Grant To Allow Khan Academy To Expand, Build a Physical School 92
mayberry42 writes with this news snipped from Hack Education: "Khan Academy announced this morning that it has raised $5 million from the O'Sullivan Foundation (a foundation created by Irish engineer and investor Sean O'Sullivan). The money is earmarked for several initiatives: expanding the Khan Academy faculty, creating a content management system so that others can use the program's learning analytics system, and building an actual brick-and-mortar school, beginning with a summer camp program."
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I agree. I played all Khan lessons in my bedroom hoping that, as I slept, I'd have a grasp of all topics. I was not impressed at all. You have to pay attention, and even try to apply it if you really want to learn anything.
F. Would not try again.
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It's more than that, the more connections you have between facts the more likely they are to be retained. A good class will involve more than just one modality of involvement by the students, and online classes of any sort really haven't managed to master that yet. Khan probably being even worse as there's no possibility of meeting off line and the tests being somewhat less vigorous than normal.
I'm sure folks do learn from it, I just doubt very much that it's going to advance education much more than the en
Re:Khan Academy = math/science for dummies (Score:5, Insightful)
And the more a person (any person) actually uses what they learn, the greater their likelihood of retention. I took trigonometry last spring and now I'm taking pre-calc. I had to go back and review everything I had learned in trig (including re-memorizing those damned identities) because I had forgotten about half of it. Why? Because not once during the summer did I actually use anything I learned in the class. Algebra, on the other hand, is a different story. The concepts that are used repeatedly, ever semester, are the ones I remember without having to look up my notes
In my opinion, when it comes to math, it's not so important that I retain every single concept I learn, but rather, when such a problem arises later on, I recognize the problem and I have a general idea of how to solve it. If I have to look up a few formulas along the way, so be it.
As for the Khan Academy, the website has saved my ass a few times. It's one of the first places I turn when I'm struggling with something in my homework. It never has been a replacement for classroom attendance, but rather a really good supplement.
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Indeed, as a supplement, I think the Khan Academy is really useful. The way it's laid out really supports its use as a supplemental resource. But, it's not set up in a way that's going to replace anybody's classroom. Taking a quick look at the algebra section, there's a few lessons, but there isn't any obvious ordering to it, aside from not doing the part 2 lessons before the part 1 ones.
I would personally have to spend a substantial amount of time going through the lessons to decide the order and combinati
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The lessons change color as you qualify. (Score:2)
Grey means you haven't done the prerequisites. Green means that you have done the prerequisites. Blue means that you have mastered the lesson.
None of this works unless you get an account of course.
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Absolutely correct.
I used khan academy some time ago to freshen up my calculus and it worked pretty well. I don't think though that the result would be the same hadn't I taken the amount of notes I did, hadn't done the work after the videos or were walking into calculus withou having a clue about it.
Still it is a good step in the right direction. To make it really work they still need to keep a tight leash on observers and kind of force users to do exercises/homework otherwise the knowledge will dribble out
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On the note of forgetting about half of what you had learned, it reminds me of a pedagogy that I am a fan of: learn the underlying concepts and how to apply them, and you no longer have to "remember" because you "know." With your example, I cannot rattle off hardly any of the trig identities -- but I can derive all of them quite easily.
I think that this is a major issue with our education system when it comes to math: memorization. For example, in my daughter's math class, when going over exponent laws, the
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anything to the 0 power is 1. Why? Because that is the way it is; it is just one of those things we need to memorize.
Bad example.
x^0=1 for all x in R
is taken as an axiom. There is no reason behind it for the teacher to explain other than if we don't assume it to be true the consequences are mathematically horrifying. You can have an algebraic system were x^0 != 1, but it will be internally inconsistent. Since we like our math to be internally consistent (albeit incomplete, see Godel's incompleteness theorem), we go with x^0=1.
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Bad example.
x^0=1 for all x in R
is taken as an axiom.
also z^0=1 is true for all z in C (Complex numbers)
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On the note of forgetting about half of what you had learned, it reminds me of a pedagogy that I am a fan of: learn the underlying concepts and how to apply them, and you no longer have to "remember" because you "know." With your example, I cannot rattle off hardly any of the trig identities -- but I can derive all of them quite easily.
