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Flip or Flop: Are Math Teachers Using Khan Academy as Envisionedby Sal Khan?

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Abstract

Khan Academy (KA) is a free web-based intelligent tutor, which has been featured in countless media outlets for its potential to change mathematics instruction. The founder and executive director, Salman Khan, recommends that KA be used to personalize instruction, freeing up class time for engaging high yield activities like student discourse and meaningful collaborative projects (Gupta, 2012; Khan, 2012; Markus, 2011). Teachers have begun to use KA to flip classroom instruction. This study examined how KA was used as a tool for instruction in middle and high school mathematics classrooms. The five participants reported that the uses of KA conflicted with Khan’s vision of how his program should be used and with widely accepted effective teaching strategies (2012). Nevertheless, the participants believed that Khan Academy has the potential to improve mathematics instruction due to its accessibility and its individualized learning environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Lori A. Cargile & Shelly Sheats Harkness

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  1. Lori A. Cargile
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  2. Shelly Sheats Harkness
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Correspondence to Lori A. Cargile.

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Cargile, L.A., Harkness, S.S. Flip or Flop: Are Math Teachers Using Khan Academy as Envisionedby Sal Khan?. TECHTRENDS TECH TRENDS 59, 21–28 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-015-0900-8

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