People and places
A revolution in education Leila Holmyard introduces ‘a small venture with gigantic ambitions’ Khan Academy was launched in 2006 with a bold mission: to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere. With millions of learners across the world studying online at their own pace and in their own language, Khan Academy has become the epitome of the global classroom. Following this success, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan has set his sights even higher. The launch of a small experimental research school in California marks the beginning of a new project through which Khan hopes to stimulate a paradigm shift in education towards student-centred learning. This article outlines how the Khan Lab School is pioneering a revolutionary approach to education. Currently catering for children aged 5-14 years, the school plans to open a high school in 2017. Self-paced and mastery-based At the Khan Lab School, a customised learning experience has been created whereby each student identifies his/her unique needs and sets goals that determine the school work they undertake. As one would expect from the creators of Khan Academy, much of the academic learning begins with technology: students watch videos and take formative and Spring
Autumn |
| 2016
summative assessments using responsive online tools. This is underpinned by weekly one-on-one conferences and small group seminars with teachers that support personalised learning, remedy misconceptions and set goals for the future. Unlike most schools, in which teachers have a set amount of time to cover a topic, students at the Khan Lab School can take as long as they need to master content and skills before moving on. As one 12 year old student explains, “If I don’t think I’m ready, I can schedule [the topic] for a later time. I can make sure I learn the subject fully, not just part of it.” Dominic Liechti, Executive Director and President of the Khan Lab School, emphasises that maximizing positive and impactful relationships between students and teachers is key to the success of this model: “Independence is important, but appropriate guidance within a cohesive structure is also very important. One of our learning design principles is to foster student agency [whereby] the teacher acknowledges the student’s ownership of learning and trusts the student to disclose challenges that are resolved ultimately by various inquiry-based approaches and modes.” It is through this approach that students achieve fluency in reading, writing, maths, computing and a foreign language,
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