I think that this is a major issue with our education system when it comes to math: memorization. For example, in my daughter's math class, when going over exponent laws, the teacher said, "anything to the 0 power is 1. Why? Because that is the way it is; it is just one of those things we need to memorize." The same kids who learn this way find themselves in a math class a few years later and cant remember if it is 3^1 = 0 or 3^0 = 1. I wrote him showing how bloody easy it is to learn the correct way -- by looking at what exponents are (repeated multiplication) and that if we work backwards from 3^4, to 3^3, 3^2, we see that we are dividing by three each time, so it is easy to see why 3^0 has to be one. Better yet, this lets students understand why negative exponents are what they are. With this proper understanding, the student can re-derive the exponent laws anytime they may need them.
I completely agree with you that Khan is not a replacement. There is something to be said for us social beings being, you know, social when learning.
Some things are just easier if you memorize them though, times tables being the most obvious. It is extremely useful to know instantaneously that 9*7 is 63, rather than having to do the 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42. 49. 56, 63 thing in your head like they teach kids nowadays.
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Some things are just easier if you memorize them though, times tables being the most obvious. It is extremely useful to know instantaneously that 9*7 is 63, rather than having to do the 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42. 49. 56, 63 thing in your head like they teach kids nowadays.
Hmm... I simply did 3 * 7 is 21 and 3 times 21 is 63 - I did that as fast as anyone could do it by rote. Once I could see a pattern, I did not spend too much time rote learning. When others recited 1 * 4 is 4, 2 * 4 is 8 etc., i would simply add 4 to the last answer. I think I got a better idea of the number patterns than those who purely rote learnt.
Later I found I could not do subtractions like 13 - 5, until I developed my own conceptual way of handling it (a hybrid of visual and abstract thinking) -
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And the more a person (any person) actually uses what they learn, the greater their likelihood of retention.
Retention through repetition? You want this gem:
http://ankisrs.net/ [ankisrs.net]
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It doesn't replace a good textbook
I've never read a decent textbook that didn't require a teacher to actually teach the material. I think they're all written that way on purpose.
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I've never read a decent textbook that didn't require a teacher to actually teach the material
The trick is to also have the instructor's edition.
It's better to know some than none. (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish that average Americans would consider this sort of learning more seriously. While it isn't a full university degree by any means, at least it should help bring them up to the level that the rest of the world is at, in terms of education and knowledge.
Although I'm European, I do have to deal with typical Americans far more often than I'd like through my work. Virtually all of the Americans I deal with are working for large businesses, so perhaps they're even above average to some extent. However, in terms of knowledge, education and basic reasoning abilities, they are far below the comparable people I deal with in Europe and Asia.
Let me give you some examples. On at least eight occasions now I've had to deal with Americans who couldn't perform basic arithmetic. In these cases, they contacted us, complaining that we overbilled them. We take these complaints seriously, so we double-checked the accounting and everything added up according to our numbers. We asked the Americans for theirs, and they provided us with the same numbers we had. We double-checked their arithmetic, and they had made some errors with basic addition! Although we do far more business with European and Asian customers, we have never once had to field a similar complain from them.
I occasionally have to deal with these Americans by email. You wouldn't believe how atrocious their grasp of English is, including many who are native English speakers! Some of them, including high-level managers and executives, do not know about capitalization or punctuation. If it weren't for most email clients today having built-in spellchecking, I suspect that these emails would be rife with typos, too. I have never seen this when emailing European or Asian customers in English, however. Even the lowest-level employees there often have impeccable written English skills. It has gotten to the point that I can reliably tell where a customer is located based on the body of the email alone, considering only whether or not capitalization and punctuation are used.
I don't dislike these Americans, but it's clear that they are below the rest of the world when it comes to education. I wish that they would better consider opportunities like this. Even if they don't attain the level of education and knowledge that the rest of the world has, any elevation whatsoever would be beneficial for all of us.
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You need to sign up. (Score:2)
There are plenty of quizzes, a directed graph to help you pick the next topic, great hinting when you get stuck, silly awards for different types of progress, the ability to create student-teacher account associations ("coach" feature), etc.
Of course, lesson one is that you need to lie about your birthdate if you are under 13. This is because nobody under 13 is allowed to use the Internet, including Khan Academy. Unfortunately you need subtraction to do this, but I'll help you just this once: say you were b
And all... (Score:5, Funny)
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That presupposes that the Khan Academy is an acceptable replacement for a traditional school, which it isn't.
