How Are Teachers and Students Using Khan Academy? | MindShift.
It looks like most teachers will just keep on doing what they have always done. Not a big surprise, but I have to wonder if things would be different if we did more than simply drop the tool in their laps and walk away. What if we actually showed them ways to use it? I’m not talking about radical change here – I mean what if we showed them little, easy to incorporate tricks.
I think that more often than not, change is about baby steps… If we push people too far out of their comfort zones, they will push back.
Schools’ resources often dictated how teachers were able to use Khan Academy videos and problem sets. Schools with one-to-one laptop programs had more freedom to break out of traditional instruction styles and ask students to take responsibility for learning specific concepts by a given date. Schools that shared laptops were more often restricted to rotating students through practice problems while maintaining direct instruction. Individual school’s missions, and teacher openness to change, also dictated how Khan Academy tools were used.
Despite the potential of freeing teachers to incorporate inventive projects to class time, the SRI report reveals that teachers didn’t drastically alter their teaching style when using these online tools. What the videos and quizzes have done is help with tracking data, assigning practice exercises, and supplementing instruction into existing classroom structures. Most teachers did not allow students to explore independently with the Khan platform, and instead assigned specific work. Researchers found a positive correlation with increased test scores, but little else to show that Khan Academy tools helped transform classrooms.
