Can Khan Move the Bell Curve to the Right? By June Kronholz curve-to-the-right/

Khan Salman Khan started by tutoring a younger cousin via youtube. In 2009 with funding from people such as Bill Gates Khan Academy was born. Khan thought his videos would be used as a “flipped classroom” approach.

Los Altos In 2010 it piloted Khan with two 5th grade classes and two 7th grade classes. each student make a weekly goal list for what they wanted to achieve in math The teacher would meet with each student and refine their goals while other students worked on modules on Khan Academy.

Tracking progress The teacher has a dashboard where they can track the students progress. o shows when they used “hints”, how long they stayed on a single problem, which modules they mastered After each lesson a “knowledge map” appears and points the students to something new they should try

Downtown Oakland A summer school class for those who failed algebra 1 piloted Khan. One class used Khan while another did not. These classes had a wide range of student abilities Teacher started with a mini-lecture, did one problem on the board then went to Khan

Results “Los Altos says that among the 7th graders who used the program in 2010–11—all remedial students—41 percent scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the California Standards Test compared to 23 percent the year before. Among 5th graders, 96 percent using Khan were proficient or advanced compared to 91 percent in the rest of the district.” “At Envision’s summer-school program, the youngsters in the Khan Academy class spent only half their time on algebra—the rest of their time was on lower-level math skills—and yet still slightly outscored the traditional class, which spent all of its time on algebra.”

Highlights Makes teachers break away from strictly lecture style teachings. Makes students take ownership of their learning. Creates classroom collaboration with peer tutoring.

Pitfalls Khan wanted some of the students to go back and review basic math. Spending too much time on basics skills won’t allow students to meet state standards. This may not work for all types of learners. Not all schools will have enough computers in a classroom for this too work

My Opinion I think Khan can very helpful and I would want to incorporate it into my classroom. I liked the way the teacher from Oakland incorporated Khan. I like how she didn’t use Khan for the entire period.

What do you think? Would you want to integrate a program like Khan academy into your daily teaching? What grade level do you think this method would work best with?