Yes, Sal Khan has done a wonderful thing to benefit the children.  He is a God send.

Really? Is the future of teaching one where kids sit and stare at a video clip where they can’t stop and ask questions and can’t interact with their peers? We want to return to lecture-style learning?

Education research just doesn’t support this. A good teacher will introduce topics in a way that all students are interacting, questioning, and developing their knowledge. Every sentence and question will be carefully tailored to the students’ understanding based on what they’ve said before. Explanations will frequently pause while students work together to make their ideas concrete.

Khan Academy is a nice resource, but it really is just a bunch of video clips. It is certainly not the panacea for a better education.

http://www.informededucation.com

Mr. Weston, the research you cited is probably correct; however, have you looked at the bad curricula, texts, and poor teacher training?  If the above didn’t exist, I would agree with you, but nowadays children are starved for clear instruction and the basics, and the Khan Academy is providing it.

Interesting claims:
“poor teacher training”
“bad curricula”
“nowadays children are starved for clear instruction and the basics”

What’s your evidence for that? Most balanced reports I’ve read have refuted any suggestion that there is a crisis in education. Standards of teaching and learning have been gradually rising, albeit not at the pace of some other countries. I should add that I’m a teacher in the UK, although I follow the international education debates.

Mr. Weson, why don’t you do more research, rather than dumping it on my lap?  The easiest way is to read through the blogs.  There’s plenty of evidence.  That’s the purpose of this blog.  To educate.

Even the “What we believe” on this website suggests that international comparisons show Canadian students either as near the top internationally (PISA) or middle of the pack (TIMMS). How does this show that children are starved for clear instruction and the basics? In fact over in the UK the government hold up Canada as one of the models which they hope to emulate (rightly or not).

See, I’ve done my research… but I’d be interested to read your sources of evidence as I do believe in reading things that don’t agree with my current stance. I’m happy to find them and read them if you can give me a clue at least.

This is the second time you’ve asked, and the second time I’ll answer: then please read this blog.  ‘Nuff said. Let’s move forward.

Mr. Weston, I am a parent with a child that has been and diagnosed with LD, and now SLD. The education system still lives in the dark ages when it comes to LD, but at the very least they could do, is have better identifying labels, that actually would inform teachers what is the cognitive and learning problems.

That said, “Education research just doesn’t support this. A good teacher will introduce topics in a way that all students are interacting, questioning, and developing their knowledge. Every sentence and question will be carefully tailored to the students’ understanding based on what they’ve said before. Explanations will frequently pause while students work together to make their ideas concrete.”

In what classroom does that happen?  In what classroom, under the current system that all students can equally engaged and take part in all aspects of learning a concept, without any of them failing to grasped the essentials?

In my eyes, it does not exist giving the evidence of the many experiences re-teaching the lessons of the day at home. The Kahn Academy would have been a God-sent if it existed back when my child was in the early grades. Mastery, is something that the public education dismisses as unimportant, but mastery is the only key to achievement and reaching the full potential of all students.

As indicated in the stats, how many LD students go on to post-secondary?  In Ontario, 2.26 % of the LD students do so, according to the Ontario government stats. Most if not all LD learning problems can be corrected, but not in the way that is being done in today’s public education system, by dumbing down the work. Seen too much of that, concerning my child, and the emotional havoc caused by such practices.

Khan Academy, is doing just that, for millions of students around the world. Reaching mastery, of key concepts and basic knowledge needed to do higher advance work. Mr, Weston sneers at watching just a video, because it would hurt his consultant business in a big way.

“An education data consultancy offering training, analysis, and advice” to schools, boards and teachers.
http://www.informededucation.com/

All based on the current practices of the public education system, including reflective teaching practices.  Khan Academy, would put a dent into his business, but self-paced learning is not generally a practice that is in heavy use within the pubic education system. Nor is mastery, clear instruction, basic and essential foundation knowledge, needed to create equality in an inclusive classroom.

Kudos, Nancy, because as usual, well said!

My questions are as follows:

1) who’s REALLY teaching the students?

2) if the tutorials are doing the job why do we need classroom teachers?

3) are the teachers really just facilitating the learning being rec’d via the techniques used in the tutorials?

Perhaps is educators had been educated on the finer points of direct instruction the tutorials wouldn’t be necessary?

Students can plug in to the tutorials from anywhere - home, vacation, the mall.

With the biggest threat to classroom teachers being on-line learning and newer technologies these questions are going to have to be answered AND offered as a choice to students, parents and teachers.

The fastest growing high school in Ontario is an on-line school in the unlikely town of Bayfield Ontario. It’s private but it’s working because the program is made to fit the student.

Odd that schools are inviting the competition into their classrooms because direct learning like the tutorials is in fact another choice for students.

