- Hi everyone I'm Dan Tieu, from Khan Academy.
Unfortunately after about a month and a half,
Sal's unable to join us today,
but you do have myself
and another Khan Academy team member, Meaghan Pattani,
who's here to kinda hold down the fort while Sal's away
and he'll be joining us tomorrow, so don't worry about that.
Before we get started if you have any questions,
please start putting them into the comment box
and the team will surface the questions for us to answer
and we'll do our best to do our Sal impersonations.
(laughs)
So, for those of you who are joining us for the first time,
this is just a way for us to stay connected,
especially at a time of social distancing
and school closers.
Khan Academy's a non-profit,
with a mission to provide everyone a free,
world class education to anyone, anywhere.
And the way we've been doing that for the last 10 plus years
is really by creating resources from Pre-K,
with Khan Academy Kids,
through Elementary school, Middle school and High school.
Covering courses in Math, ELA, Humanities, Sciences and more
and when this crisis hit we recognized
that it was our duty to do even more.
We've created daily schedules and learning plans
to help provide structures for remote learning.
We've recorded parent and teacher webinars in mass,
to provide guidance and answer pressing questions
and we've even launched Khan Academy Kids YouTube channel
with daily circle time, and all of this in an effort
to keep everyone learning through school closers.
I wanna remind everyone that we are non-profit,
we're funded by Philanthropic donations
by folks like yourself, and we were running at a deficit
before the crisis and we've seen our surfer usages increase
two to three times what we normally incur
and what that means is we also have increased costs.
And I wanna send a special shout-out
to several organizations who were the some of the first
to step up and help us during this crisis.
So Bank of America, Google.org,
AT&T, NOVARTIS and Fastly,
have all really stepped in to help
us close some of that gap,
but we need more so, if you find yourself
in a position to do so, please think about supporting us
and if you have any questions,
you can start adding them to the message boards
and we'll try to get trough as many as we can.
So, Meaghan we have a really great question from YouTube
from Gamermash, I'm going through high school next year,
I'm already worrying about working too much,
how can I keep up so I'm ready for high school?
- That's a great question and first things first,
take a deep breath.
I'm certain that you have a great support system around you
and remember that you're not in it alone
a lot of students are asking themselves
that question right now, right?
You've had a huge disruption to the end
of your Middle school experience
and taking on high school
is such a huge challenge in and of itself.
I was a high school teacher for nine years
and I always loved that fresh look of new students
and how they are eager to learn
and still trying to adapt
and find who they are as they change.
Well we've got some great resources
to help you on the academic side of that, for sure.
We have a learning plans for Math
that we have things to help you with the content
you're looking at right now, in terms of daily schedules,
to help you stay on track
with what you're trying to finish right now
and then there's learning plans for over the summer,
to either look more at what you might be learning
to finish eighth grade or maybe to get you a step ahead,
so maybe that content doesn't feel as intimidating
as you step trough that first door.
The other thing we might be able to support you,
is we have some great grove mindset content.
And that might be able to help
you frame what you're learning,
and that experience, and how you can prepare yourself
for learning across subjects and even beyond the academic.
And so I would really take a look
at both our daily schedules,
and our weekly learning plans
that you can see on the screen right now,
to get ahead in what you might be learning
in Math, come the fall.
- Yeah, I would just plug the learning plans,
we just hosted a Parent webinar last week
on how to best utilize it, it was really for parents
but it's also, as a student, you can use that as well.
It's really just a way to add a lot of structure
and to make sure that, you know the summer slide
really doesn't get amplified,
especially in a time of shool closers.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- We have a question on YouTube from Jrfoster,
what are some of your recommended books for teenagers
to read during this quarantine?
I can pitch something, so right now I've been reading,
Percy Jackson and The Olympians,
with my nice and nephews,
we're on book two, Sea of Monsters.
It's way better than the movies were,
I find it's really action packed
and we also have a recommended reading list
from our Khan Academy Staff.
Meaghan do you have a recommendation?
- First of all, I absolutely love those books,
I read them a few years ago
and I'm with you Dan, I say the books
are significantly better than the movie.
Some books for high school students well that's,
I mean there's plenty of things out there.
I'm a Harry Potter fan myself
and I think that you know,
that's always a great thing to look into.
