Have you heard of Khan Academy?

Many of you have heard of Khan Academy.  If you haven't, Khan Academy is a very very large collection of short online videos narrated by Sal Kahn that teach algebra, calculus, economics and other subjects.  The mission of Khan Academy is to offer a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.  

One of my favorite parts about Khan Academy is that a person can keep track of his or her progress in math from basic adding and subtracting to exponents and even calculus.  It is like the banquet table is all set and the student can taste different foods and skip others. 

I tried an experiment at school.  My students accessed the website http://www.khanacademy.org/ at home, kept track of their progress on a Google account and showed me their progress at school.  My experiment was to find out why Khan Academy is so popular and successful.  If I knew the reasons and agreed with the reasons I would then spread the word.  

If Khan Academy videos helped my students learn (or review) well enough to correctly answer the questions about number lines, percents and scientific notation, great!  If the video didn't help them understand prime numbers then I or another teacher would teach the lesson in person. Several of my students spent over 20 hours on Khan Academy over the course of a month.  I asked them what they liked about Khan Academy.  Students liked seeing their progress and this encouraged them to make more progress. 

Sal Khan explained in a TED talks lecture that the data surprisingly showed technology can personalize and humanize education. This may sound ironic and I have met people who are skeptical of and against online learning because they say it is impersonal and not self sustaining.   Khan says that math students preferred the narrated videos over him in person because they could pause, rewind, and repeat the videos at their own pace.  The students didn't have to face embarrassment that they should have have learned their times table in 4^th grade or be anxious that they didn’t understand adding fractions completely the first time it was taught.  Learning from the videos is humanizing and replaces the one-size-fits-all lecture.  Khan Academy can be personalized and tailored to fit you.  

Classroom teachers have assigned watching Khan Academy videos as homework and then used class time to do group projects, math application exercises, peer tutoring and video making.  The traditional classroom routine of lecture students, assign homework, give tests is changed around or "flipped." The old routine of teaching math doesn't expect mastery or encourage experimentation.  A traditional math course keeps moving, and everyday new skills keep being added.  Yikes!  At the high school level, if a student struggles with algebra or hates algebra it is probably because there is a hole, several holes or many holes in their past math education. 

We all have "swiss cheese like holes" (says Sal Kahn) in our math knowledge.  Having these holes keeps students from making progress in math and liking math.  At the high school level, I hear a lot of students say:  "I hate math!" or "I am not good at math."  Khan Academy shows the student and teacher exactly where and what those holes are and offers step-by-step problem solving hints and video lessons to help fill in these holes so a student can become happy and confident.

How much does the annual No Child Left Behind test cost my state and your state?

There is a non-profit group called California Common Sense that started as a summer project among Stanford students.  The group's mission is to: "open government to the public, develop data-driven policy analysis, and educate citizens about how their governments work. "

Collecting data and graphing the information gets rid of the secrecy and confusion surrounding state finances.  We can all follow the money which then makes it possible for us to cheer on or change what our state government is doing.

I looked at the website today    http://www.cacs.org/ca/site/about
and watched a short video introduction. 

I had been talking with friend about how we can find out the cost of the annual No Child Left Behind test to our state.  The information was hidden.  I asked California Common Sense for help.  I filled out the "Contact Us" form on the website.  
Subject: How can I find out the cost of the STAR test on CA? 
I explained that I am working to have the No Child Left Behind annual test administered every other year instead of every year.  I wrote that I believed less testing, such as every other year, would improve schools, help make students' smarter and plug up a money and resource drain. 
I know the test is mandated by federal law, however, it would be significant to find out how much the test costs each state every year.  Some school administrators tell me they spend a month organizing the testing for their school site.  Teachers spend a week of their time being test proctors.  Students take the tests and sometimes even in subjects like biology that they haven't yet taken in high school.  Students see that state money is poured into the test and not into them and their learning.  I've never written or spoken the word "Kafkaesque" before, but I thought of it while I was writing this.

A wise friend, who is outside the education field, says that testing should be a celebration of all that you know and learned that year instead of a punishment.  Is he being naive? 

Schools are cutting back on elective classes

I was sad to hear that the local high school canceled all four sections of wood shop. I remember learning to sew in junior high school. I can remember how amazing it was to understand for the first time how clothes are put together. It seemed magical to me that a person could sew two pieces of fabric together and then turn it inside out and be amazed.

Victoria Bernhardt collected responses from 10,000 students world-wide

Victoria Bernhardt is a researcher and professor. She collected responses from 10,000 students.  The students were asked to finish in their own words these sentence starters. These are the top three responses:
In order to learn.....I need to have a teacher who cares about me.
I like school because....my teacher has fun making me learn.
I like school because....my teacher makes me learn things I never thought I could learn.

I especially like the response:  "my teacher has fun making me learn."  If the teacher enjoys the subject matter, the enjoyment is contagious.

On teaching teenagers

Teenagers can be refreshingly blunt.  Their new humor can make us adults do big belly laughs. One time at a summer economics conference for teachers and teens, the one teen group yells "Yanni, Yanni, Yanni" enthusiastically in a skit meant to illustrate how supply and demand changes ticket prices for a Yanni concert. They then held up signs over their heads that read "Yawn-y! Yawn-y!" I love that.  New, bold and refreshing.