Some blog followers might be interested in “Khan’s Video Lectures: Educational Failures or Harbingers of Educational Success?” [Hake (2012b)]. The abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: In a “60 Minutes” program of 11 March 2012 titled “Khan Academy: The Future of Education?” http://bit.ly/FPnIFH, Bill Gates said: “There's a website that I’ve just been using with my kids - Khan Academy - this one guy doing some unbelievable 15 minute tutorials.” . . . . Then host Sanjay Gupta exclaimed: “That's right, Bill Gates, one of the smartest and richest men in the world, was using Sal Khan’s free videos to teach his own kids!”
In a post of 16 March “Khan’s Video Lectures on Acceleration and Newton's Second Law" [Hake (2012a)]," I criticized Khan's “unbelievable” video lectures on those subjects as EDUCATIONAL FAILURES. However, they may also be HARBINGERS OF EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS.
MathEdCC’s perceptive Clyde Greeno put the optimistic perspective as follows (paraphrasing and generalizing Clyde’s “math” to “education”):
“. . . .apart from Khan’s presentations, the instructional technology that he has developed can greatly expedite national and personal efforts to improve teaching and learning. . . . Khan was an engineering student who was reared through the American traditional public perceptions of what ‘education’ is and how teaching should be done. . . . . Khan did NOT write the educational scripts . . . . and must not be blamed for their educational flaws. In fact (unlike so many ‘experts’), Khan might still be educable . . . . or responsive to enlightened guidance for improving the quality of his video library . . . . from those who can offer something better than complaints. The ‘harnessing’ challenge is clear: use the same instructional-media technology to do what should be done . . . . perhaps even by educating Kahn.”
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To access the complete 13 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/FPFWXZ.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)
rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake
“Today with the help of over fifty. . . .[[or is it “fifteen”??]]. . . million dollars, most from the Gates Foundation and Google, Khan has been able to hire, with competitive salaries, some of the most talented engineers and designers in the country. . . . . The team is working to create software they hope will transform the way math is taught in American classrooms.”
From “60 Minutes” http://bit.ly/FPnIFH at 5:30 min – “Khan Academy: The Future of Education?”
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 18 March 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012a. “Re: Khan's Video Lectures on Acceleration and Newton’s Second Law,” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/yPSjFE. Post of 16 Mar 2012 09:11:07-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were also transmitted to several discussion lists and are on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff”" at http://bit.ly/wEdup7 with a provision for comments.
Hake, R.R. 2012b. “Khan’s Video Lectures: Educational Failures or Harbingers of Educational Success?” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/FPFWXZ. Post of 18 Mar 2012 15:23:26 -0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists.
Showing posts with label acceleration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acceleration. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Khan’s Video Lectures on Acceleration and Newton’s Second Law
Stimulated by “Re: Khan Academy on Sixty Minutes” [Hake (2012)], I went into the Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/ and looked at two videos:
1. “Acceleration” at http://bit.ly/wycpxX, and
2. “Newton's Second Law” at http://bit.ly/xqoW4X.
These consist of Khan’s blackboard solutions of algorithmic exercises to find:
(1) the acceleration “a” of a Porsche, given the change in its velocity “v” during a change in time “t”; and
(2) the acceleration “a” of a block, given its mass “m” and the force “F” acting on the block.
There’s little attempt to lead students to a conceptual understanding of either acceleration or Newton's Second Law. There’s no emphasis on operational definitions of “velocity,” “time,” “acceleration,” “force,” or “mass.”
Khan appears to be (a) oblivious of physics education research, and (b) simply repeating in a traditional way the cookbook stuff he learned at MIT in passive-student lectures.
I note that there’s a 68-post thread “Khan Academy: Math instruction goes viral” on the MathEdCC at http://bit.ly/FO8Xll which contains, among other things, negative comments on Khan’s math video on averages at http://bit.ly/AaMkpu.
For example:
a. Guy Brandenburg (2011) wrote: “That is one of the worst lessons on stats and averages I have ever seen. . . . He acts like the important part is the computation itself. He gives no reason WHY we should add the numbers up then divide. . . . . . And people pay him money? And think he's doing a great job?. . . . He's about as bad as John Saxon.”
b. Domenico Rosa (2011) wrote: “I have not seen many of Khan’s videos, and his style of teaching is significantly inferior to the teachers that I had in the public school system in the factory city of Everett, MA. My point is this: All the hits that his videos are getting are indicative of the hunger for direct instruction -- a fact that has been completely missed by the media pundits who have been giving him so much exposure.”
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)
rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake
“I point to the following unwelcome truth: much as we might dislike the implications, research is showing that didactic exposition of abstract ideas and lines of reasoning (however engaging and lucid we might try to make them) to passive listeners yields pathetically thin results in learning and understanding - except in the very small percentage of students who are specially gifted in the field.”
Arnold Arons in Teaching Introductory Physics (p. vii, 1997)
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 16 March 2012.]
Arons, A.B. 1997. Teaching Introductory Physics. Wiley, publisher's information at http://bit.ly/jBcyBU. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/bBPfop. Note the searchable “Look Inside” feature.
Brandenburg, G. 2012. “Re: Khan Academy: Math instruction goes viral,” on the OPEN! MathEdCC archives at http://bit.ly/FOpC53. Post of 7 Sep 11:01 PM to MathEdCC. (The Math Forum fails to specify the time zone.)
