FOUND: What’s up with ‘Schooling’?

Lincoln's schooling was so slight as to be almost nil. He did not grow up in a literary atmosphere. But in the matter of his official utterances he must be compared with the ablest geniuses and most cultured scholars that have preceded him, and not merely with his early associates.

Henry Ketcham, The Life of Abraham Lincoln

How does someone become a genius without ‘schooling’? And do we have a word that describes the kind of education Lincoln went through that made him as great as he was?

Through close observation and student interviews, we found that students failed to engage in the coursework and spent little to no time studying. Students were disengaged from their learning responsibilities and the derailing of their studying began as early as elementary school.

David Castillo and Peter McIntosh, Khan Academy: Learning Habits vs. Content Delivery in STEM Education

How do students become disengaged at school? And how is society changing this trend?

According to Castillo and McIntosh, “Improving content delivery helped, but not enough” and “Poor learning habits revealed the core problem”. “When we stopped worrying about whether Khan Academy videos were better than our own lectures or whether the exercises had the appropriate mix of concept vs. drill, we recognized that we had found a powerful tool that reached students and changed their habits in ways we had never even considered possible.”

It sounds like they have found principles that will help Learners Drive their Education. So, how are Khan Academy videos changing learning habits? The authors list the following aspects of Khan videos that influenced this change:

• “Most exercises are not multiple-choice, which eliminates guessing.
• Questions are randomly generated, which eliminates copying
• The short video clips engaged students and allowed them to replay the material until they understood it; and
• The online environment and Khan Academy’s overall design appeals to the students, resulting in significant engagement time.”

I’ve known about Khan Academy for a while, but I haven’t taken the time to really investigate it for Learner Driven Education principles. What else in our society is changing ‘schooling’ into something that is Learner Driven? And how are they doing it? How do we let go of worrying about 'content delivery' in order to find what really helps students succeed? What helps the student rise above his environment to greatness like that of Lincoln?

~vbb