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Yet. With a $5 million grant, I imagine they'll be quite a bit closer.
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It's $5m in grant money, that's really not that much, even for a small school. It might last them a couple years, but even that's doubtful, it costs a lot of money to start a school and I doubt that will hold them over for a year or two.
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That's 431 million Pakistani rupees. It's going to go a very long way.
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That implies that we don't know how to teach most students, which really does requires some evidence to support. I've yet to see a set of tests that are used for that purpose that have any real world validity. Shanghai just beat out every other set of students in the world, they did it by doing homework 7 days a week and being in school 12 hours on weekdays. Yes, they outscored everybody else, but it isn't just a matter of the raw scores, there's opportunity costs that come from spending that much time in c
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To be fair, Khan Academy doesn't teach kids how to do tons of busy work on subjects they are proficient in while they wait for slower kids to catch up, and it doesn't teach kids how to fake knowing a subject because they are slower than the rest of the group and the group is moving forward whether they get it or not. So there is that aspect of it that Khan Academy isn't a replacement for traditional school. Oh, and the fact that parents
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I'm very disappointed that this wasn't the first post, but am pleased to see it here nonetheless ;)
brick-and-mortar seems counterproductive (Score:5, Insightful)
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Perhaps to continue to develop and test subject matter and methodologies?
A few guesses ... (Score:2)
A few posible reasons:
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I think money for buildings should be spent on creating more content.
KA's biggest strength is that it is online, ie, easily accessible, content easily creatable, no barriers to entry accept internet. Videos should be downloadable....and this will solve that issue.
I don't mind his teaching methods but some of his language may be too advanced for for younger kids....so money should be spent on creating more suitable content for a wider range of topics. Not just for the reason I mentioned but there is only so
Re:brick-and-mortar seems counterproductive (Score:5, Interesting)
I would also hate to see KA opened up to the general public for content. Our education system is a self feeding monster that would likely get it's fingers involved and break KA. Better would be for Kahn to hand pick some individuals to help create new content.
I do agree that one of KA's big strengths is that it is online and is largely barrier free. A brick an mortar school is more likely to drag KA down to the level of other schools than it is to raise up KA to a new level.
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A brick an mortar school is more likely to drag KA down to the level of other schools than it is to raise up KA to a new level.
Agreed. At first I thought, "if they want to build a building it should be a center for housing content producers." Then I realized - if they can't have their content producers working effective remotely, then they're missing what needs to be done for their core audience.
Even if it were decided that Khan and any instructors he employs each need five support staff members, those sh
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"One of the reasons KA is so successful and kids like him is that he doesn't talk down to them"
KA is a great leap forward in education, and one of it's greatest strenghts is Salman Khans ability, as you rightly identify, to create a good connection with his audience; to not talk down to them, and to explain base concepts that other teachers would assume were a given. KA needs to be acutely aware that this is one of it's core strengths, and to find other teachers who also possess this admirable quality.
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2) The biggest barrier to entry is actually having a computer and the electricity to power it.
3) As TFA says, the school they're building is at least partially designed to get a feel for how schools SHOULD integ
The beauty of this is (Score:2)
one could just do meta-Kahn academy.
Wrap each lesson up into a primer, where that "advanced language" is broken down to basic terms. Core material can then be leveraged in multiple ways where people who do see it differently, or who can expand on what is there are free to do so.
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Can someone figure out why they need to actually build their own place? I just don't see how it fits with their strengths...
I think that's just it. It expands their strengths.
First: Fund Methods That Have Evidence They Work (Score:5, Informative)
At least in physics there is a HUGE body of evidence that telling is basically not teaching, be it lectures or videos. That is, one must confront student misconceptions and more generally understand how people learn. We don't learn deeply by watching. Seriously, what elite athlete learned by watching and listening?
Try out these links:
"Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos" https://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/khan-academy-and-the-effectiveness-of-science-videos/ [wordpress.com]
"Improved Learning in a Large Enrollment Physics Class" http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/SEI_research/index.html [cwsei.ubc.ca]
"Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?" http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/Wieman-Change_Sept-Oct_2007.pdf [cwsei.ubc.ca] (the author is both a Nobel Laureate and a U.S. University Professor of the Year; he's currently Deputy Science Adviser to the President for science education)
It is a sad commentary that methods that have rigorously been shown to work, like http://modeling.asu.edu/ [asu.edu] , could really use more funding when Khan gets such funding on just the publicity.
