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Kate Pok

The trouble with Khan Academy - Casting Out Nines - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 2 views

chronicle.com/...the-trouble-with-khan-academy

shared by Kate Pok on 25 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Let’s start with what Khan Academy is. Khan Academy is a collection of video lectures that give demonstrations of mechanical processes. When it comes to this purpose, KA videos are, on the average, pretty good. Sal Khan is the main reason; he is approachable and has a knack for making mechanical processes seem understandable. Of course, his videos are not perfect. He tends to ramble a lot and get sidetracked; he doesn’t use visuals as effectively as he could; he’s often sloppy and sometimes downright wrong with his math; and he sometimes omits topics from his subjects that really need to be there (LU decomposition in linear algebra, for example). But on balance, KA is a great resource for the niche in which it was designed to work: giving demonstrations of mechanical processes.
  • But let’s also be honest about what Khan Academy is not. Khan Academy is not a substitute for an actual course of study in mathematics. It is not a substitute for a live teacher. And it is not a coherent curriculum of study that engages students at all the cognitive levels at which they need to be engaged. It’s OK that it’s not these things. We don’t walk into a Mexican restaurant and fault it for not serving spaghetti. I don’t fault Khan Academy for not being a complete educational resource, because it wasn’t designed for that purpose. Again, Khan Academy is a great resource for the niche in which it was designed to work. But when you try to extend it out of that niche — as Bill Gates and others would very much like to do — all kinds of things go wrong.
  • When we say that someone has “learned” a subject, we typically mean that they have shown evidence of mastery not only of basic cognitive processes like factual recall and working mechanical exercises but also higher-level tasks like applying concepts to new problems and judging between two equivalent concepts. A student learning calculus, for instance, needs to demonstrate that s/he can do things like take derivatives of polynomials and use the Chain Rule. But if this is all they can demonstrate, then it’s stretching it to say that the student has “learned calculus”, because calculus is a lot more than just executing mechanical processes correctly and quickly. To say that it is not — that knowledge of calculus consists in the ability to perform algorithmic processes quickly and accurately — is to adopt an impoverished definition of the subject that renders a great intellectual pursuit into a collection of party tricks.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Even if the student can solve optimization or related rates problems just like the ones in the book and in the lecture — but doesn’t know how to start if the optimization or related rates problem does not match their template — then the student hasn’t really learned calculus. At that point, those “applied” problems are just more mechanical processes.
  • Khan Academy is great for learning about lots of different subjects. But it’s not really adequate for learning those subjects on a level that really makes a difference in the world. Learning at these levels requires more than watching videos (or lectures) and doing exercises. It takes hard work (by both the learner and the instructor), difficult assignments that get students to work at these higher levels, open channels of communication that do not just go one way, and above all a relationship between learner and instructor that engenders trust.
  • Kate Pok on 25 Jul 12
     
    All the reasons I like and don't like Khan Academy videos....
Chris Betcher

Google For Educators - 67 views

www.google.com/gta.html

google academy teacher education edtech GTA GCT

shared by Chris Betcher on 24 May 10 - Cached
  • Anne McCormack on 24 May 10
     
    Google Teachers Academy in London, July 2010
  • Chris Betcher on 12 Jan 11
     
    The Google Teacher Academy is a FREE professional development experience designed to help primary and secondary educators from around the globe get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, Academy participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other primary and secondary educators in their local region.
Judy Robison

Mobile Learning Academy | Verizon Corporate Responsibility - 34 views

responsibility.verizon.com/learning-academy

PD

shared by Judy Robison on 19 May 14 - No Cached
  • Judy Robison on 19 May 14
     
    "Verizon Foundation is launching the Verizon Mobile Learning Academy, a virtual, moderated professional development course offered to teams of educators for free. The course includes five modules developed around ISTE standards. Course modules are designed to help teachers, administrators and tech coaches implement effective mobile learning initiatives in their schools and classrooms. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be offered to teachers completing the Verizon Mobile Learning Academy course."
Randolph Hollingsworth

Robinson Center for Young Scholars » Univ of Washington's Early University En... - 11 views

depts.washington.edu/...about-us

dual credit accelerated program college

shared by Randolph Hollingsworth on 18 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Randolph Hollingsworth on 18 Mar 11
     
    If you are in 7th or 8th grade read more about the Early Entrance Program at the University of Washington, the premier early entrance program in the nation. If you are in 10th grade read more about the UW Academy for Young Scholars, the Robinson Center's early university entrance program for students offered in collaboration with the UW Honors Program. Summer Programs Do you want a fun and inspiring summer experience? If you are in 5th or 6th grade, learn more about Summer Challenge, the Robinson Center's summer program for students in elementary school. These hands-on classes provide multi-disciplinary learning experiences for three weeks during the summer on the UW-Seattle campus. If you are in 7th-10th grade learn more about Summer Stretch, the Robinson Center's summer program designed for students who want to learn a variety of subjects at an accelerated pace. Courses include math, humanities, science and writing, and are located on the UW-Seattle campus.
Marc Patton

STEM101.org - 4 views

www.stem101.org

Teacher_Resources Teaching_Ideas science Mathematics STEM

shared by Marc Patton on 25 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Marc Patton on 25 Jun 12
     
    The STEM Academy is a national non-profit status organization dedicated to improving STEM literacy for all students. We represent a recognized national next-generation high impact academic model. The practices, strategies, and programming are built upon a foundation of identified national best practices which are designed to improve under-represented minority and low-income student growth, close achievement gaps, decrease dropout rates, increase high school graduation rates and improve teacher and principal effectiveness.
Martin Burrett

Study shows students in 'active learning' classrooms learn more than they think - 18 views

ukedchat.com/...active-learning

active learning research

shared by Martin Burrett on 07 Sep 19 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 07 Sep 19
     
    "For decades, there has been evidence that classroom techniques designed to get students to participate in the learning process produces better educational outcomes at virtually all levels. And a new Harvard study suggests it may be important to let students know it. The study, published Sept. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that, though students felt as if they learned more through traditional lectures, they actually learned more when taking part in classrooms that employed so-called active-learning strategies."
Deb White Groebner

Education Week: Will We Ever Learn? - 37 views

www.edweek.org/...29lerman.h29.html

education education_reform standards NCLB

shared by Deb White Groebner on 24 Apr 10 - Cached
  • All students should master a verifiable set of skills, but not necessarily the same skills. Part of the reason high schools fail so many kids is that educators can’t get free of the notion that all students—regardless of their career aspirations—need the same basic preparation. States are piling on academic courses, removing the arts, and downplaying career and technical education to make way for a double portion of math. Meanwhile, career-focused programs, such as Wisconsin’s youth apprenticeships and well-designed career academies, are engaging students and raising their post-high-school earnings, especially among hard-to-reach, at-risk male students.
  • Maintaining our one-size-fits-all approach will hurt many of the kids we are trying most to help. Maybe that approach, exemplified in the push for common standards, will simply lead to yet more unmet education goals. But it won’t reduce, and might increase, the already high rate at which students drop out of school, or graduate without the skills and social behaviors required for career success.
  • Deb White Groebner on 24 Apr 10
     
    Well-written commentary for anyone interested in the impact of Common Core Standards. "What's Wrong With the Common-Standards Project" "We need rigorous but basic academics, homing in on skills that will be used, and not short-shrifting the "soft skill" behaviors that lead to success in college and careers. The management guru Peter Drucker got it right: "The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work 10 years later."
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