Idaho will introduce Khan Academy videos to 10,000 students in 47 schools, a mix of public, private, and charter.
The videos will teach math, science, history, and art. The project is underwritten by a local Idaho foundation.
I would like to hear from teachers who have reviewed the Khan Academy videos. What do you think of them?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Many of the math videos are not very good. The examples are not strong ones and more importantly, they usually do not involve any conceptual development. For the most part, they are no different than the “traditional” instruction one gets in school. There were a couple of math education professors who critiqued some of the math videos last year and made videos of the critique. They are quite good.
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I have taught mathematics and statistics for 18 years and I am an NBCT. I have viewed some of the Khan Academy videos and used them a bit for remediation. The videos are mediocre in quality. Not surprising since Sal Khan has bragged that he does zero preparation before making them. (Imagine a teacher making that statement!) They do nothing to develop understanding. In spite of what 60-Minutes says they are no revolution in teaching. They are the worst of the traditional lecture approach that has been failing students for decades. The videos are OK for a review, for skill-based homework help, but they are no replacement for a teacher.
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Here is a piece my friend Karim Ani wrote for the Washington Post about it. I think he’s on target.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/khan-academy-the-hype-and-the-reality/2012/07/22/gJQAuw4J3W_blog.html
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I have used Khan Academy videos in my 7th and 8th grade resource room math class for two year now. I find most of them effective to introduce new concepts. However, as with everything, some videos are better than others as far as covering the math concept at a level that my students can understand. I use them as an introduction to the math concept before I teach it in my classroom. Sometimes I have to go to other sorces for videos that are more appropriate for my students. Overall, it is a great concept, but not an alternative to a teacher in the room.
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I too have used them for review in math. They’re o.k., but can’t replace primary instruction. For the most part, they’re short, 3-10 mins. so they are a good supplement.
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Not sure why they have to be underwritten, when they’re free on the internet.
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The article speaks of 1.5 million but does not state where the money is being used. Someone is going to make some money!
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I wish someone would underwrite my early retirement! 1. 5 million would do it!
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From the article linked in Diane’s post:
“The statewide pilot received $1.5 million for training, technology, technical assistance and assessment from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation.”
The Albertson Foundation has given over $500 million to Idaho schools over the years, but for the past few years its efforts have been devoted to promoting some of the worst initiatives and legislation ever to don the mantle of “education reform,” most notably in the run-up to the November 2012 elections. Throughout 2012 the Foundation published monthly full-color, multipage supplements in all the major print media in Idaho, touting the benefits of reform efforts, documenting the so-called “failure” of Idaho schools, and casting a suspicious eye upon the teachers union, the Idaho Education Association. (Idaho is a right-to-work state.) Joe Scott, an early investor in K12, Inc., heir to the Albertson fortune, and the current chair of the Foundation’s board of directors donated $200,000 to Idaho Voters for Education in an attempt to save the Luna Laws from repeal. Idaho Voters for Education presented itself as the “voice of Idaho parents,” but after a lawsuit filed by the Idaho Secretary of State forced it to reveal its donors, turned out to be a group of fewer than two dozen hedge-fund manager, venture capitalists, and billionaire social engineers, including NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who donated $250,000.
They threw their money away; the Luna Laws were repealed by large margins at the polls. Diane has written about them here before:
“The Luna Laws imposed a mandate for online courses for high school graduates (a favorite of candidates funded by technology companies), made test scores the measure of teacher quality, provided bonuses for teachers whose students got higher scores, removed all teacher rights, eliminated anything resembling tenure or seniority, turned teachers into at-will employees, and squashed the teachers’ unions.”
To get out the reformers’ message, the Albertson Foundation created the ED SESSIONS, monthly talks by “national thought leaders on education reform,” now in its second year. The Foundation isn’t particularly interested in thought leader opposed to market-driven, for-profit education reform; past speakers include Salman Khan, Sir Ken Robinson, Marguerite Roza, Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform, and Andy Smarick of Bellwether Education Partners. Coming up, Kristoffer Haines, VP at Rocketship Education and Rick Ogston, founder of Arizona charter school Carpe Diem, to talk about “no-excuse schools.” In addition, the foundation recently launched a web site and radio/tv ads to promote its initiative “Don’t Fail Idaho,” the latest of the Foundation’s many efforts to dominate the conversation about school reform under the guise of fostering and promoting discussion. In short, the Albertson Foundation is anti-union, pro-charter, and apparently determined to spend a metric boatload of money to get its way.
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I’ve seen some of their videos. They are the video version of “talk & chalk” that was so frowned upon when i was still teaching before retirement. I guess cost cutting trumps all other factors, bad or good.