The other thing is,
I know there's some suggestive reading list out there,
I mean some of our staff has provided
some suggested reading lists
on that same, keep learning, micro site
that we shared on the screen a moment ago.
And so I would definitely take a look,
at some of their suggestions
because we've some really wonderful people
on staff who have put some deep thought
into what they might suggest.
The other thing I would say is that
the important thing is that you're reading.
And so, I think it's often underestimated that while
it's great that you know, maybe you're looking
for some recommended books from your teachers
or from you know maybe our staff
but the important thing is that you're reading.
So, if there's something that interest you
and is really engaging you,
whether that be, you know a blog or a book
or you know maybe it's something else
I can't even think of right now,
but as long as you're reading,
what's really important is that you're engaging yourself
and more than specifically any individual book.
- Meaghan, we have a question on YouTube from Eliot H,
it's actually for both of us.
What are our roles at Khan Academy?
How long have we been here?
And how has Khan Academy changed during your Tenure?
So, I'm on the marketing team, I lead the channel marketers
and our product marketing folks here,
and I've been at Khan Academy for, coming up on two years.
I don't know if it's changed that much,
I just feel like it's a team of extremely passionate people,
everyone's super motivated
to provide that free, world class education
to anyone anywhere and so I think for me,
it's just been a pleasure coming to work
every single day with a team
that's just an incredible team.
- That's beautiful Dan, we like working with you too.
(laughs)
- And for those who don't know,
Meaghan is actually my desk partner
so I sit right next to Meaghan.
and Meaghan do you wanna kind of do
a brief overview of what you do?
- Sure, I would love to.
As Dan mentioned his on the marketing team,
so am I, work on our US district partnership team
and I lead our US Professional Learning Aparat,
so what that means is, I work with teachers
and school districts all over the US
and I design the teacher facing resources on our site,
to better support teachers as they use Khan Academy
with students and so, like I mentioned,
I was an educator for nine years
and now I get to work with educators all over the US
and that's super exciting,
and I know part of the question has been how long
have I been at Khan Academy,
I've been here a little over two years.
and one thing I've seen evolve,
is that Khan Academy always cared deeply about teachers
and students and I think we've even tried
to improve that connection with teachers and students
and district administrators even more so,
and we spend more time connecting with them
face to face, now, than we did even before.
- Meaghan, we have a really good question,
I think this is really important for us to surface,
so on YouTube Daniel Yang asked, would you make videos
in different languages?
Daniel lives in a non English speaking country
and I always recommend Khan Academy to my friends.
So, in short, yes, Meaghan do you wanna provide
a little bit more info?
- Yeah, I would love to.
So Khan Academy is available in 50 plus languages
and we have an amazing team
of both employees and volunteers, called advocates,
who not just translate the videos,
but the localize them.
We have experts who are creating similar videos
on the same content,
but that have real, local, meaningful, cultural examples,
so it doesn't just feel
like we're voicing over Sal's original videos
but we're making content
that is important and connects to the students
and teachers and leaders, in those particular countries.
The other piece I would really highlight here,
is that even within the US, we find that schools
really love having their parents
and their community involved in their students learning.
And so if you have a student who's learning on Khan Academy,
they can change their language
from in school and out of school,
so that parents and families and communities
can support their learners
in the language they're most comfortable.
So, maybe as a parent, you didn't grow up in the US system
but you really wanna support your child learning
but you're most comfortable in your own language,
you can adjust that at home, in your settings feature,
and so your child can learn with you at home
in the language you are most comfortable,
and then they can switch that content back
to English or whatever their primary language
they're learning in at school.
And again, we have 50 plus languages on our website
and most of the languages are available
on our app as well,
and so you're seeing a few of those go past right now.
And I can't stress enough,
how grateful we are for our international teams
and for our volunteers, who are really the ones
that make a lot of this work happen.
- Yeah I wanna double down
and just give a shout-out to those advocates,
because they are an amazing team around the world,
of folks who are really volunteering
their time to do this
and to Meaghan's point,
they really are localizing
and taking the opportunity to make things,
not only relevant in a language perspective,
but in a cultural perspective as well so,
it's really important to highlight
that there's a huge team who's doing that.
So, we have a question from Scot Yan, on Facebook.
Hi Dan today at 1:30pm more than 40 badges were retired,
was this an accident or do you intend to make new badges?
I can actually speak to that.
