Check the content of those "great" educational videos before you use them
I found this article on the Huffington Post Education page about a couple of math teachers doing a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style spoof of a Khan Academy video. Khan Academy was created by Salman Khan in 2008, and has been hailed on TED and by Bill Gates as one of the best teaching tools available on the Internet. The guys in the video claim that Gates has referred to Khan as the best teacher in America, and donated millions to the Khan Academy. But if you watch this video, which is about the fairly simple process of multiplying and dividing negative numbers, you can see that Khan doesn't really do a very good job of teaching - as the two teachers watching this video repeatedly point out.
Here's the video:
In the article, author Alex Kuczynski-Brown points out that, "Khan is both brilliant and talented, but he doesn't know much about pedagogy, the science of teaching information effectively." This just points out something that we as teachers already know: just because you're smart and knowledgable (and rich) doesn't necessarily make you a good teacher.
Khan Academy is a popular, well-established source for math and science instructional videos, and I have used some of their videos in my own classes. So this example can help remind educators that we need to carefully vet and examine any educational materials that come from any source with a critical eye for accuracy, and to ensure that they are in line with our learning goals and outcomes.
I just recently became familiar with the Khan Academy. This article is pretty interesting and does reiterate the necessity fo previewing everything we show to our students.
Thank you for sharing this. I had a teacher at my school, who obviously never checked this site out before recommending it, or just didn't care. However, she repeatedly would tell myself and other staff how great the Khan Academy videos were and would not listen to me when explained how disappointed I was with videos I found on there and how things were demonstrated but not explained to the extent needed. Thanks again
I agree that not everyone can be a teacher. If your going to use someone elses work in your lesson, you owe it to yourself and your students to at least watch or research it before presenting it to others.
I just recently became familiar with the Khan Academy. This article is pretty interesting and does reiterate the necessity fo previewing everything we show to our students.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this. I had a teacher at my school, who obviously never checked this site out before recommending it, or just didn't care. However, she repeatedly would tell myself and other staff how great the Khan Academy videos were and would not listen to me when explained how disappointed I was with videos I found on there and how things were demonstrated but not explained to the extent needed. Thanks again
ReplyDeleteI agree that not everyone can be a teacher. If your going to use someone elses work in your lesson, you owe it to yourself and your students to at least watch or research it before presenting it to others.
ReplyDelete