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Personally, I see nothing wrong with the ‘traditional’ method in math. The majority of successful AP Calculus test takers were taught traditionally, according to AP info. The traditional method hardly failed us horribly.
That said, I think that it is hilarious that people with no clue go gaga for Kahn when he is, as the other stated, teaching traditionally through short video. They think that it is revolutionary. It only shows that people are grasping at straws when it comes to curriculum. They don’t know their head from their ass. If it comes through a computer, then it must be ‘best practice.’ We are truly in the age of the rule of know-nothings.
They are good for remediation or to let an advanced student work ahead independently. They won’t place traditional teaching without a significant drop in proficiency.
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The majority of all students are taught traditionally. Successful and no. But when you look at how our students are faring, we don’t look too good. We have many students for whom these methods are not working. We can and must do better.
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You can buy into the ‘our students aren’t fairing well’ line. But, removing socioecomonic factors, our students not living in poverty compete with anyone.
That doesn’t say the method is flawed, it says that poverty is flawed. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that learning fuzzy math has helped anyone. In fact, getting to clean up after 8 years of bad math has convinced me of the opposite.
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Good points, Corey.
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As a physics teacher, my raw material is the product of the traditional math teachers across the hall and I have a strong opinion about what students know after traditional math instruction.
Essentially, while they are extremely adept at solving textbook math problems, they are completely clueless about what it all means. This is exactly what you get from a Khan video: “Here’s how to get your homework done.”
There is a large and growing body of research in physics education that leaves little room for doubt that students will very rarely acquire genuine understanding from a lecture format. The fact that the lecture originated on a Wacom tablet and is delivered online won’t change that.
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Fuzzy math is a loaded term. There is nothing fuzzy about good pedagogy and high expectations. The truth is that the traditional approach requires very little of students except to repeat what the instructor has shown them. That is not doing mathematics.
In fact, at the height of the ‘New Math’ movement of the 60s and 70s, we were gaining on our peers around the world. The “Back to the Basics” traditional approach coincides with us declining again. Now, students who learn with the approaches I’ve described outperform others. I’m not saying nobody can learn with a traditional approach, but they don’t learn as much or as well.
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One caveat, though. Teaching this way requires teachers with a deeper knowledge of mathematics and stronger knowledge of pedagogy. Teachers lacking these must have a support system of teacher with these assets to help them see how to be effective. Otherwise it can degenerate into ‘fuzzy math.’ I suspect that might be what you were cleaning up after.
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As a first career engineer, I have never met an engineer or professional mathematician who wasn’t a proponent of a more traditional approach. It is how they learned. When you say that ‘they don’t learn as much or as well,’ I think that this is wrong.
I’ve never seen surveys, and have no intention of creating one, but how many of our most proficient engineers, physicists, and others who use high level math every day learned in a method other than traditionally? I only have experience with what I know. But I did attend a top engineering school, and know many engineers from other top schools.
Perhaps we have a misunderstanding on definitions, because I’ve never seen it taught as ‘just repeating what the instructor shows them.’ If you define traditional that narrowly, then you are probably correct.
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Fascinating to see how many comments on this topic.
I’ll just say one brief thing to Wilbert: most people are not going to be engineers. Many of us (and I have a PhD) struggle with math. I’ve looked at the Khan videos and found they vary in quality and clarity. But some explained things in ways I’ve never heard before. I think many teachers will find useful as supplements. Not to replace the teacher, but to help her/him reach more students.
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I suspect engineers and mathematicians view mathematics and mathematics education very differently.
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Wilbert, as a fellow first-career engineer, I would offer you this observation. I got an A- in differential equations by memorizing some algorithmic patterns for solving them. When I got to my first class in system dynamics I realized I didn’t have the foggiest clue what I was doing, even though system dynamics was essentially a course in applied diff-eqs.
The lecture had never conveyed to me the essence of the concept. More importantly it had never inspired me with its beauty.
I wonder how much better off we all would have been if our diff-eqs prof. had given us mechanical, electrical, biological or economic scenarios and guided us through the process of using them to develop diff-eqs as models of something meaningful and real.
I think this is the difference between a traditional lecture (live or recorded) and real teaching.
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daveecstrom,
Your post reminded me of something my son posted about mathmatics education.
” If I seem angry, it is because the material that passes for math in public schools nearly turned me off mathematics forever, and had it done so I would never have realized the sublime beauty of the subject and never felt the peace and joy that has come with understanding it.”
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Let us not forget Mr. Kahn’s previous occupation, before becoming an expert educator. He was a hedge-fund analyst. You would think that with an MBA in Business from Harvard that he would have figured out a way to monetize the Khan Academy by now, at least in a way that didn’t require him to travel the country making deals like this one and eating bad food at banquets in his honor.