Please folks, let’s not have another online discussion degenerate into ad hominem attacks.  Mr. Weston is presenting a particular point of view that many of us don’t agree with, but it doesn’t help to question his motives.  It’s done to us all the time (we’re accused of wanting to “privatize public education”) and we shouldn’t do it to our adversaries because it distracts from the issues being discussed.
That said, I would like to respond to Mr. Weston’s points.  I agree with Nancy that the highly individualized classroom that he describes isn’t a reality for the vast majority of teachers and students simply it’s impractical: it would require hours of preparation time for each hour taught.
Secondly, the Khan Academy approach will never replace all in-class learning—for example, I think it would be a mistake to try to use video tutorials to teach English literature.  But for many mathematics and science topics it WILL (I use that word because I believe this development is inevitable) become a very effective way to introduce topics and provide exercises that develop and CONFIRM mastery—an area that Sal Kahn skewers with a wonderful analogy in the TED video that is a huge weakness of our public schools today.
I believe at least a third of the students in our schools could learn mathematics very effectively without any interaction with their teachers, another third with some interaction with the teachers, e.g. when doing homework, and another third with more significant one-on-one support.  (No I don’t have any research to back this up, but I would love someone to launch a project starting in J-K to prove me wrong or right! Maybe Bill Gates already has.)
Regarding students interacting with their peers, Syed really doesn’t need to know how Sarah in the next desk feels about solving simultaneous equations, but he probably would appreciate hearing her thoughts about Kurt Vonnegut’s motives in writing Slaughterhouse Five.  It’s all about matching the instructional technique to the subject matter and because it can be “automated”  using online tutorials, the degree of individualization available to the student in this manner is spectacularly greater than what an over-extended teacher can accomplish in the classroom.

Virtual High School - teachers, parents and students love it.

https://www.virtualhighschool.com/

On-line learning IS in fact replacing traditional classroom learning for those who wish to choose it.

Many public schools now also offer on-line alternatives.

It’s an interesting discussion, and I’m glad to see people engage. It might just be that the UK education system is doing a bit better with students who have learning difficulties, I know the school that I teach at does unusually well with students who have, for example, an autistic spectrum disorder.

Nancy, I’m sorry to hear your child isn’t getting the education that he or she deserves, and I completely agree that mastery is important. It is tough to watch your child lose confidence as they are pulled from one topic to the next without really understanding what is happening.

However, many students think they may have achieved mastery after watching a video, filling in a worksheet, or other low-level activities. It is only when they are progressing on to other topics, and trying to work out the links between them that they realise that some of their concepts are hazy. Research in to learning shows us that it is repeated, deep-level challenges to these concepts that really create powerful learning experiences.

John, it is entirely possible to do what I suggested without any extra preparation. In fact I have found that I am now able to spend more time on assessing students’ work and less time attempting to create differentiated resources for every student. All I need to do is come up with a key question and a few thoughts about how to get students to explore it. Much easier than “chalk and talk” lectures! The method I propose is fully supported by scientific literature (see John Hattie) and has been shown to have an effect size of almost one whole grade improvement after a few years of teaching. If you weren’t over the other side of ‘the pond’ I’d invite you to come and see it in action.

There’s no doubt that we need to teach our students to be more independent learners, and videos on the internet are an excellent resource for that. However, learning happens fastest when you engineer the right level of uncertainty and encourage students to clarify their own thinking.

One way of doing this is, for example, drawing up a large Venn diagram with two similar-but-different concepts and asking students to discuss a list of statements to decide where each one should go on the diagram. They work in small groups with the teacher walking around and occasionally challenging what is going on, asking challenging questions, and encouraging them to learn from each other. In the small groups this allows students to gain confidence - it works particularly well in mixed ability groups (including groups with students with learning difficulties). Back to the whole-class teaching and students are asked to contribute to the discussion on the main board, using their ideas. They have to explain their choices, challenge and articulate any disagreements, and come to a conclusion. The skilful teacher prompts occasionally with more questions, before getting students to summarise.

I might use Khan Academy as a homework after this lesson to reinforce the learning, or maybe as a prompt to ask students to create their own materials to explain the topic and come up with their own questions. Multiple choice questions won’t ever confirm mastery, but asking students to create presentations to explain the subtleties of the topic, create tests for other students, and argue with each other over the merits of different ideas is more likely to.

Websites will eventually start getting better at this. In fact I’ve been (voluntarily) working with a fantastic new UK-based company who are trying to mix the best of Khan Academy with some of the best research about learning to let students have many of the best features of the classroom without having to be there physically. I’d very much welcome this development, it can’t come soon enough.

Otherwise my consultancy is all about enabling students to access knowledge more successfully, to teach new teachers how to ensure every child in their classroom progresses, and to enable schools to monitor this carefully so that no student, no matter what their learning need, falls behind without extra support being provided.

Don’t get me wrong, Khan Academy is an interesting idea, and has potential to help, but it isn’t a new educational panacea.

John, wonderfully stated. As a small example, self-paced learning, has been important for my child. Khan Academy and other like instruction, was important to learn the essentials prior to the classroom. She could than actively participate in the classroom,keep up with the class, and more importantly the teacher was better able to zero in on a learning snag of my child. Self-paced learning, works very good with math, or at least with my youngest, dealing with new concepts that she has not been exposed to. A little difficult in dealing with English, but for math and science, fairly easy to obtain the essentials, learned the material, and do the homework with ease in the classroom. Khan Academy, is very good at breaking the essentials down to its individual parts, keeping the videos short and to the point, making mastery of the essentials the main outcome.

Mr. Weston, I undertook the search, to find where you teach at the present time. Put it this way, anyone, including myself would have thought they have gone to an alternative world, to have a school like that for our children.

http://www.watfordboys.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=7

Not to mentioned the backing and support of Oxford University, and teachers who themselves are from the Oxford crowd. Well-trained teachers that know something about the learning and cognitive part of learning, as well as the importance of mastery.

That said, your comment, “Otherwise my consultancy is all about enabling students to access knowledge more successfully, to teach new teachers how to ensure every child in their classroom progresses, and to enable schools to monitor this carefully so that no student, no matter what their learning need, falls behind without extra support being provided”

The trouble is at least from my viewpoint, is what boils down to good teaching practices, pedagogy, and to place interventions when students are struggling. The school that you teach in, based on the web site, is a good school for my child. Probably be no problem in correcting her learning weaknesses, and placing the correct remediation in place. But in the public education system, my child becomes the hard to teach as some educators have described the ordinary garden variety type of mild dyslexia.

