Khan Academy posts: implications for math education

Thanks to everyone who commented and tweeted about my recent series of posts about Khan Academy and the questions it raises regarding pedagogy, learning theory, and how we teach math in the U.S.

Here are the links all in one place.

The original post - Compare and contrast: using computers to improve math education This post compares the vision of math education of Sal Khan and Conrad Wolfram in their TED Talks. There was so much commentary on this post I decided to delve deeper.

Part 1 – Khan Academy and the mythical math cure. This post is about how we believe certain things about math that are not true, but we keep on doing them anyway.

Part 2 – Khan Academy – algorithms and autonomy How math instruction tries to help students but may actually be undermining student confidence and basic numeracy.

Part 3 – Don’t we need balance? and other questions. A conversation with myself about how Khan Academy is often justified, and why it’s being hyped as a “revolutionary reform” in math education.

Part 4 – Monday… Someday. Teachers face a dilemma - even if you agree that math learning and teaching need to be different, it’s not going to change overnight.

Sylvia

Sylvia