The Khan Academy

I have been following the Khan Academy and the work of Salman Khan for a few years now.  He has created over 2200 maths videos and thousands more activities and games to help young people and adults to learn about maths.  He stresses that the Academy is not providing a curriculum but rather, learning resources that allow people to scaffold their learning based on a knowledge map of mathematics.  The videos are free to watch and you don’t have to register to watch them.  Khan thought that the videos might appeal to people who were motivated to learn about math, were looking for supplementary learning, or were homeschooled.  Instead the videos have had widespread use by people who have struggled to learn maths while at school.

Initially I thought of these videos as another way of delivering a lecture and I didn’t see them as particularly interactive, however, I was wrong.  The videos are accompanied by an online forum where people check their understanding of what they have learned and ask questions.  Responses are provided by other learners or watchers in real time.   There are also lots of adaptive activities, games and formative assessment tools that learners can access. In his 2011 presentation for the TED forum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk , Kahn describes learners using these videos in ways that put the control in their hands, making this a clear example of Web 2.0 technology.  For example with the videos, he talks about learners pausing and replaying concepts to give them time to review and check anything they don’t understand, going back to earlier videos to review concepts without the embarrassment of asking their tutor, avoiding interruption by the tutor while a student is still concentrating on understanding a new idea, and letting students work in at a time and location that is comfortable - at their own pace and without time limits. 

Khan describes what teachers have called “flipping the classroom” where students watch the videos for homework and then practice using what they have learned in the classroom. This supports peer interaction and helps position a tutor (in a classroom) as providing individualised coaching for students rather than as a ‘one size fits all’ presenter.

Khan has found that the videos have been used by children and adults. 

Having reviewed some of the videos, I think that while they are strong on maths content, they are fairly weak on providing context, or how the maths concepts being taught might apply in the real world or be transferred.  Context is particularly important for adult learners who are often learning maths for wider reasons, such as managing a budget or training for a qualification.  That said, maths is the one subject where people seem more comfortable with learning decontextualised skills and knowledge and transferring these to real situations (although, this is still a challenge).  It is also possible that the Khan material is well aligned with the school assessment system and as such, the testing of decontextualised skills and knowledge is the context. 

Daniel Rezac, a reviewer from edreach, is one of the few public commentators who has identified some limitations with the Kahn videos and activities.  http://edreach.us/2011/03/15/khan-academy-great-idea-with-one-glaring-hole/ .  In particular he thinks that the videos are boring, and that is a there isn’t enough teaching of concepts (especially in the new Khan Application), “The Khan Academy is not teaching concepts and ideas. Khan Academy teaches answers. 1 + 1 = 2. The concepts and the ideas are really what we want our students to understand, not the rote knowledge. We need a good teacher to facilitate the discussion of what the concept of numbers can be.” (p.1).  Rezac does support the idea of online math lessons as it gives students access to their teacher's thinking anytime and anywhere, however, he wants to see more teachers developing their own online resources.  In considering the success of the Khan Academy he states that the “ Khan Academy is a symptom of a teaching profession where too many teachers are too shy or too old-school to jump into the publishing world.” (p.2). 

The popularity of the Khan Academy is huge (over 1 million students per month watch over 200,000 videos a day). He has tapped into a desire and need from learners for improved maths teaching opportunities and the flexibility and reach provided by the internet.  While this popularity may reflect a huge need for flexible, accessable online maths instruction, it may also reflect an absence of choice. At the same time, I congratulate Khan for pioneering an approach that many learners have found enjoyable and that I think will encourage teachers and learners to make wider use of Web 2.0 opportunities.

Here are a couple of Khan videos if you haven’t seen them before:

http://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/multiplication-division/v/basic-multiplication

http://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/addition-subtraction/v/subtraction-3---introduction-to-borrowing-or-regrouping