Your school represents a model where the child is place first, rather than the current models in North America, where the students must adapt to the curriculum, instruction methods, and their pedagogy.  My child, and she is not alone are forced to adapt, rather than the school adapting to the needs of the students.

My son has used the Khan academy videos to teach himself new math material.

First, the progression in which new concepts are presented in the videos is excellent and they are extremely clear in my opinion.
Also, I understand that the Khan academy collects statistics about how well the videos teach and sometimes replaces the videos on a topic with ones they think may work better then collect statistics again.

Secondly, the practice session insure that a concept is thoroughly mastered before leting you pass. This again is excellent in my opinion because there is a huge difference between beginning to understand a concept and mastering it.
By mastery I mean being able to use the concept correctly, automatically, without having to significantly slow down your thinking.

I am an engineer.

Yes, a teacher with good mastery of math and good communication and class management skills may be as good or better than the videos.

Unfortunately, the math skills of most elementary teachers in Canada are sorely lacking to the point where they avoid teaching math.
Since up to middle school in most schools the same elementary teacher teaches all the subjects there are situations where the teachers choose to devote more time to other subjects they feel more comfortable with at the expense of math.

So, in realistic terms, in my opinion, very few elementary teachers in Canada are skilled enough to have such clear presentations as in the Khan Academy videos.

@Mr. Weston:

““Otherwise my consultancy is all about enabling students to access knowledge more successfully, to teach new teachers how to ensure every child in their classroom progresses, and to enable schools to monitor this carefully so that no student, no matter what their learning need, falls behind without extra support being provided.”
=======================

You have access to data refuting the principle behind using Mr. Khan’s videos.  Do you have any empirical proof that your consulting results in any significant and enduring gains?

To quote a forgotten source: “It’s not what you do, it’s what you get/what gets done.”

You object in principle to the identified use of the Khan material described here.  How do you know it’s NOT producing any significant and enduring gains?

If my son’s high school law class could screen “Monty Python’s Holy Grail” as an educational tool, then surely there is room for Mr. Khan’s material.

@Mr. Sing;

“Perhaps is educators had been educated on the finer points of direct instruction the tutorials wouldn’t be necessary?”
=====================

How about giving these teachers credit for recognizing the difference between what they know and what they don’t know; between what they’ve been “trained” to do and what works and students are willing and able to comply with; between the demands of “curriculum” and real knowledge/learning.  Congratulations to them for having the courage and conviction to recognize the situation for their students is inadequate, and for doing something about it.

Always change a losing game.

Not to mention the risk of being identified as “unorthodox” and “unprofessional” and receiving a reprimand, a transfer or a layoff.

From the students’ comments on Khan’s youtube lessons, they seem to be benefiting.  I’m not surprised, as it’s clear direct instruction. 
I’d be very interested in seeing Mr. Weston’s empirical evidence for his consulting work.

Something else, Mr. Khan knows his subject matter very well; unlike teachers in Ontario, who can teach up to and including grade 10 with zero expertise in the subject—another reason why our children don’t do so well…

There are several concerns I have with students using Khan Academy videos for delivery of instruction.

(1) Lectures are inefficient. Learning does not happen via the transmission model, i.e., teaching is telling and learning is listening (“sit and get”). In the story, the students view the lectures at their own pace and the classroom teachers doesn’t have to lecture any more. But the students are still being lectured, instead now from Salman Khan.  Study after study shows that lecturing is a very inefficient form of teaching, whether live and in-person by a dynamic lecturer (like Walter Lewin, a physics professor from MIT) or on video when students have the opportunity to pause/rewind/fast forward. In Walter Lewin’s case, when his dynamic lectures did not change declining attendance in class or reduce the failure rate, MIT (Khan’s alma mater) changed to a more interactive approach called TEAL. I wrote more on Walter Lewin here: (http://bit.ly/MITpseudoteaching) In the case of video lectures, they barely changed student misconceptions in science. Guest blogger Derek Muller wrote about his PhD thesis on the effectiveness of video lectures here: (http://bit.ly/KhanEffectiveness)

(2) Khan’s lectures are frequently incorrect, poorly planned, reinforce student misconceptions, and have minimal concept development. They are not “world class” but rather typical of a first-year teacher. He does not use a lot of the multiple representations that are fundamental for deep learning. Teachers improve their lessons by reading up on pedagogy and getting feedback from mentors & students. Where is Khan’s feedback? Where’s the pedagogy? The learning research that Khan chooses to ignore is summarized in this one book, now available as a free PDF: “How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom” (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10126)

(3) Khan’s lectures promote mechanics and algorithms (how to get the right answer) rather than understanding (why that’s the way to get the right answer). Rather than instructing students how to get the right answer with Khan’s videos, teachers should be inspiring them to figure things out on their own and learn how to create their own knowledge by working together. For example, instead of relying on lectures and textbooks, Modeling Instruction in emphasizes active student construction of conceptual and mathematical models in an interactive learning community. Students are engaged with simple scenarios to learn to model the physical world. Watch one Modeling class in action here: (http://bit.ly/ModelingPhysics) . In the clip, the teacher says, “I don’t lecture at all. Instead, I create experiences for the students either in the lab or puzzles and problems for them to solve and it’s up to them to try to figure that out.” In comparison to traditional instruction, Modeling is extremely effective — under expert modeling instruction high school students average more than two standard deviations higher on a standard instrument for assessing conceptual understanding of physics.

