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Khan Academy
Pros: Mastery-focused lessons auto-adapt for each student while continuous assessment gives teachers valuable, real-time data.
Cons: Video instruction may be too fast-paced for some learners; some instruction is delivered only via text.
Bottom Line: A solid, free resource for targeted math and science instruction, test prep, history, and more.
For classroom teachers, Khan Academy is probably best used to introduce, practice, and review content. Though math is the most comprehensively covered subject, teachers focusing on science, history, or economics can teach or supplement full courses with Khan Academy. Math and reading content (in beta as of this review) is organized by course and grade level, so it's easy to target students' instruction for a particular level and skill. Plus, you can set a Course Mastery Goal, which will automatically give kids the practice to help them reach that objective. Use Math: Great Ready Courses to help get kids up to grade level. Class setup is super simple, and Khan Academy integrates with Google Classroom, too. To make the most of Khan Academy’s features, explore the Khan for Educators course located in the teacher dashboard.
Using the site's powerful analytical and adaptive program, you can track students' progress and identify students who may be struggling in certain areas. If students are using Khan Academy during class, take advantage of the real-time reporting. You can stop the class to teach a skill they are all missing, or target the struggling students for some small-group instruction. And if you're working with little kids, you can use Khan Academy Kids to introduce foundational skills and SEL concepts.
Khan Academy, a free website aimed at promoting self-paced instruction, houses thousands of academic videos that are baked into guided, adaptive instruction. With an initial focus on math, the site now offers courses on a variety of topics in science, economics, history, the arts, language arts, and computing, as well as prep for tests like the SAT and Praxis Core. Course offerings are continually updated and expanded. In response to the pandemic, Khan Academy has added a lot of support for distance learning and homeschool environments.
Students participate in courses, which are broken down into units and lessons. The course structure helps narrow focus on a particular skill or topic, but students are never restricted on the site; they can always access any content that interests them. Teachers can assign work lesson by lesson or set a Course Mastery Goal, in which the students work at their own pace to complete a course by a certain date. Students demonstrate mastery on short assessments throughout the course and by completing the course challenge test. Struggling students can work on prerequisites or use the Math: Get Ready Courses while also working to complete any other grade-level content.
Whether students are exploring on their own, using the site in class, or using it as a resource for homework and test prep, Khan Academy can be a very useful supplement to classroom instruction and discussion. If it's used as a primary source of instruction, note that the videos tend to be more procedural than conceptual. Nevertheless, the site's missions aim to promote more conceptual understanding, as they challenge kids to practice and master skills on their own, using hints and videos as support rather than as the main source of instruction. And nearly every Common Core math standard is addressed at each grade level, making the website a rich resource for standards coverage.
Some great features on the site: You can turn on subtitles within each video, and the full Khan Academy curriculum is available in at least 18 languages. It would be nice, though, if built-in text-to-speech was available for the text-only content. For students with visual impairments, there are a few accessibility options located in account settings. Students can also use the Khan Academy app, which provides access to all courses, plus allows downloads for offline learning. Because its organization and interface is fairly formal and its activities are straightforward, it's unlikely many students will open Khan Academy and be excited to dive in. However, it is truly one of the most comprehensive and targeted free resources available anywhere.
Learning Rating
Community Rating
Do not recommend
One of the main issues with Khan Academy is that it does not provide an adequate learning experience for students. The videos are cookie-cutter, impersonal, and lack any sort of teacher interaction. While the videos do provide an explanation of content, this is far from the whole teaching experience. With Khan Academy, students don’t experience the nuances and complexities of a classroom environment. They don’t receive feedback from the teacher or fellow students, nor do they get any personalized guidance. Another issue with Khan Academy is that it often does not align with the curriculum of a given school. While Khan Academy does offer some tutorials on more traditional topics such as math and science, it greatly favors more modern topics such as coding and technology. This makes it difficult for teachers to use Khan Academy as an effective supplement to their usual lesson plan. And even when they do use Khan Academy, they are still responsible for making sure that their students understand the material. The lack of alignment with the curriculum isn't the only problem. Khan Academy's assessment system is also based on multiple choice questions, which often do not accurately test a student's true knowledge. Multiple choice assessments are prone to guessing, and therefore give a false sense of understanding of the material. Finally, Khan Academy often encourages students to use it as a shortcut to learning material. While this does give students a leg-up on the material, it can often lead to cheating in class as students might submit answers from the Khan Academy assessment system. Overall, Khan Academy is a great resource for students who want to learn more about a certain subject, but it is far from an ideal learning environment for those attending formal classes. It fails to provide an adequate learning experience for students and often does not align with the curriculum. Additionally, Khan Academy has recently been deemed one of the most damaging educational products to ever be created in the eyes of many teachers. The company markets its services as a solution to support teaching and learning, but in practice, teachers have reported significant and lasting negative effects. For this reason, teachers should carefully consider the repercussions of using Khan Academy in the classroom, as there are a number of serious implications that may have a lasting effect on students.
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