Key Points:
The traditional academic model groups students together by age and perceived ability and all learn at the same pace. No matter what grade a student receives on a test , the whole class will then move on to the next subject, a more advanced subject that's going to build gaps
in knowledge
Sal Khan believes students need to be given the option to practice a piece over and over again until students master an idea before they move on to a more advanced one to avoid creating gaps in knowledge.
(Posted September 2016 on TED Talk)
While people believe that this makes a lot of sense, they believe it is impractical. To actually do it, every student would be on their own track. It would have to be personalized, and the teacher would have to give different worksheets to every student.
Khan believes that we have the tools to do it. Students see an explanation at their own time and pace? There's on-demand video for that. They need practice? They need feedback? There's adaptive exercises readily available for students. Instead of it being focused on the lecture, students can interact with each other. They can get deeper mastery over the material.
Relevance:
This TedTalk is relevant in education because he highlights some major flaws in the system that are allowing students to fall further and further behind and provides some educational ideas that could help promote a way in closing those gaps in knowledge.
(Video Posted September 2016)
This message is very relevant for today. So many people have the mindset about math in particular that they aren't good at math without allowing for the fact that they may simply need to fill in some holes in their prior learning in order to master the course material. I love how Sal Khan presents a case for instruction that leads to 100% mastery. With all the technology available today, we have the tools that we need to implement individualized instruction and repetition to help students succeed at every level.
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