While Khan Academy can be a resource for some students (like other internet videos, websites, and textbooks), they should not the primary mode of delivery of new content. You can read more of my critical view of Khan Academy here: (http://bit.ly/khancritic) I also link to several other blogger with similar sentiments.

Pseudo-teaching?  Khan Academy and its videos addresses the gaps in students’ knowledge.

On your site Frank - “My educational philosophy is that students learn best when they are actively engaged in physics through activities such as reading, discussing, experimenting, and solving problems. My role is to create more experiences in which my students construct their own understanding of physics and how our universe works. I use a mixture of low-tech and high-tech in class — whichever is pedagogically appropriate. I am a proponent of Modeling Instruction, the Matter and Interactions curriculum, and Standards-Based Grading.”

How do you addressed the gaps in your students’ knowledge?  Or does it not represent a problem in the high school that you teach at?  Perhaps not, seeing that the school’s web site. http://jjhs.klschools.org/

Modeling instruction does it not require a teacher that has deep knowledge of subject material, and good students, who have strong foundational base of knowledge? 

Or is it OK to have students at many different levels of knowledge, even though some students have great difficulties in participating in class, because of their weak foundation?

Below is a video link, from your web site, that has Khan talking about why he got into the business of tutoring his cousins in the first place. It is a common reason with many, especially parents, to addressed the learning gaps in the foundations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJFKE8kyz7w&feature=player_embedded

I think that the physics teacher doth protest too much over direct explicit teaching on the foundation knowledge needed to do any advance work.

Mr.Frank, coming from a physics teacher - please correct me if I am wrong - I find your point of view stunning.

Re-reading your post I’m wondering what kind of students you have in mind and what you assume about their previous knowledge and motivation.

If someone already has a solid math background, some of Khan’s videos may look not deep enough. However, if one has a solid math background they don’t need Khan academy.
If you have students that are already highly intelligent, with no gaps in their knowledge and motivated almost any method of teaching them would work.

If however you happen to be an average north-american student, who tends to give up at the smallest difficulty, who has gaps in their background knowledge then the only way you have a chance is if somebody explains things to you step by step in a clear manner so that you can concentrate on and practice only one thing at a time.

I would argue that even if you are a very intelligent student, with no gaps Khan academy is one of the most effective ways of learning a new math concept. Most young students up to grade 10 and a majority of adults do not have the analytical capacity to take a blob of new information and to break it down into its categories and then figure out and teach themselves the underlying principles.
Most people 98% are not Feymann; and if you read Feymann’s biography teaching himself math using the textbooks of his time (which were much different then today’s textbooks) and not figuring out math from scratch on his own from real problems when he was in high school.

If I immerse somebody who doesn’t have a firm grasp of basic math into a “real” problem about figuring let’s say the performance of an investment portofolio made up of a variety of investment instruments that person is not going to figure out the math by themselves only because it is a “real” problem. Being exposed to a large amount of new information without having enough background knowledge they either freeze and turn away or they try to guess around using the most superficial clues.

I’ve read the “How Students Learn”.
Very interesting and the examples about applying conceptual understanding are very real.

Quoting from the article
“Thus, the issue is not whether to emphasize facts or “big ideas” (conceptual knowledge); both are needed. Memory of factual knowledge is enhanced by conceptual knowledge, and conceptual knowledge is clarified as it is used to help organize constellations of important details. Teaching for understanding, then, requires that the core concepts such as adaptation that organize the knowledge of experts also organize instruction. This does not mean that that factual knowledge now typically taught, such as the characteristics of fish, birds, and mammals, must be replaced. Rather, that factual information is given new meaning and a new organization in memory because those features are seen as adaptive characteristics.”

The problem in Ontario in my opinion is that the factual knowledge is not taught. One cannot get to the “big ideas” without the factual knowledge.

Khan Academy in my opinion gives at least the factual knowledge. We may argue whether or not it provides more than that or not; that’s a different discussion.
But when students need the factual knowledge and they don’t get it in school there’s no way they can get to the deep conceptual understanding we all desire as the end result.

Every student that I have encountered has some gaps somewhere it is very obvious in the physics classroom. I have taught all kinds of students from elementary to high school. The issue here is pedagogy. How we go about instructing students. Education like all professions has some really bad teachers and most elementary teachers are not science teachers. They do there best but get things wrong. So the kids I have in the classroom (some I have taught before) walk in on a rather level “gappy” playing field. Modeling builds up from the ground floor. Then take you to the top. You are doing it you are developing your knowledge. You are engaged because you are in the middle of it. This is best practices. Has anyone read Marzano, Bloom, or vogotsky?  Higher order thinking skills are a must in life. Knowledge based instruction while necessary should not be the end. Good enough for any child is never good enough especially for someone who is learning disabled like me. Sure I have a masters in education and a genius level IQ but I have gaps too. The issue I have with Kahn is the he is wrong on many of his videos. You can watch the wrong stuff over and over but it is still wrong. Kahn will get you through a course and maybe a standardized test but why should we settle for that. I want all my students to do better than that. They deserve it. Check your research see who is doing it and funding it. Check there methods. There is some shady stuff out there. The best I have found is modeling (taught correctly). Kahn can give my kids a fish and they will pass a state test. I will teach my kids to fish and prepare them for life.

