via Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business 2011
The kids in Ms. Cadwell’s seventh-grade remedial math class at Egan Jr. High in Los Altos, California, are doing things differently this year. They solve problems at their own pace, using a computer program that gives them instant feedback, charts their progress, and rewards them when they get 10 correct answers in a row. Instead of listening to the teacher lecture about dividing fractions, they learn from short videos that they can pause and rewind. They progress very quickly — more than doubling their scores on an exit exam in just the first 12 weeks of this pilot project. Students earn badges for solving problems rapidly and accurately, and for working hard to master a concept. It’s “like a game,” says John Martinez, 13. “It’s kind of an addiction — you want a ton of badges.”
This is a great example of leveraging technology in education. Khan’s program creates a safe environment where kids can experiment and learn at their own pace.
By adding rewards to the end of each lesson he is also making the process more of a game than a lesson. While some might debate the validity of turning school into a “game”, as a parent I can tell you that children will engage in almost anything if you can make a game out of it. It’s no different than the televisions you see in front of treadmills at the gym to help people stay in the gym.
But Khan’s method also speaks to the challenge of teaching a classroom of children at different developmental levels. In an excerpt from his talk at TED Khan says:
by removing the one size fits all lecture from the classroom and letting students have a self-paced lecture at home, and then when you go to the classroom, letting them do work, having the teacher walk around, having the peers actually be able to interact with each other, these teachers have used technology to humanize the classroom. They took a fundamentally dehumanizing experience — 30 kids with their fingers on their lips, not allowed to interact with each other. A teacher, no matter how good, has to give this one size fits all lecture to 30 students –blank faces, slightly antagonistic — and now it’s a human experience. Now they’re actually interacting with each other…
So our model is learn math the way you’d learn anything, like the way you would learn a bicycle. Stay on that bicycle. Fall off that bicycle. Do it as long as necessary until you have mastery. The traditional model, it penalizes you for experimentation and failure, but it does not expect mastery. We encourage you to experiment. We encourage you to failure. But we do expect mastery.
Age is not like a clothes size. All 5 year olds are not the same. Kids develop at different speeds. When you place standards and deadlines on something as diverse as human development you will have people that don’t meet the standard.
In a school system where teachers are overtaxed with large classrooms this is an interesting educational supplement that taps into kids inherent playful nature while giving them the freedom to move among lessons at their own pace. You can see more of Khan’s talk at TED in the video below. You can also learn more about Khan Academy here.