So, as some of you may or may not already know,
we have a broad effort to make changes,
we have a huge infrastructure project,
in which we're upgrading
some more infrastructural platforms.
And unfortunately part of that,
we had to evaluate some product features
and things in terms of what we will be porting over
in our new platform and what we can't.
And badges, we all though we love badges
and I'm sure everyone really appreciates them,
there's a lot of complexity in the badges
that we do have and so we did make the decision
to retire 40 badges as mentioned,
and the team is working hard to figure out
once we pour over,
what are the new motivation mechanics
that we'll be able to surface,
some of that might be badges
and some of it not but yes we will be replacing
that at some point, just can't guarantee
a time and what that might look like just yet, Alright.
We have a great question on YouTube
from Arechan Plays.
Khan Academy do you work with teachers
in Canada too, Meaghan?
- We do not work directly, in the same way we work
with school districts in the US.
However, we are really grateful for input
and feedback from teacher across the globe
including Canada of course.
So I highly encourage you,
that if you are a teacher in Canada
or any place in the world,
to provide us feedback
on what is and is not working for you
or for your students or for your school.
And if you go to our help center,
there's places to provide feedback
or if you have questions or sort, I really recommend.
- I think we've lost Meaghan for a second there.
Sorry Meaghan, you popped out for a second.
- Yeah, I see that. - I you don't mind repeating
the last like sentence or two.
- Yeah, no problem.
Let me check my connection here just a second here.
Is that, okay?
- That's good.
- Alright, let's try that again,
while we don't work directly with teachers in Canada
the way we do in the US, we do really value feedback
from teachers across the globe.
And if you have questions or feedback
or any great ideas you'd love to share with us,
we're so eager to get those, and I highly recommend visiting
our help center, where you can provide that feedback,
or questions or seek community responses
and we do actually read those
and take those into consideration,
when we are making changes to the product
or improving our teacher resources.
So please, if you have feedback we love to hear from you.
- Great, and Meaghan we have a question on YouTube
from Jrfoster, I think both of us can answer this question.
What are some good study habit tips,
for us to use during these troubled times?
I think part of what we try to do at Khan Academy,
by providing the daily schedules
as well as the learning plan,
is to try to provide some structure.
I think part of it is building
just good habits on a daily bases.
Now, it doesn't have to be so ridged
that you feel that you're struggling to do something,
so, you know, alter it as you need.
But I think our goal in doing that is really to create
kind of like a light weight daily habit.
So I've mentioned,
as Meaghan mentioned earlier about reading.
It's not so much important you know exactly what you read,
as long as you're practicing reading
and I think that the same thing goes with studying.
I don't think you have to follow one prescription
at least personally, as long as your doing something
a little bit everyday.
- I would echo that Dan, is that I know that
everyone out there learns differently
and that's part of what's so wonderful
about learning, right?
People can approach things differently
and the same is true with study habits,
just because it works for one person
doesn't mean it works for someone else.
And I think leveraging the schedules
we provided, to have some structure,
but adapting that to what works for you
and that once you find something that works really well,
I would stick with it.
I wouldn't continue to experiment over and over again.
Like Dan mentioned, providing some structure
that works for you and sticking with it.
And we know that it's really challenging
and don't be too upset if you need a day
to just take a break for yourself,
and then come back reinvigorated to work harder.
- And Meaghan we have another personal question here.
Anush Baguone asked, how do you boost yourself
when you feel low at some points in life?
Do you wanna tackle that first Meaghan
and then I'll chime in?
- Yeah, I think that's a tough question.
(laughs)
I would say for me I'm really grateful
for such a phenomenal support system.
First of all, I would say husband
has been a huge piece of my life
when I fell down or made a career change
or things like that.
And then taking some time to really reflect,
and I know Sal's really big on meditation,
but taking that time to reflect
on some of the really great things that you've worked hard,
and been able to see those outcomes be really powerful.
And then think about how in your current situation,
you can use those skills and learnings
you've had in the past, to move your self forward now.
so, I would say, really good support system
and reflection to you know, make progress forward,
is really important for me.
- Yeah, I would echo the reflection piece,
I think for me that's really effective as well,
You know looking at,
not just reflecting on myself
but also just looking at the challenge
in from different perspectives,
like even now in a global pandemic, right?
I do think there are silver linings.
One thing's that, you know
this could be a very depressing state and time.