“Higher order thinking skills are a must in life. Knowledge based instruction while necessary should not be the end. Good enough for any child is never good enough especially for someone who is learning disabled like me. Sure I have a masters in education and a genius level IQ but I have gaps too.”

Ken, being dyslexia, as well as my youngest child, I understand very well the need for children with learning disabilities, to acquired a deeper and richer knowledge that goes beyond the knowledge based instruction. But to get to the higher order thinking skills, one still needs the background knowledge to stand on. A firm foundation to fall back down on to reorganized, relearn or fill in the gaps of knowledge and a bag full of learning strategies for the trip up to the top.

Using your analogy, of taking students to the top from the ground floor, I picture modeling where students and the teacher are inside an elevator. In this image, I see the students with the gaps not inside the elevator car, but inside the elevator shaft trying to figure out a way, to get inside the elevator.

I would suggest that the kind of higher order thinking skills that modeling is trying to bring out, needs to be taught directly and explicitly. Or otherwise, there will always be students hanging inside the elevator shaft, trying to get into the elevator car. And without mastery of the lower thinking skills, it is that much harder and difficult for some,  for students to used their higher order thinking skills.

Khan Academy, does provide the mastery of the lower thinking skills, or background knowledge in short clear videos, that engages the cognitive aspects of the brain. Whereas,  Marzano, Bloom, or Vogotsky theories the student is seen as the one who is responsible for their learning processes, and the teacher as the guide.

“Marzano’s model of thinking skills incorporates a wider range of factors that affect how students think and provides a more research-based theory to help teachers improve their students’ thinking.

Marzano’s New Taxonomy is made up of three systems and the Knowledge Domain, all of which are important for thinking and learning. The three systems are the Self-System, the Metacognitive System, and the Cognitive System. When faced with the option of starting a new task, the Self-System decides whether to continue the current behavior or engage in the new activity; the Metacognitive System sets goals and keeps track of how well they are being achieved; the Cognitive System processes all the necessary information, and the Knowledge Domain provides the content.”
http://download.intel.com/education/Common/in/Resources/DEP/skills/Marzano.pdf

Perfect for the perfect student, whose cognitive functions are all in perfect running order. The average student, on the other hand are the students hanging out in the elevator shaft, trying to get into the elevator car. They are in need of Khan Academy, and any other direct instruction that facilitates mastery, and making the connections between lower and higher thinking skills.

You missed my point that many videos have the wrong information. The goal that I achieve in my class is to have the elevator big enough for all to get in. Kahn does from WW2 to present in 10 minutes. There is no knowledge base there. Plus, he jumps around I rewrote my timeline about 6 times before I gave up. The average student does not exist. All students have different needs. I live in a world where every student has an IEP tailored to them. Kahn would not be a bad resource if he was giving correct information. He said in his latest blog that he sees a need for project based learning where his (inaccurate) video would be supplemental video to help along the way. I just done see his push for PBL in practice. Suplemental videos are not bad. I use Hewitt’s Conceptual Physics with most units. It is a good simple accurate video series. The key is that it is accurate. The down side is that it is $1200. I also tutor before and after school and give up my lunch time to work with students. The most frequent flyers in tutoring are my AP and IB students. One of my top students is dyslexic. I am not sure if he will get an academic or sports scholarship. His parents and I hope both. We discussed this a few weeks ago as we were walking around the track at school during football practice. I am constantly working with well informed parents like you. I wish there were more like you in my school. I am glad that you feel you have found something that works but I suggest you find a more accurate resource in physics.

Ken, not too many teachers like you in Canada. I am making the assumption that you are an American, with the advantage of having an well-equipped school. Another assumption, since spending $1200 for Hewitt’s Conceptual Physics would be out of the question at a typical Canadian high school.

That said, my interest is Khan Academy, is the math series for grades K to 12. As for the sciences, I have used it from time to time as a means to answered questions posed by my youngest. It is easier, than reading the textbook, combing through pages, that may or may not have the answers. As for history, I can understand why a 10 minute video would not be sufficient for WWII, let alone any period or era of history. But the math videos are an excellent resource for the nuts and bolts of math. The very thing that my youngest has trouble with, due to her learning problems.

The math videos demonstrates the how-tos, that sometimes are poorly done in the classroom, or not at all appropriate for my child. Since high school, the math videos have become important to me as well, because I am no longer dealing with arithmetic, but in advance mathematics. Mathematics that I have had little use for in the last 40 years of my life.

Now my youngest was the kid that was always hanging around in the shaft, up to grade 10. She finally received a bridge to the elevator car, by allowing her to do things her way, and not necessarily the way it is being taught in the classroom. Remember the commercial, “Mikey will eat anything”?  Well for my youngest, “Go to DD, she does everything differently, and still gets the right answer.”  Well she does everything differently, because she has a firm foundation in math. She needed the mastery first in the foundations, before deep conceptual understanding took place.

The math curriculum of elementary school, does not allow for mastery of any aspect of math. Skimming through fractions, will only weaken a student’s future ability to do pre-algebra and advance algebra with ease. Nor does the curriculum and the typical instruction methods, make room for the kids hanging inside the shaft. Instead, they are labeled with all kinds of labels, but few ever received the mastery needed to move from one level of mastery to the next, in a systematic orderly method.

When my child was 4 1/2 years old, the JK teacher reported to me that she was having trouble with the concept zero. That night, the stars shinning upon us, as we walking to the store, she pointed to a star. She said, that is where all the numbers end and begin in heaven, and zero begins it all for both numbers. I asked her what do you mean by both numbers?  She look at me as though it was so obvious, the plus numbers come down to earth and the negative numbers go in the opposite direction. And both numbers go on forever, with zero being the boss.

