I'm here today to talk about two ideas
that at least based on my observations
at Khan Academy are kind of the core the
the key leverage points for for learning
it's the idea of mastery and the idea of
mindset and I saw this in the early days
when I was working with my cousin's a
lot of them were having trouble with
math at first because they had all these
gaps accumulate in their in their
learning and and because of that at some
point they got to an algebra class and
they might have been a little bit shaky
on some of the pre-algebra and because
of that they thought they didn't have
the math gene or they get to a calculus
class and they'd be a little bit shaky
on on the algebra I saw in the early
days when I was up loading up some of
those those videos on YouTube and I
realized that people who are not my
cousin's were watching and I and you
know at first those those those comments
were just simple thank-yous and I
thought that was a pretty big deal I
don't know how much time you'll spend on
YouTube most of the comments are not
thank you we'll let you than that but
then the comments got a little bit more
intense oh you know student after
students saying that they had grown up
not liking math it was getting difficult
as they got into more advanced math
topics by the time they got to algebra
they had so many gaps in their knowledge
that they just couldn't engage with it
and they thought that they didn't have
the math gene but when they were a
little bit older they took a little bit
of agency and they decided to engage
they found resources like Khan Academy
and they were able to fill in those gaps
and master those concepts and that
reinforced their mindset that it wasn't
fixed that they actually were capable of
learning mathematics and a lot of ways
this is how you would master a lot of
things in life it's the way that you
would learn a martial art in a martial
art you would practice the white belt
skills as long as necessary and only
when you've mastered it you would move
on to become a yellow belt it's the way
that you will learn a musical instrument
you practice the basic piece over and
over again and only when you've mastered
it you go on to the more advanced one
but we point out this is not the way
that a traditional academic model is
structure the type of academic
model that most of us grew up it in a
traditional academic model we group
students together usually by age and
around middle school age and and
perceived ability and we Shepherd them
all together at the same pace and what
typically happens let's say we're in a
middle school pre-algebra class and the
current unit is on exponents the teacher
will give a lecture on exponents then
we'll go home do some homework the next
morning we'll review the homework then
we'll get another lecture homework
lecture homework that'll continue for
about two or three weeks and then we get
a test and on that test maybe I get a
75% maybe you get a 90% maybe you get a
95% and even though that test has
identified gaps in our knowledge I
didn't know 25 percent of the material
even the a student what was the 5% they
didn't know even though we've identified
those gaps the whole class will then
move on to the next subject probably a
more advanced subject that's going to
build on those gaps it might be
logarithms or negative exponents and
that process continues and and you
immediately start to realize how strange
this is I didn't know 25% of the more
foundational thing and now I'm being
pushed to the more advanced thing and
this one can view for months and will
continue for years all the way it's at
some point I might be in an algebra
class or trigonometry class and I hit a
wall and it's not because algebra is
fundamentally difficult or because of
the student isn't bright it's because
I'm seeing an equation and they're
dealing with exponents and that 30% that
I didn't know it is showing up and then
I start and then I start to disengage
and to appreciate how how absurd that is
imagine if we did other things in our
life that way say home building
so we bring in the contractor say told
we have two weeks to build a foundation
do what you can so they they do what
they can maybe it rains maybe some of
the supplies don't show up and the two
weeks later the inspector comes looks
around says okay the concrete's still
wet right over there that part's not
quite up to code I'll give it an 80% say
great that's a C let's build the first
floor same thing yeah we have two weeks
do it you can inspector shows up in two
weeks
it's a 75% great that's a d-plus second
floor third floor and all of a sudden
while you're building the third floor
that whole structure collapses and if
your reaction to that is there actually
you typically have an education that a
lot of folks have an education you might
say maybe we had a bad contractor or
maybe we needed better inspection or
more frequent inspection but what was
really broken was the process we were
artificially constraining how long we
had to do something pretty much ensuring
a variable outcome and we took the
trouble of inspecting and identifying
those gaps but then we built right on
top of it
so the idea of mastery learning is to do
the exact opposite instead of
artificially constraining when and how
long fixing when and how long you work
on something pretty much ensuring that
variable outcome the ABCDF and do it the
other way around
what's variable is when and how long a
student actually has to work on
something and what's fixed is that they
actually master the material and it's
important to realize that not only will
this make the student learn their
exponents better but it'll reinforce the
