The Khan Academy: I told you so – teaching is easy!

Elliot: Did you read the article about the Khan Academy in Wired Magazine?
Cathie: Yes; about a thousand colleagues sent me the link!
Elliot: The Khan academy has clearly touched a nerve.
Cathie: Yes, and it worth analyzing why.
Elliot: I think first and foremost Khan is appealing to deeply-rooted belief in America that teaching is actually easy ….
Cathie: … and as one placard at a rally in Wisconsin said: “You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage.”
Elliot: The Khan Academy clearly demonstrates that all one has to do is put out a bunch of engaging videos and bingo kids will watch them and learn. See, teaching is a snap; I told you so.
Cathie: The Wired article reports on two schools – Santa Rita Elementary and Egan Junior High, both in Los Altos, CA – that are successfully using the Khan Academy videos.
Elliot: Yes and the free & reduced lunch rate in each of these schools is 4%. On the webpage with that info, if you hit the button “show homes in the area around the school” you will see homes that range in price from $900,000 to $4,000,000.
Cathie:  Santa Rita Elementary is a “California Distinguished School” and has been designated as a “National Blue Ribbon School.” These schools are not your typical schools; these schools are not the troubled schools that one reads about.
Elliot: Using these already successful schools – and communities with parents who care deeply about education for their children to illustrate the value of the Khan Academy is a huge mistake. But apparently, Clive Thompson, the article’s author and the editorial staff of Wired Magazine can’t see the mistake.
Cathie: Showing that an innovation…
Elliot: … Khan Academy is not an innovation…
Cathie: … relax, relax… showing that an innovation works in a district like Los Altos illustrates how little the author and Wired editors understand education and the challenges facing America’s school system.
Elliot: Whatever ever happened to SBR – scientifically-based research? Remember how vociferously George W’s administration argued that education was riddled with bad research – “research” of the sort described in the Wired article.
Cathie:  Picky, Picky, Picky! John Doer, ace venture capitalist and Bill Gates, ace everything support the Khan Academy – that’s all the “research” that is needed to tie down millions of grant dollars. Who needs SBR when we have the word of John and Bill.
Elliot: And don’t forget John’s wife, Ann; she supports the Khan Academy, too.
Cathie: I stand corrected; thank you.
Elliot: The Wired article talked about how the Khan Academy with its video archive is “flipping” school – instead of the teacher lecturing during class, the kids watch the lecture (aka Khan videos) at home. Having the students watch the videos at home frees up teachers during class to work one-on-one with students who are having problems.
Cathie: How many kids in Detroit, Houston, New York City, etc., etc., do homework? How many will voluntarily listen to lectures – video or otherwise – at home, after school?
Elliot:  Since approximately  49%  of urban kids don’t have an internet computer at home, for starters, we are losing at least half the potential watchers.
Cathie: And for the half that have an internet-connected computer, what percentage will choose to watch a video on long division over a music video – at home???
Elliot: Well, the model works well in Los Altos schools!
Cathie: But Los Altos schools already have a successful educational model. What value added is Khan?
Elliot: Wired didn’t ask that question. Wired was just happy to give America some good news about education. And what a great story: Here is one young person, turning his back on making (more) money on the stock market and devoting his life to helping people of all ages learn. WOW!
Cathie: And by implication…
Elliot: …. With a few more Khan’s and a few more Khan Academies, we can dump the bad, overpaid teachers, and lickety-split, we can fix America’s schools.
Cathie: Absolutely! Education is really easy; just show the kids some videos, have them practice over and over – and over and over again with free software and America’s educational crisis is no more.
Elliot: BLECH!! Articles – such as the Wired one - that fawn over educational non-innovations serve only to distract us from the real problems and challenges in America’s schools…

Comments

[Dan Spencer]

Elliot,
You've made some fantastic points on the wrong way some may use content videos in education. Poor teaching is not miraculously fixed by a simply plopping a kid in front of a computer screen or handing her a smartphone. It's not about the technology (as you've pointed out), it's about learning. It's about leveraging the technology to make learning personal and engaging. Please take a look at these blog posts that attempt to explain how content videos can be used the right way:

Khan and Beyond: The Many Faces of the Flipped Classroom
http://edublog.techsmith.com/2011/09/the-flipped-classroom---what-it-is-what-it-isnt.html

Flip Instruction: Questions that Must Be Addressed
http://flipteaching.com

- Dan

[Bill]

You all need to read this: http://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/10243685407/impact-from-using-khan-academy

You clearly made false assumptions about Los Altos and the results. The biggest gains they saw were in a group of students that were struggling in math.

[Matt Glickman]

With all of the raves about Khan Academy, it's great to hear experts such as yourselves reflect on its limitations.

At the same time, it makes me very curious to know whether either of you see ANYthing of interest in Khan Academy. At the least, Mr. Khan's style in presenting technical material has really surprised some non-trivial population in its accessibility. Do you find anything to take away here for application to the greater challenges you are focused on?

[Elliot Soloway]

Cahtie and I were going to do another blog that addresses your question, Dan, but since you asked...

EVERY single textbook publisher has the SAME software (and most of the videos) that the Khan folks put out... drill and practice for math, dashboard (well, some don't have that one yet), etc.

So, as you ask, why has Khan caught on? We think it has to do with TRANSPARENCY and EMPOWERMENT. The textbook folks and the schools have tacitly conspired to keep education INSIDE school, inside the classroom. But what Khan has done so brilliantly is make education available OUTSIDE the classroom. Parents say: hey, this is great, my kids can watch a video and do the drill software and learn.

Ahh, excuse me, but that same software is available at school and Math Blasters has been around for years. Parents are empowered, finally, by Khan, to help their kids. Why haven't the textbook people exposed their materials to parents? Because... because in the past, that's the way it was done.

Now, we feel transparency works for teachers as well. To gain access to Khan is 2-4 mouseclicks away. No big deal. But getting access to exactly the same materials from a textbook company.. well, that takes considerable energy if those materials aren't already being used.

The textbook companies must be sitting there totally befuddled. They are asking themsevles the same question you are asking, Dan: hey, how come Khan gets so much credit for coming up with short videos that didactically teach stuff when we have been doing virtually the same thing for years!

Transparency. Empowerment. That's the secret behind Khan Academy's success.

One more thing: Khan is a remarkable teacher. His videos do a great job of telling students how to do stuff. Khan is a natural. Frankly, few people are as good as Khan; he is a gifted teacher who has that knack.