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I have no doubt he could easily monetize them, but he doesn’t want to. I chatted with a friend about Khan academy, as his celebrity and the funding form the Gates foundation worried me. I actually live in his town so my kids are very familiar with Khan academy. He’s got what he wants and has no desire to make money from it. That did make me feel better. I have no issue with people making money from businesses, but there’s been some truly awful businesses trying to reap public school funds. Google is actually funding one of those for our school, so I’ll take Khan over that any day. My kids, who are often told “not to get ahead in math” love them.
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To his credit, Khan seems dedicated to the idea of providing free education to those without access to it. Think of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the poor kid from India with no formal education who managed to lay his hands on a couple math texts, taught himself, and became one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century. Think of William Kamkwamba, the 14-year-old from a village in Malawi who found a book called Using Energy and used it and junk he scrounged from dumps to build a windmill to provide electricity for his village for the first time–electricity to run water pumps to save the village from famine. Khan seems truly dedicated to the idea of providing universal access to stuff that we in the West take for granted. Kids from all over the world take his classes, and it is extremely admirable that he has NOT tried to monetize his work but, rather, has insisted on keeping it free.
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Bill Gates fell in love with Khan’s little videos, and has made him what he is today.
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I’m not a teacher, but an adult who has used Khan Academy extensively to review basic math and economics topics.
From my experience, the most useful part of Khan Academy by far is their excellent math exercises, not the videos. The exercises are particularly good because the “hints” enable you to see the steps necessary to solve the specific problem you are working on. This is something a textbook cannot offer, and I would think this would make them a useful supplement for any math course.
I do enjoy Sal’s math videos, but as Corey mentions above, videos and lectures can only ever be a small part of what it takes to understand a subject. Judged just by comparing them to other videos available, I think they are mostly excellent. Sal’s videos on the financial crisis and various issues surrounding it are actually one of the best resources out there on the subject. However, I’ve found the Humanities and especially the Art History videos pretty uninspiring.
Despite being a darling of all the wrong people, my overall impression has been that Khan Academy is committed to working with teachers, and that they see what they have created as a tool to be used by teachers, not as a replacement for them. But like you, I am curious to see what teachers who have tried integrating it into the classroom have found.
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I would also caution against being too excited about the quality of the exercises. These are entirely procedural, simplistic, traditional textbook type exercises. They have their place, don’t get me wrong. But this cannot be the extent of what students learn to do if we want to improve the state of education in this country.
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Well, yes. KA is a tool, a resource. So it should be evaluated by comparing it to other tools and resources, not by asking whether it can replace a teacher.
Here’s an example form my own teaching. Perhaps it will illuminate why I feel the way I do. Or perhaps it will illuminate problems in my teaching method:
I’m a piano teacher. One tool I use routinely is flash cards for recognizing notes on the staff. When I work through these cards with students, I can help them understand the process they should go through to get the correct answer, but when they go home, all they can do is look at the back of the card to see if they are correct or not.
If I could give every student a computer program that would enable them, if they had a wrong answer, to see exactly how they should have arrived at the correct one, I would use it – that would be an improvement over my current tools for the same goal. (I’m currently working on designing this very program, BTW) Teaching kids to recognize notes on the staff is a tiny part of what I do. But I still want to do it as well as possible to leave more time for the truly unique and interesting things I have to offer.
I would also suggest that many of the exercises on Khan academy do in fact embody experiential learning as I understand it. For instance, have you seen these:
Exploring Mean and median:
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/descriptive-statistics/central_tendency/e/exploring_mean_and_median
Exploring Standard deviation:
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/descriptive-statistics/variance_std_deviation/e/exploring_standard_deviation_1
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I agree with the other comments here. In the past I’ve posted links to Khan videos for my students to review, but they could never replace a teacher. To whom do the students ask questions? Where do the students go for help – can they email Khan? What if the video is wrong (as has been the case) or it explains something in a way that a student doesn’t understand? What if he uses terms that the students don’t know?
I have gotten away from posting links to Khan’s videos, and I use links to brightstorm.com videos instead. I also use kutasoftware.com for worksheets when needed. I also answer emails from my students in the evenings and on weekends.
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It reminds me of a 12x course I took in high school(long before computers). It’s based on BF Skinner’s idea of immediate reward (getting the correct answer). It was doable but boring as anything and took ten times as long to learn anything.
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My understanding of the Khan Academy system is that there are actual people whom you interact. Both other students at your level, and teachers who are assigned to process levels rather than individual students. Granted this is all online, but on the whole I find the process of assigning specialists to levels instead of students to be novel. It comes at the cost of the I-thou relationship (perhaps this is too high a cost), but it also greatly facilitates mastery learning – to a level that I don’t think is possible in a traditional public school.
