Drinking Liberally 2/26 -- educational innovations that actually work

Hello Liberals --

This Wednesday (26 Feb 2014) we will have a discussion of "educational innovations that actually work".

We will start by showing a video of Sal Khan's TED talk. He's done some revolutionary things ... and he has evidence showing what works and what doesn't.

This will be followed by the usual spirited discussion.

    TED talk by Sal Khan
    Charlie Rose interviewing Sal Khan
    Khan Academy

Our venue: The Shanty, at the corner of 4th Ave and 9th St (map) .

Informal conversation starts at 6:00.  Video starts at 7:00, followed by discussion until whenever.      (Note: We could not get a suitable license to show  the Robert Reich video, so we're doing this instead.)

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Next week (5 March 1024) our guest will be:
   Don Lacey, Arizona Director for American Atheists
    atheists.org
    Don Lacey personal page

Comments

[Thucydides]

Do we know Kahn academy works? How do you define "works"?

[John Denker]

1) If the students say it works and the teachers say it works, and they keep coming back for more ... then I say something is working. And they do keep coming back, taking millions of lessons per month.

By any objective standard, some of the lessons are terrible. OTOH the students say that even so, it's better than what they are accustomed to ... which tells you something right there. Something scary.

2) The Khan guys give quizzes and keep records ... millions of records. They do statistical analyses. If one approach is working better than another, they know. As always, a quiz tends to measure low-level stuff rather than high-level stuff, but it's better than nothing. It's better than guessing. It's more data and better data than any classroom teacher has ever had. It is more focused and more detailed than any NCLB-type test data.

[Carolyn Classen]

Too bad about not being able to get "Inequality for All" film by Robert Reich -- I saw it (and reviewed it) at the Loft and it is a very compelling movie.