

The end-of-pilot report from using Khan Academy for 80-90% of class time[pdf] - aundumla
http://blendmylearning.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/lessons-learned-from-a-blended-learning-pilot4.pdf

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EzGraphs
To Quote Martin Fowler

"Often when you come across something new it can be a good idea to overuse it
in order to find out it's boundaries. This is a quite reasonable learning
strategy. It's also why people always tend to overuse new technologies or
techniques in the early days. People often criticize this but it's a natural
part of learning. "

[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&#...</a><p>It is good to see
some studies being done in this area (even if the one in the article is not
particularly rigorous). I am convinced that there is tremendous value in the
new online opportunities (Khan Academy, Stanford, Coursera, Udacity, etc), but
there are limits to what they can accomplish. For one thing, an online course
being done individually requires a higher level of student discipline than a
learning activity involving the personal interaction of a teacher. My mind is
less likely to wander when a teacher is staring me down :).

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Maxious
As mentioned in the paper, there are Khan Academy "coaching" tools for
monitoring the students. The site allows you to monitor the relative progress
of the students so if one started to slow down you could pick them up on that:
<http://www.khanacademy.org/images/class-report-medium.png>

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EzGraphs
Good point. This does imply that the teacher is watching the monitor rather
than helping another student and then actively intervenes. So it is likely a
different dynamic than a classroom where a teacher is observing the whole
class at once and can take a somewhat more subtle action (i.e. speak louder in
a direction of a student who is falling asleep). Khan academy may well be much
more effective. It would be great to see studies that make clear comparisons
of where it is most effective.

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perlgeek
The increased test scores of 6.4% in contrast to 5.2% in the control group
sounds like it could be purely noise, especially since I couldn't find the
value for the standard deviations of these numbers.

The difference is so small that even if it's not noise, it could be very well
caused by other factors (teachers more motivated in the test group, for
example).

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dicroce
Deep down in the report it is revealed that that 5.2% consists of a third of
the class improving by 10% or more... and the rest remaining essentially flat.
So it appears to me that it's particularly effective for a subset of learners.

Also note: the teacher doesn't have to really lead the class. The report says
that the teacher spent most of their time 1 on 1 helping students who were
stuck. Teachers may see value in simply having to do less work to achieve the
same (or slightly better) result.

Also, this class was only a couple months. There is a question whether the
small improvement would have continued and would have become wider when
applied over a whole school year.

~~~
ippisl
The class only took 5 weeks (24X2 hours sessions).

