Bill Gates thinks that a video with a nameless person showing math concepts is the future of education. He’s wrong. Here’s why.
In that video there is something missing. Some major feature of learning that is completely missing from all 1800 of the videos up on the Khan Academy website.
Do you know what it is? Of course you do!
Kids! None of the videos has kids asking questions about what is happening in the video. You can pause the video, fast forward it, rewind it to re-watch the video, but you can’t ask it any questions. The ability to ask questions is a critical part of the learning process.
You can still use these videos as part of your classroom because your students can pause the video, bring you over, and say "hunh?" They can ask questions. Until the student can ask questions of the video, it will never replace a classroom teacher; the best it can do is support good instruction.