That came from a child of 4 1/2 years old, already experiencing trouble in some aspects of learning, but by grade 1, was labeled rather than going to the bother of finding out why she was experiencing reading, writing and numeracy problems. By the end of grade 3, with the shining label of LD, I was informed that she would be at the very best be a C student in math. As for me, I reported to the JK teacher, what my youngest said to me about zero, and it was the first time the JK teacher have ever heard of a child expanding the zero concept to include positive and negative numbers. And we now understood, why she could not understand why zero represents nothing, because in her thinking, zero represents all numbers. Since than, I been fighting the battle to get my youngest out of the shaft, and ensuring she has a strong foundation in the 3 Rs.

My child, and other children, need to have mastery first, before conceptual understanding takes place. Modeling instruction, may be a perfect method in advance high school classes, but how appropriate is it in the lower grades?

I would say extremely important. I do live in Texas. While the is a Dr Ken Jarrell who has the Jarrell Institute in Canada there is unfortunately no relation that I can find. . Your child would have been identified very early in my district and we would put together and independent education plan based on her gaps and provide time, if needed, out of her classroom working on needs based assistance. Sometimes that is a computer others it is a small group sometimes it is one-on-one with a specialist. As for my experience in teaching math, social studies and science I the elementary, I used all kinds of tools including our bodies to transfer big concepts to something that has meaning. Plus, you take your body into the state test and my kids have there study aid with them. Not answers written on them but making mental ties to a motion. I have a six year old and a three year old. My son who is six knows force diagrams and how buoyancy force and gravity interact. Sure he describes it as winning and losing and not net force but he has the concept. He uses his body in the swimming pool and explained it to me 4 weeks after I was having him explain physics in a video I was making to review my kids. I was not trying to teach him I was just having my kids explain physics concepts while we were filling up an above ground pool. We talked about pressure, force, and area. We talked about flow rate of water coming out of the hose. We talked about floating. We also were dying Easter eggs and I had them talk about visible light, frequency and such. Because we were doing thinks and working with concrete items the concept stuck. I was a geography major for a while and took the basic class from the head of the dept. I sat from row center. He was amazing. He offered a field trip to Colorado for students. I took it. I saw everything stood in and on things. The rest of the year he would explain to the class something then look at me and say “Ken remember when we stood and looked here?  That is what this feature is”. I understood so much more because I experienced it. That is the goal of modeling. Experiencing the concept from the inside, outside, sideways and upside down. It avoids the “one way” of doing math. You daughter would have her way. Her formulas, her thinking. That is what we would celebrate. And she would have the power and control of her learning. She would know because she has touched and experienced it.

Ken, she was obvious beginning in grade 1, showing most of the major signs of dyslexia. But at that time, my knowledge was not as deep as it is today.

By explaining modeling differently by using the everyday situations in one’s life, I now see your point. When I was re-teaching, or trying to get my child to understand, I used the very same techniques as you did with your sons. Especially in the areas of science, geography, social studies, where the actual experience of being there, touching it, a rich and deeper learning takes place, especially for the dyslexics. Although, my intentions were to show her that she was just as smart as the other children, to tone down the negative track inside her head repeating dumb over and over again. Now it has become part of the overall strategies and routine making connections to the foundation facts to something connected to her experiences and environment.

It is one way of overcoming cognitive deficits that do get in the way, and carving an alternative cognitive pathway. Or another way of looking at it, I can rarely take the route of going from point A to point B in my brain, and where my route is from point A to point C, back to point B and than across to point D. I see myself as a square, whereas my youngest, is a triangle most of the time. Ditto when remember key facts for an exam, I do it with a square and my child does it with a triangle.

Even the best, have cognitive weaknesses and strengths. None of us are perfect learners, but a firm foundation should be in place first, to reduce the frustration in trying to understand a concept through modeling instruction. Isn’t that what parents do in the first place, trying to get their 3 year old to understand, by modeling instruction?  So why can’t we have both types of instruction in our schools, instead of the busy curriculum of disconnected facts, where it is left up to the child to make the connections. Unless one has a excellent teacher…....

And I heard more good things than bad things about Texas and how dyslexics are treated,  by other LD parents living in Texas. In fact, I sometimes wish I was living in United States, and not in Canada, where dyslexia is a dirty word still, and not mentioned in the provincial education ministries. But there has been progressed on that front, where some LD children, are now labeled specific learning disability. I had to fight for that one too, where my child became the only one to received that label for her IEP. 

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please understand that we don’t always get it right but we sure try. We do have some people who should not be in the classroom and take the easy road to the harm of kids. I live in a smallish town but we get compared to inner city schools like Dallas, Houston and such. We have kids that move schools constantly. Many single parent families or blended families since a parent is “out of town” for 3-5 years depending on behavior. Parents will rent hope to move across town where the rent is cheaper. It is sad but fewer and fewer parent work with their kids from a young age. We get blank pages to fill. Or what is taught is sooo far from true. Teachers can get it wrong too. I was in a masters class with a friend who thought making kool-aid was a chemical change because of the color change. She has taught 12 years. 25 kids per class.  Scary right?  Texas also had some priorities wrong. We have a state budget of 638 billion over the next two years. 8 billion in cuts were needed for a balanced budget so 4 came from education and 4 from welfare benefits to children and the elderly.

