NatYoung17 Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 Hello! I recently read in a HS Mag about people that use Khan Academy for their Math curricullum and was wondering how well that works? Do any of you use it as the sole curricullum for Math? My dd (9) is using Teaching Textbooks 4 and it's working out well, but it's not cheap... and if it's possible to use a free program like Khan and do all that's needed that would be fabulous! I had just never heard of it used as more than just a supplement and wanted to get some advice from others... Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 Khan Academy is attractive because it is free and easy to assign. BUT It's not written by a teacher, or a curriculum designer, or anyone with experience to know what sort of trouble kids have understanding math concepts. Behind every good math curriculum there's a lot of invisible knowledge: understanding of how kids learn, the typical misunderstandings they tend to develop, and how to nip those mistakes in the bud. Mr. Khan doesn't have that knowledge, and his lessons show it. Here is an example of what I mean: Open letter to Sal Khan (About Teaching Decimals) Khan also tends to focus on procedures (at least in the videos I've seen) without building up a foundation of understanding of why those procedures work. This puts a significant strain on memory, and students who think of math as a series of procedures to memorize tend to get overloaded as they approach algebra. Everything starts to mix together in their minds, making it harder to recover the rules from the dust bunnies of memory. For these reason, Khan Academy works much better as a supplement than as your primary math program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 They've recently added lessons that are grouped by grade level. I've found it very thorough IF you look at the step by step items under "progress". The program itself can skip some of those steps by giving a mastery challenge and assuming if you've mastered a step further down the line that you've mastered all the steps in between. That's fine for someone like me who is coming in and doing a bunch of mastery challenges and trying to find my gaps in my learning. That's not so good for a child who's going through fourth grade math. So I am active as a teacher even while using Khan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 I have long felt that the Khan lessons lean heavily toward procedure. My suspicions were confirmed in the following link: http://info.cognitomentoring.org/wiki/Khan_Academy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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