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I teach geometry, so I thought I would search out his video on how to write proofs. It was so riddled with errors that I was practically screaming at my computer screen. ‘Nuff said.
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Same thing in physics. You don’t have to watch too many KA vids to find an error. Not a big surprise, since Khan himself doesn’t really prepare and is basically going off memory with the science and math stuff. The other subject areas he at least reads a Wikipedia article or something before he sits down to record.
Boring videos and lousy pedagogy, but you’ve got to hand it to him Sal Khan is one brilliant guy. (I mean it.)
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I have only viewed a couple of the science topics and found them to be somewhat weak, The presentation was pretty two dimensional and they didn’t cover what my state standards would require. I didn’t feel they would hold student attention.
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Leave aside the quality of his instruction or content. I can understand why a student might want to view these videos outside of class — maybe to see things presented in a different way that might be helpful, or to learn something that’s not being taught in class. But I don’t really follow why teachers would be using these videos in class. What Khan does, based on what I’ve seen, is teach stuff. That’s what teachers do. So why stop teaching to put on a video of someone else teaching?
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Yes. I see it more as a resource for a kid at home who needs some review for his homework if no one in the house can work with him. Overall, they aren’t adequate for teaching in class.
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Like all programs, Khan has its upsides and its downsides. A talented teacher can make use of their video; an untalented teacher won’t be able to make up for its deficiencies.
But — and here’s the point — Khan is free. Most school districts fork out thousands of dollars (more than a salary, in many cases) for program that are no more effective. There is no single program that fixes every problem; we need professional educators to teach our students. There is no substitute.
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Khan is free, but there are a lot of other great free resources out there for teachers and students – resources that are created by actual teachers and subject matter experts. It seems like many people have blinders on when it comes to Khan Academy and don’t look for all of the other resources that are available.
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I produce short screencasts for my students and they find them very useful, especially because they can stop and rewind me. Kahn academy videos have the same advantages, but there is less customization.
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I do the same. The kids do love it because of the reasons you stated. Perfect or not, the ability to view on demand is huge.
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The Khan Academy videos are great. I’ve taken some of Khan’s courses myself. The teacher is charming and clear and thorough and accurate and interesting. And best of all, the vids are free. A poor kid in a rural village in Malawi with no resources except a reconditioned laptop can go on and learn science, math, economics, business, from the ground up, K-grad school, from a really talented teacher.
Of course, a chalk talk, which is what Khan does, has its limitation and can’t replace a live teacher/tutor/mentor. But the very fact that these high-quality complete courses are available for free online is of extraordinary importance to the world’s poor.
Years ago, I edited a physics textbook by Uri Haberschiem, one of the guys who worked with Fermi in Chicago. He told me about how, when television first came out, he and others dreamed of using the medium to get the very best teachers in front of students, and there were tears in his eyes when he spoke of what the medium had become–the boob tube.
Kids should be encouraged to learn to learn on their own from a variety of resources, including books and chalk talk videos. More of that! We’re supposed to be developing independent learners. HOWEVER, use of such materials in class is a waste of time (kids should use them outside of class, as they might use books, to prep for classes that draw on them, and such materials should NOT replace a single teacher. Any real teacher knows that there is a hell of a lot more to the job than what one can present in sage-on-the-stage talks. It’s great to have this wonderful resource available to lift some of the burden of teaching, for as every real teacher knows, the job is well-nigh impossible and could only be done well by someone with a half dozen clones helping him or her out.
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I agree. I’m not opposed to providing an appropriate Khan link for homework help, but the greatest value Khan provides is to students with good internet access and bad teachers. I find it hard to believe that things have gotten so bad in Idaho that stranger-standardization offers more than certified classroom teachers.
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“But the very fact that these high-quality complete courses are available for free online is of extraordinary importance to the world’s poor.”
This is a troubling sentence in an otherwise very even handed review. Free online access presumes access to the internet, electricity, and host of other infrastructure that the poor do not have access to. And access to didactic videos for the poor repeats the offense, in my opinion, that they do not deserve constructivist rich classrooms, and opportunities to build knowledge about math and science in local ways, which add meaning and context to their learning.
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There is an old saying that one should not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. If a household does not have access to electricity or the Internet, it is also likely that the household does not have access to constructivist rich classrooms.
What do folks here think about Sugata Mitra’s work? You can see him talk a bit about it in a TED talk here:http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html
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” I find it hard to believe that things have gotten so bad in Idaho that stranger-standardization offers more than certified classroom teachers.”