I lived in a small rural coastal community, when we do have on the most part, good teachers with a strong set of knowledge of subject material, that will do things differently, when the board is not micro-managing them. If it is not that, it is to ensure compliance of outcomes of curriculum, and to make sure students are following the approved methods. The problem within the curriculum, especially in the math, can turned any parent into a pretzel trying to understand. For Pete’s sakes, it is K to grade 8 knowledge, why make it so difficult in language and methods,that makes it very difficult for a parent to help their child effectively.

Does anyone wonder why at the top of the education system, why math achievement is as dismal as it is?  When math textbooks are being written by people who do not have a background in math that can only be bad for students at the end. When parents like me, taking an axe to the math textbook, and rewriting it, reducing it down to the essential components and than re-teaching it to my child. All in the name so she could participate in class.  Than, I would get a lecture from the educrats, that what I was doing at home is doing more harm to my child’s learning. since it is unlikely it will raised her above a C. There is something wrong with a system, that allows the educrats to have the final say over the individual child’s education needs, but at the same time, prevent parents from actively taking part in so many ways. One of them is the curriculum, and where I too probably would fail grade one math if I was force to do it the new fuzzy math way.

I have been reading the economist pages on what they are doing for the world of education. Some pretty interesting things are being discovered, where truths thought to be true in education, are turning out to be false. Why parents behave as they do, and how education policy and government policies actually promotes the opposite behaviour of the intended goals of the policies.

Just something to chew on, because it makes sense to me.

“Economists obsess about what people do, and what’s missing is why people do it,” List says. “Field experiments tell you why people do it.”

Experiments conducted by List and his followers have the potential to shape public policy in everything from education to energy. While medical researchers have long used randomized, controlled trials to test drugs, only in recent decades have economists deployed them to answer questions about behavior.

List says that his experiments will give policy makers, executives and investors much greater certainty about why students, donors and shoppers make the decisions they do. “

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-23/chicago-economist-s-crazy-idea-for-education-wins-ken-griffin-s-backing.html

My comments about Khan videos were about math.

I can’t possibly understand how a student can choose the correct physics model- that is which parameters in the environment are important and which have negligible effect therefore they can be ignored - without having strong math foundation and having a knowledge of basic physics laws.

In order to correctly figure out which model, parts of models may apply you have to already know the math and the physic laws.

The problems with conceptual understanding of physics you describe are real but most students’ problems are waaaay more basic.

I’m also puzzled as to why you seem to think that conceptual understanding and knowing the math facts or the psysics laws are mutually exclusive!

Nobody here argues for rote learning or knowing the physics laws like a parrot but not knowing how to apply them!
How did you come to this conclusion, that knowing the physics laws makes somebody unable tounderstand how to apply them?

Another point I’d like to make: sure it is a different type of experience to learn things from books as opposed to seeing them or experiencing them.
On the other hand how many of us understand or learn from what we experience?

Does it matter how one learns? Being able to teach oneself from books used to be the mark of an educated person. That’s why Gutenberg and books are considered a revolution. If we say we are only able to learn things that we can see and touch then we are back to before books were invented!
Yes, for young kids is different. Being able to touch and feel helps a lot.

But if we are talking about college students or adults then that’s exactly what a good education should give you: the ability to learn from other people’s experiences, from books.

Really book learning and experience learning are both valid ways to learn.
Now I’m going to exaggerate ..
But if don’t experience a vulcanic eruption precludes me from “really understanding” how it happens?

Which Khan math or physics videos are incorrect?

This blog has been interesting to read.  The Khan Academy is doing a remarkable job helping students.  I’ve read of students stating,  for example, that they’ve been at sea in trigonometry for six mos, but after 30 minutes of clear, direct instruction on the Khan Academy website, that they were fine.  This is wonderful to hear, since I’ve heard of children who want to improve, but in the past had no where to go if their parents couldn’t afford tutoring and/or the parents didn’t understand a partifcular subject.  Again the poor suffer the most from a bad educational system.
I personally think that direct instruction, and drill in the basics—till the student knows the same like their own name—is second to none when teaching any subject.  With enough drill and repetition, the student will inevitably begin to understand the subject in depth.  Good text books are absolutely necessary, and I remember how toddlers absolutely love books. Little ones also insist that their books are read over and over ad nauseum!  Very small children’s actions seem to indicate that they know what modern educators insist is the wrong way to teach—repeat ad nauseum/drill and kill.  Their little minds want information firmly placed. 
Again, Mr. Khan has done an excellent job rescuing many students from a very bad educational system, and he’s not a trained teacher—he just cares enough about students to help!

Do you know what?  I was wrong:  drill in the basics isn’t second to none for eventual mastery of a subject; it’s absolutely necessary.

