I find this a little uncharitable. I learned a lot of math at a young age from Sal Khan's early videos (back when he used to erase by switching to a black pen and scribbling across the entire screen) and, to put it in the author's terms, it served as an easy-to-digest scaffolding on top of which to build a deeper understanding. I don't think Khanacademy ever sold itself as a magic learning resource that removes the need to work out problems yourself.
I don't agree and the hype surrounding his efforts was something much greater than what KahnAcademy actually is (a very useful resource).
He sold his vision in "The One World Schoolhouse" which was essentially global learning via all the best videos (and one unified curriculum) you can make and teachers effectively being technicians/teaching assistants. It was the vision that utopian minded technologists craved in the early aughts.
OTOH creating neural connections takes time. It's a real distance. Small for us, but great for the cells. That's why explaining difficult concepts too fast, while cool for people getting things instantly, is not good for general population.
My intention is that the idea behind Khanacademy is to switch the classroom -- learn a topic as homework; do the questions in the classroom. That way the teacher can assess (and help) the students.
The other idea is that a student only advances to the next topic once they've mastered the current topic (e.g. by getting 4/5 questions right). The theory behind this is that if you don't understand a concept/topic then it is harder to understand topics that depend on that.
This does mean that students will be at different topics/stages. But because of the structure of the teaching a teacher isn't moving on to a new topic leaving students to fall further and further behind.
Is the article about something else than how math on Khan Academy was thaught?
I remember minimal videos (3-13 min, usually 5-8), and then exercises drilling the techniques until you understand it and don't make mistakes. If you got a perfect score (no mistakes whatsoever), you went a little faster.
That's learning by doing, or am I wrong?
Or are there no exercises for things other than math?
The article starts by talking about how interactive learning with Khanmingo failed, and then goes into depth about how watching videos isn’t enough. That’s disappointing. Khanmingo should be superior to passively watching a video because you can interactively dig deeper just like the author says is necessary.
Overall, I do agree with the thesis but:
> Now… how does Sal Khan want my kid to learn?
> Watch a video.
I find this a little uncharitable. I learned a lot of math at a young age from Sal Khan's early videos (back when he used to erase by switching to a black pen and scribbling across the entire screen) and, to put it in the author's terms, it served as an easy-to-digest scaffolding on top of which to build a deeper understanding. I don't think Khanacademy ever sold itself as a magic learning resource that removes the need to work out problems yourself.
I don't agree and the hype surrounding his efforts was something much greater than what KahnAcademy actually is (a very useful resource).
He sold his vision in "The One World Schoolhouse" which was essentially global learning via all the best videos (and one unified curriculum) you can make and teachers effectively being technicians/teaching assistants. It was the vision that utopian minded technologists craved in the early aughts.
Side note, but much as I like Khan Academy overall, I've always struggled with Sal's slow and repetitive speaking style in the videos.
"Now you add the five ... [pause] ... add the five ... add the five to the seven ... to the seven..."
Running them at 1.5 - 2x helps a bit, but it's still annoying to the point that I find it very distracting.
OTOH creating neural connections takes time. It's a real distance. Small for us, but great for the cells. That's why explaining difficult concepts too fast, while cool for people getting things instantly, is not good for general population.
My intention is that the idea behind Khanacademy is to switch the classroom -- learn a topic as homework; do the questions in the classroom. That way the teacher can assess (and help) the students.
The other idea is that a student only advances to the next topic once they've mastered the current topic (e.g. by getting 4/5 questions right). The theory behind this is that if you don't understand a concept/topic then it is harder to understand topics that depend on that.
This does mean that students will be at different topics/stages. But because of the structure of the teaching a teacher isn't moving on to a new topic leaving students to fall further and further behind.
Is the article about something else than how math on Khan Academy was thaught?
I remember minimal videos (3-13 min, usually 5-8), and then exercises drilling the techniques until you understand it and don't make mistakes. If you got a perfect score (no mistakes whatsoever), you went a little faster.
That's learning by doing, or am I wrong? Or are there no exercises for things other than math?
The article starts by talking about how interactive learning with Khanmingo failed, and then goes into depth about how watching videos isn’t enough. That’s disappointing. Khanmingo should be superior to passively watching a video because you can interactively dig deeper just like the author says is necessary.
That article is spot on: we learn by doing and experience, not being told the high level outcomes (which is not without value as a guide).