Things haven’t gotten that bad in Idaho, unless you listen to the proponents of market-driven “reform” that aims to manufacture an exploitable crisis in the Idaho school system. This pilot program amounts to little more than public relations on behalf of its sponsor, the Albertson Foundation. (See my earlier posts about the Albertson Foundation.) The purpose of the pilot program is to provide yet another opportunity for the reformers to spread the message that Idaho schools are failing and that something must be done. It provides a very inexpensive way of introducing technology into the classroom while calling it “online education,”which in turn allows the reformers to say to Idaho votes, “See? Look at the sparkly, shiny technology! Aren’t you sorry now that you voted 2 to 1 to repeal the law that would have bought a laptop for every high school student with money obtained by firing teachers?”
In short, this pilot is just a small piece of the puzzle, a modest bit of chump change being spent by some people who have demonstrated their willingness to dig deep into their very deep pockets to ensure the privatization of public education in Idaho, so that they and their cronies can get rich by financing the building of charter schools, by farming out operation of those schools to K12, Inc. and Connections Academy (now Pearson), and by replacing those pesky union teachers with shiny technological baubles.
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We’ve used Khan as an differentiated intervention tool with remedial students. In that structure it’s adequate because students are practicing skills they’re deficient in. I think it would be difficult to match to your curriculum, though. It’s like a textbook in the sense that there are some things that you would want to include that are missing.
Summary- it’s an excellent supplement but probably not a stand alone.
Having said that, the videos practice Sal Khan’s maxim that such presentations should be short as event the best students tune out after 10 minutes or so.
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Khan has done an amazing thing here. I really hope that if schools start using these, they won’t think of them as replacements for teachers (they are NOT), and I hope that as demand for Khan grows, his wonderful, highly personal and artful work won’t become “professionalized” and subjected to the pressures from the left and right, from special interest groups of all kinds, that cause textbooks to be watered down and to read as though they were written by committees of machines.
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This is Idaho we’re talking about, Mr. Shepherd. You better believe that Khan’s talking chalkboards are being presented as replacements for teachers–perhaps not publicly, but to the people who matter, such as our Superintendent of Public Schools, Tom Luna; our Libertarian-leaning governor; and our state Legislature dominated by the right wing of the GOP.
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Kevin, I am very sorry to hear that business about using these as “replacements for teachers.” That’s a preposterous and dangerous thing to do!!!
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Personally I love the khan videos. Watch the. For fun (I’m odd, I know) but when showed to non-academically minded 10-12th graders. They tuned out pretty quick. Many we’re trying to poke fun. Seemed like If I wasn’t leading the lesson then it wasn’t serious stuff.
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I try to get my freshman biology to watchx as a flip or for review, they don’t.
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My 5th grader loves watching them for fun. Sadly his math teachers were very serious, much more concerned about disruptions in class than teaching. He’s one of those kids that constantly asks questions, tough in a class of 35 kids. Think he’s got a crush on Vi Hart 🙂
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As a resident of Idaho who has been working with others to beat back the school reformers both inside of and outside of Idaho’s borders, I am also interested in hearing what Idaho teachers think about this arrangement between the Albertson Foundation and the Khan Academy. I would appreciate it if you would identify yourself as an Idaho teacher if you respond to Diane’s inquiry.
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If you’re an Idaho teacher, that is. Duh. I wasn’t as clear as I could’ve been.
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To evaluate the Khan videos you first need to view them, and then you need to read through the comments left by those “learning” from them videos…oh boy !
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Yes, as a replacement for teachers.
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I stand by my assessment of the Khan videos. Yes, they are not perfect. In the course of 3,300 video lectures, he occasionally states a concept imperfectly. He even occasionally makes an outright error. I suppose that there might be, in Plato’s realm of ideal forms, a perfect teacher who never does any of those things, but this side of paradise, Sal Khan is one of the best teachers I’ve encountered. And far from having an attitude about his work, he seems to me charmingly humble and truly interested in learning and in his students. Again, the important thing about his vids is that they are of high quality and are free, which makes this learning accessible to millions around the world who could not otherwise afford to purchase such access.
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I am glad to have the videos available free online – what a great public service. But I find them uneven and often insufficient to answer the question that I had about the exercise. I think if you’re trying to create the model of “find the best lecturer in the world and create videos of that instruction” that Khan and his video paintbrush is not it. A pilot in Silicon Valley found that the kids generally avoided the videos, and preferred to just work through the exercises. (http://fm.typepad.com/files/lessons-learned-from-a-blended-learning-pilot4.pdf)
What’s most useful about the videos is the way they integrate into the rest of the system and are organized. Otherwise, I think you could probably find a better explanation for any given issue on YouTube.
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Agreed, Mr. Shepherd. The videos are not supposed to be a replacement for a teacher. They are supposed to be used by teachers (and parents, possibly) with their students.
