

Ask HN: does Khan Academy's informal style help or hurt students? - keiferski

Do you think that the simple, text-on-blackboard style of Khan's lectures helps or hurts students?<p>Would he be better off with typing out text, or adding images instead of drawing them? Or do you think the handwritten text makes the videos seem more personal?
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tokenadult
A style that differs from the style a student already gets in school generally
helps learners in supplementary programs like Khan Academy.

A really great example of a superb mathematics textbook by a top
mathematician, all with hand-drawn diagrams, is Geometry: Euclid and Beyond by
Robin Hartshorne.

[http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Euclid-Beyond-Robin-
Hartshorn...](http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Euclid-Beyond-Robin-
Hartshorne/dp/0387986502/)

The author explains his rationale for having hand-drawn rather than computer-
generated geometry diagrams, discusses why he wrote the book as he did. I love
this book as a remarkably accessible book on some very deep mathematics, with
wonderfully challenging problems. I think Khan Academy video lectures work for
some of the same reasons that Hartshorne's approach in Euclid: Geometry and
Beyond works, and I hope that Salman Khan and his collaborators eventually get
to advanced geometry like that in Hartshorne's book in the Khan Academy course
list.

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keiferski
Thanks for the book suggestion. Do you think that the hand-drawn approach is
more effective because it's hand-drawn, or because most textbooks are not
hand-drawn? I.E., is a casual style better because it _is_ intrinsically
better, or because it's merely different?

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EzGraphs
Definitely think it helps. The individual, personal interaction portrayed in
the videos is more engaging than flashing images and text in front of
students. His diagrams are clear enough, so little would be gained by using
prefab charts or pictures. Besides, his text-on-blackboard style tends to be
tightly integrated with the narrative - so each concept is being reinforced by
two senses rather than one.

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zerohp
I relearned a lot of forgotten math using Khan Academy last summer when I was
preparing to go back to school. I think Salman Khan's style is significantly
better than many of the other videos on the internet.

Showing concepts in animations while explaining them can be helpful, but
ultimately the students are learning how to solve problems. Watching the
strokes of his pen gives you a fantastic view of how the problems are actually
solved on pen and paper.

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mapster
He cuts through the bs so to speak. When you want to learn, drawing in the
sand with a stick can be all that is needed.