Hake, R.R. 2012. “Re: Khan Academy on Sixty Minutes” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/zsYxUk. Post of 15 Mar 2012 10:59:14-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake’sEdStuff”" at http://bit.ly/yapt2S with a provision for comments. I apologize for the several misspellings of "Khan" as "Kahn." It was all the fault of my spiel chequer - see e.g., Zar (1994, 2000).
Rosa, D. 2011. “Re: Khan Academy: Math instruction goes viral,” on the OPEN! MathEdCC archives at http://bit.ly/z2qEml. Post of 12 Sep 1:59 PM to MathEdCC. (The Math Forum fails to specify the time zone.)
Zar, J. 1994. “Candidate for a Pullet Surprise,” Journal of Irreproducible Results, January/February, p. 13. Reprinted “by popular demand” in the Journal of Irreproducible Results 45(5/6), 2000, p. 20; online at http://bit.ly/uW8mM7.
1. “Acceleration” at http://bit.ly/wycpxX, and
2. “Newton's Second Law” at http://bit.ly/xqoW4X.
These consist of Khan’s blackboard solutions of algorithmic exercises to find:
(1) the acceleration “a” of a Porsche, given the change in its velocity “v” during a change in time “t”; and
(2) the acceleration “a” of a block, given its mass “m” and the force “F” acting on the block.
There’s little attempt to lead students to a conceptual understanding of either acceleration or Newton's Second Law. There’s no emphasis on operational definitions of “velocity,” “time,” “acceleration,” “force,” or “mass.”
Khan appears to be (a) oblivious of physics education research, and (b) simply repeating in a traditional way the cookbook stuff he learned at MIT in passive-student lectures.
I note that there’s a 68-post thread “Khan Academy: Math instruction goes viral” on the MathEdCC at http://bit.ly/FO8Xll which contains, among other things, negative comments on Khan’s math video on averages at http://bit.ly/AaMkpu.
For example:
a. Guy Brandenburg (2011) wrote: “That is one of the worst lessons on stats and averages I have ever seen. . . . He acts like the important part is the computation itself. He gives no reason WHY we should add the numbers up then divide. . . . . . And people pay him money? And think he's doing a great job?. . . . He's about as bad as John Saxon.”
b. Domenico Rosa (2011) wrote: “I have not seen many of Khan’s videos, and his style of teaching is significantly inferior to the teachers that I had in the public school system in the factory city of Everett, MA. My point is this: All the hits that his videos are getting are indicative of the hunger for direct instruction -- a fact that has been completely missed by the media pundits who have been giving him so much exposure.”
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)
rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake
“I point to the following unwelcome truth: much as we might dislike the implications, research is showing that didactic exposition of abstract ideas and lines of reasoning (however engaging and lucid we might try to make them) to passive listeners yields pathetically thin results in learning and understanding - except in the very small percentage of students who are specially gifted in the field.”
Arnold Arons in Teaching Introductory Physics (p. vii, 1997)
REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 16 March 2012.]
Arons, A.B. 1997. Teaching Introductory Physics. Wiley, publisher's information at http://bit.ly/jBcyBU. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/bBPfop. Note the searchable “Look Inside” feature.
Brandenburg, G. 2012. “Re: Khan Academy: Math instruction goes viral,” on the OPEN! MathEdCC archives at http://bit.ly/FOpC53. Post of 7 Sep 11:01 PM to MathEdCC. (The Math Forum fails to specify the time zone.)
Hake, R.R. 2012. “Re: Khan Academy on Sixty Minutes” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/zsYxUk. Post of 15 Mar 2012 10:59:14-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake’sEdStuff”" at http://bit.ly/yapt2S with a provision for comments. I apologize for the several misspellings of "Khan" as "Kahn." It was all the fault of my spiel chequer - see e.g., Zar (1994, 2000).
Rosa, D. 2011. “Re: Khan Academy: Math instruction goes viral,” on the OPEN! MathEdCC archives at http://bit.ly/z2qEml. Post of 12 Sep 1:59 PM to MathEdCC. (The Math Forum fails to specify the time zone.)
Zar, J. 1994. “Candidate for a Pullet Surprise,” Journal of Irreproducible Results, January/February, p. 13. Reprinted “by popular demand” in the Journal of Irreproducible Results 45(5/6), 2000, p. 20; online at http://bit.ly/uW8mM7.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Understanding Motion: Even Newton and Berkeley Physics Professors Have Had Trouble
Some blog readers may be interested in:
Hake, R.R. 2008. "Understanding Motion: Even Newton and Berkeley Physics Professors Have Had Trouble," online at http://tinyurl.com/5lk3x2 . Post of 16 October to AP-Physics, Phys-L, and PhysLrnR.
ABSTRACT: John Mallinckrodt (2008), in a recent PhysLrnR* post called attention to his 2002 Phys-L post "Re: Kinematics First," in which he wrote: "Newton himself didn't understand acceleration." In addition: (a) Steinberg, Brown, & Clement (1990) have shown that Newton encountered conceptual difficulties which were difficult for him to overcome before he wrote the Principia, and (b) Reif (1995) reported that Berkeley physics professors have had trouble with the concept of acceleration.
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* PhysLrnR is a Physics Learning Research discussion list with archives at http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html . To access the archives one needs to subscribe, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on the aforementioned URL and then clicking on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)." If you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list! The powerful PhysLrnR search engine at http://listserv.boisestate/edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=physlrnr&X=- allows searches by subject, keyword, author, date, or any combination of those.
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