deb Meier’s “The Power of Their Ideas”, or Lisa Delpit’s “Multiplication is for White People”. Look at how Facebook and Twitter helped overthrow Egypt, are revolutionizing how we educate ourselves as adults. Then look at the classrooms organized and running as they did in 1950. Look at the school bathrooms that aren’t maintained look at the 50% dropout rate among urban African American males. Sal Khan just did what a handful of math teacher/retired teachers should have done years earlier.
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I am confused by the cognitive dissonance in your points here Ed. You seem to be saying that Sal Khan is a radical innovator doing something new and wonderful yet Khan’s approach to teaching is about as traditional and old-fashioned as it gets — lecture/demonstrate/practice.
The only thing new here is that Gates has provided him with $15+ million to start up a company. Teachers have been offering video lessons online for quite some time now to their students and in many districts. They haven’t gone viral or been offered millions to form a start-up for-profit company, however. Are you saying that is what is revolutionary here?
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In 2012, among 18-25 year-olds, Amazon sells more Kindle books than it does paper books. Borders books is gone. A huge potion of TV is watched over the net. And you still want kids to learn math at 8am from a teacher, a chalkboard, and a worn-out text? When at 9pm they absorb 10x the content from an hour of WoW?
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Video good…book bad! Yep, we get it. If it was as simple as downloading a video and looking at it at 9pm, then wouldn’t our children already be 10x smarter???
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Sal Khan: Compliments, Critiques and a Complement for Him
The comments and opinions of this article are from a retired physician who has spent thousands of hours watching online tutoring videos from a variety of sources and tutors.
The Threefold Nature of a Salman Khan
The Creator was in an ambitious mood the day he made Sal:
• Body – pre-eminent cerebral circuitry
• Soul – unrivaled passion to learn
• Spirit- global generosity and love toward his fellowman
The confluence of these three human components eventually produced a guy who believes all people should have the right to a world-class education regardless of socio-economic and geographic barriers. If you review the rationales for the awarding of the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize on Wikipedia, you’ll see it’s not implausible that Sal could join that list one day.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found a desire to make amends to myself regarding my earlier education. Although I had usually performed well on tests, I was nothing more than a pseudo-intellectual thug. My grades were acquired through “muscle-mindedness”: using brute memorization to covet facts, figures and formulas; focusing on simply how to get the right answer instead of understanding why a given concept gives the right answer.
So a few years ago, I started an online pilgrimage to find guidance in how to grasp concepts that had eluded me all my life, especially math and physics. Eventually, I came across Sal with his paternal vibe. When I watch Sal’s videos, I feel like a kid who is walking through an enchanted forest (Sal’s mind) with his enthusiastic dad pointing out all the amazing “fauna and flora.”
No one will probably ever give me more epiphanies than Sal; I wouldn’t want to change one thing about his teaching style. I’m so grateful and privileged that he freely shares his marvelous mind with me. It’s hard for me to be even constructively critical of a person who has given me so much unconditionally, but ………
Sal, no “dad” can teach their “child” everything. A “parent” should want to encourage multiple perspectives.
I’ll expound below.
“No Child and No Concept Left Behind”
Although Khan Academy’s mission statement is “to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace”, I also recall Sal emphasizing something else: No concept should be left behind by a student.
A student may understand 95% of all concepts in a given subject, but those 5% that slip by could be absolutely pre-requisite for another subject and even other career options. Sal, as do I, believes that students can eventually grasp 100% of course concepts if they go at their own pace and utilize the right resources. My contention is that Khan Academy is inherently designed so that no student is likely to ever grasp 100% of his/her targeted concepts because some of the right resources will never be there as long as Sal essentially excludes other good video tutors from contributing to the KA library.
I have spent hundreds of hours watching Sal’s videos over the past three years, and although he is the most enjoyable, effective and brilliant teacher I’ve ever known, his approach is brilliantly informal– and sometimes informal is not what I need. As I said, I wouldn’t change a thing about Sal. Anyone who expects Sal to successfully create all the right visual and audio perspectives to drive home all intended concepts to every KA student is, well, deluded.
