Khan Academy II: Discussions and "Khanversations"

"Khan Academy" style instructional YouTube videos could be more effective for introductory physics if they used a discussion model rather than a lecture model. I had a fine time last week at the WNET Channel 13 Celebration of Teaching and Learning (which consisted of about 30% substance, 20% patting teaching on the back for doing "such an amazing job," and 50% advertising), and I wanted to follow up on the post I wrote about Khan Academy. Over ...

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What's to Learn from Khan Academy?

The video lectures on Khan Academy don't address the complexities of how people actually learn. What might these videos look like if they did? I was lucky enough to secure a free ticket to the Channel 13 Celebration of Teaching and Learning this Friday in Manhattan. Sal Khan is giving a talk about Khan Academy, the series of YouTube tutorials that have been touted as a revolution in education. Here's an example of Sal Khan layin' down some knowledge about Newton's Third Law: There's a healthy discussion in the physics teaching blogosphere about why these videos aren't the revolution ...

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Whiteboard Everything

 Whiteboards should be central to any inquiry-based approach. Whether students are asked to present their solution to a problem, their interpretation of lab results, or anything else that requires them to think independently, whiteboards are an ideal tool for this process. The more I observe, it seems, the more opportunities I see for effective applications of whiteboarding. Whiteboarding is simply a highly effective way of getting students' ...

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