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The ASU page you linked lists 10s of millions of dollars of NSF grants. I think it is ago if a private individual wants to grant money to a school to do the same thing.
Your post indicates you did not even bother to read the slash dot summary. If you had, you would realize this grant is about doing, not telling. It has nothing at all to do with lecture videos.
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That's broadly true of most areas of education. For instance, language classes need to hit four domains with most lessons to be most effective. That is to say reading, writing, listening and speaking, the problem being that a site like the Khan Acadamy isn't going to be well suited to the writing and speaking components, and be very heavy on the reading and listening components. One can still learn like that, but it's a much slower process.
To an extent that applies to other subjects as well, you'd be surpri
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This video and scores does not include the feedback loop of the course exercises. The feedback of the coursework is where the pre-conceptions are corrected. Reviewing a vid can be a moment of discovery when you find a preconception is false.
I am taking some lessons. I am learning. Additional videos from other sources are great reinforcement of learned concepts. I recommend the Physics for Future Presidents.
http://physics.berkeley.edu/academics/Courses/physics10/teaching/Physics10/PffP.html [berkeley.edu]
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Projects like Modeling, http://modeling.asu.edu/ [asu.edu] , are designed to ferret out misconceptions. They're typically deeply entrenched and you really have to address them head-on in really thoughtful ways. When you do, deep learning may then occur. Watching videos, not designed to ferret our misconceptions, isn't nearly as likely to do this.
This is totally anecdotal, but I've heard of reports of modeling instructors getting pressured to use Khan's videos. The former has sound pedagogy and tons of research behind
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I don't think the strength of Khan academy (or any other video-based educational programs) is as a replacement for more traditional education, but rather as a supplement. Khan gives students additional instruction about whatever their interested when they need it. For instance, a student struggling to understand the concept of limits whilst completing a pre-Calculus assignment at 8 pm is not able to get further explanation from their primary instructor at that moment. They can, however, go to the Khan ac
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It has to be said: (Score:1)
New Paradigm (Score:1)
The system that I envision, at least as far as math is concerned, is something that I dub "modular math" -- though, that term should not be confused with modulus. I think the curriculum should be broken up from arithmetic to calculus in models (sets, pods, mods, levels, whatever).
A student meats the material at their level, and progresses through each model. This allows a student to quickly move through material that is easier for them and to have the time required for material that is more difficult. I im
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Already there: sign of for Khan Academy, and you get a chart of topics ordered (as a directed graph) by prerequisite. Each topic provides a quiz to let you know if you are ready to move on, plus links to several videos in case you need help, and a wonderful hint system that shows you step-by-step how to do the problems.
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I actually wind up doing very little instruction. I spend most of my time motivating the children, making them actually watch the videos instead of talking to their friends, etc. The other major thing I do is just break down the problems for the children when they get daunted...when they see 739421-5478, they tend to lock up, so I will br
The problem with Mathematics... (Score:3)
Is not that kids are stupid, it is in the presentation.
Math as it is presented in most all schools is one of the driest subjects on the planet.
Yes there are kids who just get it but they are not the majority in point of fact they are a tiny minority.
I remember sitting through basic algebra and it was mind numbing ( this was in the early 70's ) and nothing was related to the real world, just the rules of algebra for weeks on end.
Even today with a 10 year old I am having to go back and re-learn math skills that have long since faded to someplace in the back of my brain so I can help my own kid with his homework. The Kahn Academy has been the best refresher course I have ever found.
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Another difference is that back then you were 15. Now you're in the your fifties, your hormones are no longer firing like crazy (I'm assuming you don't work for ESPN) and you've picked up a few things about how to learn from presentations and lectures.
Back when I was 15, I couldn't believe how dull the writings of Emerson were. Not any more.
Bricks and mortar school (Score:3)
I've always preffered bricks and mortar (and concrete) over wooden buildings.
Concrete? No thanks. (Score:1)
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i prefer buildings that are not made of fuel.
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Khan TED talk (Score:2)
Watch Mr. Khan's TEDtalk. Effing brilliant:
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html [ted.com]
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