I think for me one of the things that really motivates me
is, you know behind the scenes here at Khan Academy,
you know, we work hard on a daily basis,
but you can see the passion that your fellow co-workers
have during this time,
to really help people who need the help most, right?
Like Sal himself, Sal's been working
24/7 for the last month and a half.
Some of you, you know kind of see him here and there
but you know he's waking up at 5am
for calls on the East Coast,
for some medium edge,
and he's working at six, seven, eight o'clock at night
to draft the daily learning schedules.
And I would say that's indicative
of almost everyone here at Khan Academy,
you know aside from the challenge
of just dealing with the crisis on a personal level,
everyone feels super passionate about helping out.
And I think that one has really, and particularly for me,
just been so inspirational
and it's really, kind of helped
lift my spirits during this time.
- Alright, YouTube, we have a question from Araf Jane.
What do I do when my brain gets stressed in reading or math?
So, I think Meaghan, you already alluded to a little bit,
Sal's been high on the meditation piece,
do you wanna speak to that a little bit?
- Sure, so Sal's been encouraging,
I think all of us to take a moment
to breath and meditate and maybe take a look
at some of the guided meditations that he's recommended,
or find a space just to take a step back.
This can be a really,
you know math or learning can be really intimidating,
in a what we think of, as a normal experience
and only increases right now.
So don't be too overwhelmed to take a step back
and give your mind an opportunity
to take a break, right?
There's always time to go back and work on that problem
but sitting there and repeatedly getting frustrated
with the same thing, when you're not,
you know, having a productive struggle to move forward,
take a step back.
Maybe take a moment to meditate or step
and do something else,
and then come back to the work,
so that you're giving your brain a chance to relax,
instead of just trying to grind trough it.
- Perfect, we have two questions
and actually, this one's two questions,
one from Dave Hanken on YouTube.
I'm a teacher who do, what do you feel are some ways
to motivate students to actually do the work?
and then Sam Laratum, from I meet new walker on Facebook.
How do I keep my fourth grader motivated
to study with schools not starting until
the new school year?
so, I'm gonna take a moment to plug
our parent webinar that we'll be giving this Wednesday
on motivation.
So we have a fabulous ambassador, Connor Corrie,
who's also a teacher and a parent
and Connor's gonna be walking through
like the the top tips for motivating
your child during this time.
And that's gonna be on Wednesday
from 3pm Pacific, 6pm Eastern.
And for those of you who can't attend
that particular webinar,
we'll be posting the recording
and sharing that out as we go.
But in the mean time Meaghan, do you have a couple of tips
for these, for, Amead and Dave?
- Sure, so couple of things we've been hearing
from parents and teachers are,
you know one, taking the time to learn with your child
or student if you are showing them
maybe something you're learning,
you know, this is an opportunity, right?
I think the, you can learn anything, sprit,
is really true and in what you might be able to learn
alongside them, has been really great.
We've seen teachers get really creative
about how they're motivating students
and I think some of those can easily be translated
as a parent as well.
So we've seen teachers do things
like leverage side walk chalk,
and visit homes and put math problems on driveways
and then have students take picture
and send them back.
Or mailing cards just to say I'm thinking of you.
Or you know, letting their child make a TikTok video
with them, in Halloween costumes.
So, things that are really unique
and aren't necessarily high cost,
but really able to encourage students
to learn something new and see a unique
and fun reward for doing so.
- Great, Philippe maybe it's time for us to do
a couple of social media mentions.
So with Sal not here today,
one of the things that I just wanna call out
from some of us behind the scenes,
we are so appreciative of all of the social media mentions
and comments and testimonials that we received
from all of you.
And I think it's worth sharing out
because we get some amazing ones
and then also if, please keep them coming,
I think they add to kinda the inspiration
and motivation that you, that the team
has when we get to see something amazing from all of you.
So, Sal can you put up a number eight,
a tweet and photo from JacobZik?
Yep so, Jacob says, supplementing Google Classrooms
with Khan Academy,
the greatest value to be derived here is mathematics,
science and coding, my daughter's chef interests.
Most parents at this time want kids to get it all right,
but failure is a good thing, it aids the learning process.
so, I think that's a terrific comment Meaghan,
do you wanna speak a little bit to a learning mindset,
'cause it really does speak to
building upon you know, challenges that you may have?
- Yeah, I think building a growth mindset
is something we all strive to achieve.
