Online Learning, Personalized
15th January 2012
Jesse Roe, a ninth-grade math teacher at a charter school here called Summit, has a peephole into the brains of each of his 38 students.
He can see that a girl sitting against the wall is zipping through geometry exercises; that a boy with long curls over his eyes is stuck on a lesson on long equations; and that another boy in the front row is getting a handle on probability.
Each student’s math journey shows up instantly on the laptop Mr. Roe carries as he wanders the room. He stops at each desk, cajoles, offers tips, reassures. For an hour, this crowded, dimly lighted classroom in the hardscrabble shadow of Silicon Valley hums with the sound of fingers clicking on keyboards, pencils scratching on paper and an occasional whoop when a student scores a streak of right answers.
The future is here, it just isn’t evenly distributed.
Now: Imagine trying to get this system into a school infected with a teacher’s union. Feel free to scream and kick the wall if it will make you feel better.
Mr. Khan’s critics say that his model is really a return to rote learning under a high-tech facade, and that it would be far better to help children puzzle through a concept than drill it into their heads.
Better for who? Better for the kids on the right side of the bell curve, perhaps, but that’s only a small subsection of those who need to be taught. This is not Lake Woebegone, and all of the children are not above average.