This is a rich, fascinating discussion about how some teachers are using these videos.
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Hi, Diane
Your post is interesting, but it seems that you have been misinformed about two really critical pieces of the puzzle. I’ll see if I can succinctly give you a better picture of what is happening in Idaho.
1. Khan Academy and the project that is taking place in Idaho has very little to do with the video portions of Khan Academy. The focus on the “video” in this post tells me that you probably don’t really understand the true Khan Academy website. The videos are only a tiny portion of the learning process. A student can go deeper still by mastering skills, and then even deeper yet when they work with a coach or several coaches (teachers).
2. The Idaho project is a pilot that is being researched. Schools applied to be considered in this pilot project. If an application came to the judges that suggested that the teacher was going to simply show Khan Academy Videos, their application was denied. The plans needed be carefully thought out and applicants needed to understand the role of the teacher and the administration and the role played by technology.
3. The Idaho project is a research project. There isn’t much value in talking for or against something that we haven’t examined carefully. I would suggest that you wait until the end of the 2013-2014 school year and see what the data tells us.
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You seem to know a lot about Khan. What protects the information that’s being used for research? Is Khan doing this as a school official or authorized representative or allowable under FERPA as research?
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So, you’re saying that behind the videos there’s a layer of internet-delivered tutoring…right ? if yes, where’s the novelty ?
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There’s no novelty in a teacher instructing students step by step on a math concept. That’s how many of us learned math when we were kids. THe problem is, Progressive educators now think it’s best for kids to INQUIRE their way through math class. DUMB DUMB DUMB
Or…let them “construct” their own knowledge. (Constructivism) Sadly many schools went along with this nonsense and the kids suffered.
All schools have to do is go back to teaching and reject the inquiry approach when it comes to math and science.
OR…you can continue following this path of failure and watch as more teachers lose their jobs.
This was a set up for failure brought to you by the Progressive Educators who think social justice Ed is more important than academic excellence. And yes..that includes not only instruction, but memorization too (gasp)
Why continue to let these people set teachers and students UP for failure?
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MOMwithABrain,
I have no doubt that mathematics curriculum creates the most controversy. Have you read a mathematician’s lament? It can be found here: http://www.maa.org/devlin/lockhartslament.pdf
If you have time, I would be interested I your reaction to the essay.
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MOMwithAbrain,
I think you should take some time to look over the findings of Physics Education Research (PER) over the past few decades before you dismiss inquiry or constructivist pedagogy as DUMB, DUMB, DUMB.
Nothing fuzzy or feel-good about this at all. And it’s not done on a few classrooms here or there–we’re talking thousands of students. This is real research done by teaching physicists with extremely solid, quantified results and it shows that even the very best traditional lecture-driven, teacher-centered physics teaching fails to produce anywhere near the conceptual gains seen with student-centered, inquiry-driven methods. And the kids test scores on traditional assessments are higher, to boot.
I spent most of my career as a traditionalist until I could no longer ignore the preponderance of data against it. In the last few years, since I began doing inquiry, I have seen the effects first-hand. My weak students now understand physics more deeply than my strongest used to. More importantly, they are acquiring a method of investigation that will serve them for the rest of their lives, no matter what field they end up in.
Inquiry methods are the pathway to the academic excellence you want. Memorization isn’t. The more data comes in, the clearer this becomes.
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Teaching Economist wrote in response to a response to this post of the stirring “Mathematician’s Lament” by Paul Lockhart. I encourage anyone who believes in lockstep standards-driven education education for all schoolchildren to read Lockhart’s profound, important piece, here:
Click to access lockhartslament.pdf
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With all due respect, Eric, I would find your comments far more persuasive if they were accompanied by your last name and an explanation of how you’ve come to be able to speak authoritatively about not only the purpose and process this pilot program, but also about the selection procedures it employs.
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If the Khan videos are free, why is Alberson’s paying 1.5 million for them?
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From the article linked in Diane’s post:
“The statewide pilot received $1.5 million for training, technology, technical assistance and assessment from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation.”
The Albertson Foundation has given over $500 million to Idaho schools over the years, but for the past few years its efforts have been devoted to promoting some of the worst initiatives and legislation ever to don the mantle of “education reform,” most notably in the run-up to the November 2012 elections. Throughout 2012 the Foundation published monthly full-color, multipage supplements in all the major print media in Idaho, touting the benefits of reform efforts, documenting the so-called “failure” of Idaho schools, and casting a suspicious eye upon the teachers union, the Idaho Education Association. (Idaho is a right-to-work state.) Joe Scott, an early investor in K12, Inc., heir to the Albertson fortune, and the current chair of the Foundation’s board of directors donated $200,000 to Idaho Voters for Education in an attempt to save the Luna Laws from repeal. Idaho Voters for Education presented itself as the “voice of Idaho parents,” but after a lawsuit filed by the Idaho Secretary of State forced it to reveal its donors, turned out to be a group of fewer than two dozen hedge-fund manager, venture capitalists, and billionaire social engineers, including NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who donated $250,000.
