Brief explains how blended learning that combines digital instruction with live, accountable teachers holds unique promise to improve student outcomes dramatically.
The Original Personalization App—Great Teachers
By Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel; first published in Education Next With all the buzz about the District Race to the Top and jockeying to fit it into differing agendas, you might miss its simple premise: “There are great teachers … who have figured out how to personalize education and we are asking our districts to […]
Khan Academy: Not Overhyped, Just Missing a Key Ingredient – Excellent Live Teachers
Rick Hess was right to question the simplistic hyping of Khan Academy’s online video lectures in this Straight Up post. But we think he’s only got it half-right: it’s less a matter of OVER-hyping than MIS-hyping the true potential of what Khan is doing. Just to summarize, Khan Academy offers short, engaging tutorials in math, science and other subjects and is experimenting with having kids use these during homework time, freeing up school time for problem solving and collaborative work – a concept commonly called “flipping.”
We’ve written here and here about the importance figuring out as a nation how to “extend the reach” of great teachers to more students, since great teachers accountable for student learning are the one “intervention” we know can close achievement gaps and raise the bar for all students.