Three things you need to know to generate any physics equation: mass, length, and time. Oh, and you need to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.  Most of my students cannot take v=d/t and convert it to d=vt but have graphing skills that I can use to develop relationships.  As you gather that data any formula can be created.  It is about gathering data, finding a relationship, and creating a formula.  It is not complex.  Textbooks make it that way.  My first year teaching I gave every student a formula chart.  I did not want to hide anything from them.  At that point my students check out.  They had what they needed.  They “knew” the formula.  As we went outside and dropped tennis balls off the stadium and timed them. (distance and time data)  I assumed they would put that into a formula and solve for gravity.  I told them what to do, I assigned them the chapters, we had worked several problems, and watch a Paul Hewitt video on this exact thing.  He told them and showed them what to do.  I knew they knew what to do and it failed.  I failed them.  I did not apply the best and current research for teaching.  It is not about good teaching/learning.  It is about the best.  We are talking about the future of our world and you want to settle for good enough?  Shame on you.  There are three levels of “knowing.”  There is a valley in California called Death Valley.  It is hot there.  If you took US history and studied the western expansion you should have learned about how settlers died attempting to cross it.  General knowledge in the “colonies.”  Everyone “knows” Death Valley (level one).  On my phone I have a weather app.  I have Death Valley’s temperature on it.  It remindes me that there is always some place hotter.  I have factual data that shows Death Valley is hot.  115 degrees F is hot.  I “know” Death Valley is hot (second level).  A friend has driven across Death Valley.  He stopped in the middle of it where there is a landmark dedicated to the settlers.  He got out of his air conditioned car and felt how hot it really is.  He “knows” it is hot because he experienced it (Third level).  Who knows Death Valley is hot best.  My friend does.  Sure I know it is hot well enough to pass a test.  I know how a volcano works.  But, when my family hikes down into Mt. Capulin in New Mexico later this month we will have a better understanding.  Back before 1950ish all science classrooms looked just like any other classroom.  It had a teacher’s desk up front and student desks.  After Sputnik it all changed.  Science fairs were created to compensate for the lack of lab work and demonstration tables were installed.  Teachers went from talking about science to showing.  Understanding increased.  If you take me into a US school building, I can tell you how old it is by the science room design.  In the 1960’s the idea came about that if student learned better by seeing, I bet they can learn better but doing.  Student desks were replaced with lab tables.  Student’s understanding increase.  It ties to multiple intellegences.  Many people believe that the hands on stuff is great for children but wise high school students don’t need that.  It is a lie.  We all need that.  The University of Texas took the research that suggests that teachers usually give instruction the way they received it.  In college we were lectured so that is what happens in the teachers classroom.  I learned that way, so should everyone else, right?  UT has replaced their education physics course from a lecture hall of 300 to a lab room of 42.  Look at the inquiry methods that are coming out of Arizona state or Lillian McDermott at the Univ of Washington or at least David Hyerly (sp?) work or brain development and thinking maps.  Textbooks are not evil, they just don’t cut it.  That said Texas is not going to buy anymore physical textbooks.  We are going digital.  Textbooks online is the cost effective way.  On another note.  In the US we educate ALL students in the same building.  It is required to take four sciences to graduate in Texas.  We do not split out college bound students.  IB kids walk the same halls as everyone else.  We have to use best practices to reach all students.  NCLB is federal law.  No Circle Left Blank, I mean No Child Left Behind.  As for Kahn’s errors, I did not generate a list.  Forces needs work, there are many mistakes that I did my first year that were on some videos.  I have not watch all of them.  I read about them and was excited about this new resource then was very disappointed.  I remember thinking he did not tell the whole story, and had some half truths.  I would think, “well while that is true-ish, you left out ...”  I will have to go back when I have time and make a list.  I know that is a total dodge but I will be in training or gone for the next 42 days then I start training new teachers on technology and programs we use to start the new school year.  It will be a very short summer.

Let’s agree to disagre; I think every person has the right to his own opinions.

Unfortunately teachers have the right to impose them on other people’s kids on the parent’s tax money.

Mr Jarrell, I realize that you are a busy person and you wrote in a hurry, but personally, I would have expected a more structured argument from a teacher than a stream of consciousness writing.
If science teaching in US has become so good in the last 20 years, how come that in science, math and engineering programs foreign students or american born asian or east-indian students are a majority?

Again, I am not disputing your statements about problems with conceptual understanding. What I am saying is tha a lot of totally normal kids don’t even make it far enough to have these type of higher order problems in learning because they sorely lack the basics.

Most of my students cannot take v=d/t and convert it to d=vt but have graphing skills that I can use to develop relationships.

Huh? Excuse me, how are they every going to use their supposedly deep conceptual understanding of physics in the real world.

It would be quite funny if I went to my boss that told her that I don’t quite know how it works but there are some relationships in our data that I became aware of!

Mr. Jarrell, with all due respect, I was surprised that you would hand out the formulae charts to your new students.  Wouldn’t they be much better off memorizing?  This is why parents are unhappy with the teaching methods, and these methods do not produce competency.  (The U.S. in international testing seems to reflect this.)  you had also mentioned that children come to you at all different levels of understand the subject matter.  This is one of the problems that social promotion and a lack of proper testing will produce.  It creates a tremendous burden for teachers.  I can’t figure out why teachers aren’t railing against this.

I would like to know if you have done any videos on the Venn Diagram? I have learned so much from your videos in Algebra. I am a 62 year old college student now taking college math, but I am having problems coomprehending the Venn Diagram concept. First I think that I understand, and then I hit a wall.

Nadine, it is not on the Khan site, and it is the kind of thing that might not be on in the first place.

Wikipedia has a good explanation of Venn diagrams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

Lots of videos, but I only selected two. If not, you can search using Google.

http://www.ehow.com/video_4756700_do-venn-diagram-problems.html

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E45D736E9D6D3091

I respect Mr. Khan for his website and his learning videos. Unfortunately the Khan videos are low quality and contain mathematical errors. He is obviously not trained to be a teacher. I have tried watching several of his videos but I am intellectually offended by his amateur teaching approach. Although his videos may be providing some useful information, using them for a formal education is ridiculous.

Mr Khan is trying to help students, and it’s free, so he’s making a huge contribution—especially to the poor.  If there are errors, it would be prudent for people who see them to point them out, because, unlike education monopolies, Mr. Khan would be receptive