![]() The idea for the new program was to organize Khan Academy’s online library of learning videos and problem sets into a game-like software program to help kids practice skills they need to master. “But,” he said, “if you give students opportunities to work at their true learning edge and fill in gaps without any shame, any stigma, that encourages them.” If you don’t understand fractions, you’ll be too confused to grasp negative numbers, so you’ll tune out, he argued. “Let’s say you’re learning negative numbers, but it has a decimal or fraction in it,” Khan said. Khan’s theory is that a big part of the reason kids fall behind in math is because they’ve missed a key skill at some point. The experiment has now been largely put on hold by the pandemic, but the questions it raises, both for technologists and for schools, illuminate some of the ongoing obstacles to technological innovation in schools. And it would provide a key to ensuring more children become proficient in math, a stubborn problem in education nationally. ![]() ![]() If it went well, Khan Academy would prove, on a large scale, that teachers are critical to the successful use of technology in learning. ![]() Although Khan Academy was one of the first online learning organizations to promote the idea that kids could learn at home at their own pace, Khan denied the suggestion that working with traditional schools was a significant change in direction, instead calling it “a natural evolution of our work.” To that end, his company built a new software tool designed for classroom use and piloted it in five school districts - including the massive Clark County School District serving Las Vegas and its suburbs - in the 2019-20 school year. It was time, thought the ed tech pioneer, to bring his nonprofit online education empire to brick-and-mortar schools - lots of them. Sal Khan made a radical decision last summer. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter and The Nevada Independent newsletter. This story was produced by The Nevada Independent, a nonprofit news organization covering politics and public policy in Nevada, and The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
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