They threw their money away; the Luna Laws were repealed by large margins at the polls. Diane has written about them here before:
“The Luna Laws imposed a mandate for online courses for high school graduates (a favorite of candidates funded by technology companies), made test scores the measure of teacher quality, provided bonuses for teachers whose students got higher scores, removed all teacher rights, eliminated anything resembling tenure or seniority, turned teachers into at-will employees, and squashed the teachers’ unions.”
To get out the reformers’ message, the Albertson Foundation created the ED SESSIONS, monthly talks by “national thought leaders on education reform,” now in its second year. The Foundation isn’t particularly interested in thought leader opposed to market-driven, for-profit education reform; past speakers include Salman Khan, Sir Ken Robinson, Marguerite Roza, Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform, and Andy Smarick of Bellwether Education Partners. Coming up, Kristoffer Haines, VP at Rocketship Education and Rick Ogston, founder of Arizona charter school Carpe Diem, to talk about “no-excuse schools.” In addition, the foundation recently launched a web site and radio/tv ads to promote its initiative “Don’t Fail Idaho,” the latest of the Foundation’s many efforts to dominate the conversation about school reform under the guise of fostering and promoting discussion. In short, the Albertson Foundation is anti-union, pro-charter, and apparently determined to spend a metric boatload of money to get its way.
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I’m not being negative just to be negative. But, I’ve never thought much of the Kahn academy videos. They aren’t that clear and the student doesn’t get the chance to interact. I’ve seen better stuff that was already created by teachers.
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As a free internet resource, Khan Academy is a terrific addition to the world. For review, for extra help, it’s great to have it out there. Some of the question types are more fun to work in the Khan Academy system than on paper. I am glad it exists.
As a solution to the nation’s education problems, it is way oversold.
I played with it while my daughter was home sick from school. We worked some of the problems from worksheets her teacher sent home, and we practiced some on Khan Academy.
The word problems provided by Houghton-Mifflin were far more sophisticated and varied. The matching Khan Academy unit had 3 distinct word problems (you needed to get 10 correct in a row to pass) that just plugged in different numeric values. That was a useful exercise, in teaching my daughter how to see the important part of the problem, but in terms of teaching her to do word problems with the concept, it was significantly less rigorous than the traditional curriculum.
The questions that require substantial calculations that cannot be worked in your head require pencil and paper – there’s no usable scratch calculation interface – and those are pretty tedious to do in Khan Academy, even for me (and I’m proficient in math).
Much of the issues with it can be solved with time and money. Time and money to write more problems and make better videos. Time to create more interactive exercises and demos. I cheer those efforts – it’s a good thing.
But as a substitute for what we do now? No.
This is an interesting writeup of a summer project to use Khan for algebra remediation. I think it does a really good job of discussing the strengths and weaknesses when used with kids. I thought it was especially interesting (and 100% true to my anecdotal experience) that the kids didn’t want to watch the videos – that they worked out other ways of getting the content when they needed help.
Click to access lessons-learned-from-a-blended-learning-pilot4.pdf
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This is a data nightmare. What protects the data collected? Is Khan Academy a school official? Were parents notified as such if so? Where’s FERPA in the picture? I don’t think it is. And if it is & allows these disclosures as school officials or authorized representative — this is JUST THE BEGINNING.
Education is spiraling downward into muck.
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Sol Khan is a good tutor, not a great teacher.
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Well if the public schools didn’t use lousy programs, Khan wouldn’t be needed. Teachers who want a career should have been fighting against the dumbed down fuzzy math programs they’ve been using. Now the Govt. has to fix the problem they created by drafting fuzzy math standards and by the PRogressives in the schools of ed that pushed Constructivist math.
Of course they are going to go to Khan. He teaches real math.
The problem occurred when the public schools decided to abandon real math for the fuzzy nonsense they call math.
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Except Khan doesn’t teach real math. He teaches how to solve math problems. There is a difference.
And if you are talking about the Common Core State Standards when you say “the Govt. has to fix the problem…by drafting fuzzy math standards” I’m guessing you have not seen these standards. I’m not a huge fan of the CCSS’s, and I would have some negative words to use when describing them, but “fuzzy” and “dumbed down” would not be among them.