right mindset muscles it makes them
realize that if you got 20% wrong on
something it doesn't mean that you have
a C branded in your DNA somehow it means
that you should just keep working on it
you should have grit you should have
perseverance you should take agency over
your learning now a lot of skeptics
might say well hey this is all great
philosophically this whole idea of
mastery based learning and it's
connection to mindset is students taking
agency over their learning makes a lot
of sense but but but it seems
impractical to actually do it with
students it seems like every student
would be on their own track they would
have to be personalized you'd have to
have private tutors you'd have to work
with worksheets for every student and
and their works
Armus these aren't new ideas they're
experiments in Winnetka Illinois 100
years ago where they did mastery based
learning and they saw great results but
they but they said it wouldn't scale
because it was logistically difficult
and that the teacher had to give
different worksheets to every students
give on-demand assessments but now today
it's it's no longer impractical we have
the tools to do it students see an
explanation at their own time and pace
well there's on-demand video for that
they need practice they do have feet
they need feedback well there's there's
there's adaptive exercises is readily
available for students and when that
happens all sorts of neat thing happen
one the students can actually the master
the concepts but they're also building
their growth mindset they're building
their grit their perseverance the
they're taking agency over their
learning and all sorts of beautiful
things can start to happen in the actual
classroom instead of it being focused on
the lecture students can interact with
each other they can get deeper mastery
over the material that can go into
simulation Socratic dialogue and you
know to appreciate what we're talking
about and kind of the the tragedy of
lost potential here I like to give a
little bit of a thought experiment if we
were to go 400 years into the past
to Western Europe which even then was
one of the more literate parts of the
planet you would see that about 15% of
the population knew how to read and I
suspect that if you ask someone who did
know how to read say a member of the
clergy what percentage of the population
do you think is even capable of reading
and they might say well with a great
education system
maybe maybe 20 or 30% but if you
fast-forward to today we know that that
prediction would have been wildly
pessimistic that it's pretty close to
100% of the population is capable of
reading but if I were to ask you a
similar question what percentage of the
population do you think is capable of
truly mastering calculus or
understanding organic chemistry or or
being able to contribute to to cancer
research a lot of y'all might say well
with a great education system maybe
20-30 percent but what if that estimate
is just based on your own experience in
a non mastery framework your own
experience with yourself or observing
your peers where you're being pushed at
the set pace through classes
accumulating all these
app even when you got da that 95% what
was that 5% that you miss and it keeps
accumulating all the way that you get to
a more advanced class and all of a
sudden you hit a wall and say oh I'm not
meant to be a cancer researcher I'm not
meant to be a physicist I'm not meant to
be a mathematician and I suspect that
that actually is the case but if you
were allowed to be operating in a
mastery framework if you were allowed to
really take agency over your learning
and when you get something wrong
embrace it view that failure as a moment
of learning that number of the percent
that could really master calculus or or
understand organic chemistry is actually
a lot closer to 100% and this isn't even
just a a nice to have I think it's a
social imperative where we're exiting
what you could call the Industrial Age
and we're going into this whatever
information revolution and it's clear
that some things are happening the
Industrial Age society was a pyramid and
at the base of the pyramid you had a
large pool of uni as human labour in the
middle of the pyramid you had kind of an
information processing a bureaucracy
class and at the top of the pyramid you
had your your owners of capital and and
and your entrepreneurs and and your
creative class but we know what's
happening already as we go into this
information revolution the bottom of
that pyramid automation is going to take
over even that middle tier information
processing that's what computers are
good at so as a society we have a
question all this new productivity is
happening because of this technology but
who participates in it is it just going
to be that very top of the pyramid in
which case what does everyone else do
how do they operate or do we do
something that's more aspirational do we
actually attempt to invert the pyramid
where you have a large creative class
where almost everyone can participate as
an entrepreneur an artist as in a
researcher and I don't think that this
is utopian I really think that this is
all based on the idea if we let people
tap into their potential by mastering
concepts by being able to exercise
agency over their learning that that
they can get there and from a you know
when you think of it as just a citizen
of the world it's pretty exciting we
think about the type of equity we can
have and the rate at which civilization
could Eve
progress and so I'm pretty optimistic
about it I think it's going to be a
pretty exciting time to be alive thank
you
[Applause]