When a bubble grow big it bursts. This is with the present educational system. The cost of education is spiralling upwards. Around 2 million rupees* is spent on a child’s education only and the bubble is growing and growing. Then a person comes with a vision “A world class school where anyone can learn anything in their own way for free.” We are talking about Khan Academy. An innovative and outstanding way of teaching where a student can pause and rewind his teacher with no embarrassment. This is the future of education where a student learn in their own pace own style and by peers.
This innovation is put forward by Salman Khan, a financial analyst who quit his job to devote more time to his philanthropic activity. This whole thing started when his cousin Nadia living far away from him needed help in mathematics and he was tutoring her from his home via a sketchpad and later by YouTube videos. With time his lectures have grown into an online phenomenon and a kind of solution to a flawed educational system. The videos don't look or feel like typical college lectures or any of the lecture videos that traditional colleges put on their Websites. These lectures are short and they're low-tech. Viewers see only the scrawls of equations or drawings that Mr. Khan writes on his digital sketchpad software as he narrates. This gives a feel of a peer discussing the problem not someone lecturing you. Here the content becomes important than the person.
In management we have 2 types of managers THEORY X and THEORY Y managers.
In theory X management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. A hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each and every level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can[1].
In theory Y, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. According to them work is as natural as play [1].
Nevertheless to say Theory Y is most encouraging and effective and in Khans Academy of teaching, theory Y is inherently built. Students learn in their own pace and the best from peers. Khan Academy is pushing for this concept. Here all data for all students are available for all students and in a typical classroom where teachers prefer good students here teachers have ample time and devote it to the lagging ones to know where they lag and their difficulties.
But for small scale it works fine but to take it to the large mass and maintain the quality, revenue is important. Khan Academy is a non-profit organization i.e. what is earned as a revenue is again rolled back to business.
· Khan Academy in the initial stage was non revenue earning and was part-time.
· Later donations started to come in 5 $ or 10 $ and some from advertisements. Then Ann and John Doerr, well-known venture capitalists, gave $100,000[1].
· Later the project was taken to a grand scale by aid from Google and Microsoft.
The strategy of the academy is so innovative that it is challenging the traditional system of learning in every way and shaking up the system where learning is perfect and easy as well. All the students are tracked by a software which gives data on his present status whether he is lagging behind or not or if so where, unlike the traditional system where its known during tests only. This makes education complete. More emphasis is on the content and covers a wide range of topics from maths to science to history to biology and even finance. Its just another school in itself.
This is revolutionary as it increases productivity and personal tracking of every student. In Salman Khan’s words ” This could be the DNA for a physical school where students spend 20 percent of their day watching videos and doing self-paced exercises and the rest of the day building robots or painting pictures or composing music or whatever.”, a perfect way to start schooling system from scratch again.
[1] WIKIPEDIA
* Standard school fees 1000 per month
12*1000*14(yrs) = 1.44 L
Engg = 3L
MBA = 15 L
total = 19.44 L
This innovation is put forward by Salman Khan, a financial analyst who quit his job to devote more time to his philanthropic activity. This whole thing started when his cousin Nadia living far away from him needed help in mathematics and he was tutoring her from his home via a sketchpad and later by YouTube videos. With time his lectures have grown into an online phenomenon and a kind of solution to a flawed educational system. The videos don't look or feel like typical college lectures or any of the lecture videos that traditional colleges put on their Websites. These lectures are short and they're low-tech. Viewers see only the scrawls of equations or drawings that Mr. Khan writes on his digital sketchpad software as he narrates. This gives a feel of a peer discussing the problem not someone lecturing you. Here the content becomes important than the person.
In management we have 2 types of managers THEORY X and THEORY Y managers.
In theory X management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed. A hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each and every level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can[1].
In theory Y, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. According to them work is as natural as play [1].
Nevertheless to say Theory Y is most encouraging and effective and in Khans Academy of teaching, theory Y is inherently built. Students learn in their own pace and the best from peers. Khan Academy is pushing for this concept. Here all data for all students are available for all students and in a typical classroom where teachers prefer good students here teachers have ample time and devote it to the lagging ones to know where they lag and their difficulties.
But for small scale it works fine but to take it to the large mass and maintain the quality, revenue is important. Khan Academy is a non-profit organization i.e. what is earned as a revenue is again rolled back to business.
· Khan Academy in the initial stage was non revenue earning and was part-time.
· Later donations started to come in 5 $ or 10 $ and some from advertisements. Then Ann and John Doerr, well-known venture capitalists, gave $100,000[1].
· Later the project was taken to a grand scale by aid from Google and Microsoft.
The strategy of the academy is so innovative that it is challenging the traditional system of learning in every way and shaking up the system where learning is perfect and easy as well. All the students are tracked by a software which gives data on his present status whether he is lagging behind or not or if so where, unlike the traditional system where its known during tests only. This makes education complete. More emphasis is on the content and covers a wide range of topics from maths to science to history to biology and even finance. Its just another school in itself.
This is revolutionary as it increases productivity and personal tracking of every student. In Salman Khan’s words ” This could be the DNA for a physical school where students spend 20 percent of their day watching videos and doing self-paced exercises and the rest of the day building robots or painting pictures or composing music or whatever.”, a perfect way to start schooling system from scratch again.
[1] WIKIPEDIA
* Standard school fees 1000 per month
12*1000*14(yrs) = 1.44 L
Engg = 3L
MBA = 15 L
total = 19.44 L
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