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The videos are good. The real issue is what teachers do in the classroom after the students have watched the videos. In the flipped classroom style, students watch the videos to get the basic concepts and then practice and work in groups in class to deepen their knowledge and discuss the topics. The videos on their own are a nice collection of knowledge, just like an encyclopedia.
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Just popping back in to share/highlight these two reports from educators who have actually tried integrating the Khan Academy’s resources into their classrooms, probably in a similar way to what will will be happening in Idaho.
This from their first pilot, in los altos:
http://lasdilearn.blogspot.com/2012/09/los-altos-school-district-khan-academy.html
And this somewhat more formal report on a 5 week summer program for high schoolers which was also shared by other commenters here:
Click to access lessons-learned-from-a-blended-learning-pilot4.pdf
My very short summary of both of them is they are not that enthusiastic about the video lectures, but found that the site as a whole worked well for their classrooms.
I do believe that your headline about “videos” perpetuated a misconception about what Khan academy is all about, and how it is/could be used in schools – the video lectures are really not the main thing.
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Lasker, thanks for sharing this information. I thought the report on the 5 week summer program for high school students was especially impressive. Here are some of the comments that impressed me:
.”Will Blended Learning Replace the Teacher?
Many have questioned what the new role of the teacher will be in a blended learning classroom. Some have even gone as far as to claim that teachers will not be needed once students have access to all the information in the world at their fingertips.
We have a strong opinion on this front. Excellent blended learning still depends deeply on quality teachers. In our experience, the teacher still plays a very important role in: (1)
Fostering a class culture of hard work and persistence, (2) Monitoring students throughout the period for motivation and learning, (3) Intervening to personalize instruction when data shows
that students are struggling, and (4)Building personal relationships of trust and caring.We believe most teachers will come to prefer the new roles in blended learning classrooms
.
We know few teachers who would not welcome less grading
and more individual/small group time. By reducing some of the
drudgery of teaching, we freethe teacher to be more of an artisan
who designs fewer but higher quality lessons, targets mini lessons to serve the exact needs of their individual students, and intervenes and questions rather than lectures and disseminates
.
As one educator put it, “I see the potential of blended learning
to turnthe teacher back into Socrates.”
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I have an issue with Khan video’s level. The videos are definitely high quality, but the problem is that they aren’t targetted to a particular grade strand. This leads to problems because many teachers don’t take that into account when they assign the video. As an AP Biology teacher, I many times find that the video is written at too high a level for my students or since the person isn’t a content expert, they emphasize things I don’t feel are as important. Instead, I assign these videos as reinforcement.
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As I understand “It from bit” was an expression by Wheeler suggesting that bits of information are the basis of everything. I would suggest that we could consider education as made up of info-bits and human-bits. Khan Academy type endeavors are OK for learning info-bits but not of much help in transferring human-bits. Human-bits are only effectively imparted directly from human to human. Info-bits involved in education are expanding at dizzying pace, and in my view this makes human to human interactions (teachers) more important to help sort out that information that is valuable to each individual.
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The content of the videos basically teach procedures and mechanics of doing a problem. Essentially the knowledge level of bloom’s taxonomy. Not much better than using a math text book to teach yourself.
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Well, until public ed goes back to teaching basic skills in math, I suspect we will see more of this. In every town in NH that uses fuzzy math, the tutoring centers are full. One way or another, the parents who can afford it, will find ways to make sure their kids are not falling through the cracks. Khan offers this to parents.
If schools would go back to teaching the basics instead of trying to skip it, I suspect there would be NO NEED for Khan.
The best way to make the teaching profession obsolete? FUZZY MATH
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I have spent some time perusing the math content in the Khan Academy videos. My take is that it consists of a collection of isolated math ideas or procedures, and I don’t come close to seeing it as a well constructed curriculum.
That being said, I have recommended some of the videos on my Homework Hotline. The advantage is that the student is likely to be viewing the 10-15 minute video in an environment than is far less distracting than a classroom where there are multiple intrusions on one’s attention.
They cannot, however, provide the discourse that builds and extends understanding in a math classroom, nor the feedback, and error analysis that a professional educator, familiar with common misconceptions, developmental readiness, and the learning process, employs in every lesson.
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I don’t think they have looked into Opened.io yet then.
You might want to look at how useful this site would be for those who need to learn using the common core standards using videos.
It’s free and in private beta for now.
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Yes, I do use the Khan Academy videos. And…I teach in Idaho. The videos are a talking blackboard. Some students like them. Others are totally put off. What is sad is that the media in Idaho suggests that the videos are a curriculum. In fact, one local TV personality gushed “You could get your entire education from these.”.
My take? The videos are another tool that educators can use to extend their reach. However, I do take the time to vett the material AND I always link the approproate video to my course materials.
It is just plain sad when non-educators continue to promote something for what it is not.
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