I know, on the KA website it says, “The intent for Khan Academy has always been to expand faculty beyond Sal.” I’ve seen a tremendous expansion of support services offered to KA students over the years, but frankly, the scope of collaboration with other video faculty has been disappointingly small. Also, there are two types of video expansion (1) Increasing the breadth of subject matter offered and (2) Increasing the depth of topics already offered- i.e. having alternative online tutors that complement Sal’s videos
Of course, I have the excess time and resources to seek alternative online videos when necessary, but what about all those students who have limited time and access to the internet? I would hope that Khan Academy would try to encourage and facilitate a student’s search for a different video tutor when the occasion arises. Why can’t there be a supplementary or auxiliary video library on the KA website to complement Sal’s library? At the very least, I would like to see KA provide KA-approved links to other free video websites.
Bill Gates led Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg and others to collaborate and form The Giving Pledge: The campaign that encourages the wealthiest people in the United States to make a commitment to give most of their money to philanthropic causes. Why can’t Khan Academy become the clearing house for the “wealthiest” philanthropic minds? Sal’s academic successes and philanthropic drive are tantamount to Bill Gate’s business successes and philanthropic drive—- he could make this happen— The Goodwill Tutors’ Pledge.
A Perfect Complement to Sal’s Math Library: Mathispower4U.com
As I mentioned, I have watched thousands of hours of online educational videos and many were very good, but recently I discovered a seasoned math teacher who blew me away. His name is James Sousa, and he is the reason I wrote this article. There are two things that come to mind when I watch James’ videos:
(1) This guy is totally committed to creating videos that maximize the probability the student will successfully learn the lesson. He addresses every nuance of the student’s video-watching experience.
(2) In my opinion, he is the perfect math-tutor complement of Salman Khan:
• different personalities (Einstein vs Max Planck)
• different teaching styles (jelly vs peanut butter)
BUT…
• both are massively invested in helping anyone who “wants to learn new concepts”
• both aren’t driven by money.
I believe that if KA collaborated with Mathispower4U, the probability that a student would leave no concept behind would be dramatically increased. It’s basic synergistic math: 1+1=3 (PB&J)
For me to try and specify what James Sousa’s does would trivialize the 2000+ videos he has made with unwavering consistency. He’s had almost 3 million hits in just a couple years of exposure. Please, check him out!!
http://mathispower4u.yolasite.com/
Khan Academy.org : Cyber-Flagship for a Fleet of Goodwill Tutors
Flagship: a ship, especially in a fleet, aboard which the commander of the fleet is quartered
I believe that as a species, we have been spiritually evolving upward. Not too long ago, when distant, disadvantaged cultures saw a fleet of ships arriving on the shores of their continents, it usually meant men were coming to take gold/silver/slaves and leave disease/death/destruction. Now, when distant, disadvantaged people look out on the cyber-sea they see a beneficent man, Sal Khan, who is sailing his website to their shore bringing the gifts of knowledge and endless opportunities for a better life.
My hope is that in the near future Khan Academy.org will evolve from a single vessel to a flagship with Sal leading a huge fleet of Goodwill Tutors.
Jon Grossman, MD
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They should rename the website “Canned Academy” because that is what is going to happen to the majority of teachers when this teaching model scales. I watched the youtube videos of Sol Khan at the TED conference and at Google and the high tech billionaires were clearly enraptured by his presentation. The reality is that the classroom teacher of 2013 is as secure as the office secretary was in 1985. It won’t surprise me if ultimately every kid has an IPOD. and a tutor from India. Ultimately the change will happen to everyone. With cloud computing and a high tech client such as an IPOD, every knowledge worker’s job is at risk, including the computer programmer. And today’s teachers can say what they want, I’ll be willing to bet tomorrows students will be glad they are out of the classroom, given that this model is more flexible and will have higher production standards.
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