And it's the idea that, you know,
smart is not something you are,
but something you can work towards
and it's a process, right?
Learning is a process and having the understanding
that failing does not mean failure.
You always have the opportunity
to grow and learn something new.
your brain is a muscle and the more you use it,
the stronger it gets.
So taking those opportunities of struggle
and understanding that you learn more
buy struggling and being able to reach something
and how great that is when you finally reach that.
And we have some great supporting content,
building collaboration with parts at Stanford
so, if you're new into that growth mindset,
that learning mindset experience, we have some resources
for both you know Elementary and Middle school
and for high school.
And for teachers, we have lesson plans that guides,
that go along with that content.
So we encourage you to leverage pieces of that
or all that, as much as that's helpful to you,
and then understand that all of us, right?
You're not born with the ability
to understand Algebra, right?
Think about a small child learning to walk, right?
You can't just stand up and do it all in one day.
So being able to build your brain
in that same type of way
and building those skills overtime
and using failures as opportunity to grow,
is just, again ,something we all really strive
to work with here at Khan Academy,
and we encourage others to do as well.
- Great, we have a question on Facebook
from Thasha Wright Knocks.
My kids have been using Khan for many years,
how do I get them to watch instructional videos
not done by Sal.
They only want Sal kinda like
when Steve left Blue's Clues.
I did love Steve on Blue's Clues as well,
so I definitely sympathize here.
I don't have a great answer for this Meaghan, maybe you do?
- I think that's a tough one,
we all get comfortable with what we know and change is hard.
I think even I, hearing other voices,
other the Sal sometimes, you know throws me for a loop,
but understanding that there's so much value in diversity
and being able to hear other voices and see other faces.
and so, I think just keep encouraging them
and maybe if you can find one other voice
or one other thing that interests them,
maybe if the topic is interesting first
and then the voice narrating that
or learning alongside your students,
you know, help support that.
but I would definitely say Sal's voice
is absolutely wonderful.
Obviously, of course we're huge fans here at Khan Academy,
but being able to support diverse voices
and views is really important.
And I would say even on our own site,
if you look at some of our grammar content,
you'll hear our colleague David.
Or if you look at some of our history content,
you'll hear our colleague Kim.
So, even starting elsewhere on Khan Academy,
look around, you'll hear some other voices other than Sal.
- Yeah, and I would also say I mean, the other thing is,
try to introduce something new everyday
and if your child doesn't like that,
or doesn't respond, try a different instructor
and hopefully they'll pick up on somebody else as well.
So, Meaghan we have a question for you on Facebook
Sahid, sorry if I'm mispronouncing, Alamas.
Are you planning to give your amazing teacher training
in Bihar, India?
We, actually have an amazing Khan India team,
so, Meaghan, you wanna speak to that?
- Yes, we have an incredible team in India
and they are working on some incredible teacher resources
and scaling training to schools in India.
And so, my first recommendation would be to check out
the Khan for Educators India course that you can view
anywhere on our India site
and so I would start there.
Our incredible team has put together
some really thoughtful resources about supporting teachers
and learners in India.
As we mentioned earlier, we know that it's important
not just to translate content,
but to localize to the needs and culture
and aspects of individual, you know countries and areas.
And so, a huge applause to my teammates in India,
and to look at that content
and I would contact them if there are specific trainings.
I know they had things planed for Impersiam,
but of course with the pandemic,
a lot of that has been put on pause.
But I would take a look at the opportunities
they have there and it's really,
really wonderful for teachers and learners in India.
- Great, and then we have a SAT question on YouTube
from Richie Gooptha.
Is college board going to add more SAT dates?
So, I think you know,
one thing I would like to comment here,
is I think we just all need to be a little bit patient,
I think there is still a lot of unknowns.
I know college, I get a pleasure of actually working
with a college team pretty closely.
I know that for the upcoming dates,
they have increased the number of seats pretty significantly
and so they're trying to accommodate
for this upcoming situation.
I know they have a desire to add more dates,
I'm not aware of any that are coming up right away.
I think part of the challenge is, you know the uncertainty
of one, we're gonna go back to kind of a normal schedule
and then, how do we add those dates around that.
So, I don't have a great answer for that,
but as soon as the college board
is able to announce anything, they'll send it out
and we'll also send out that information to you
as soon as we have any of that, okay.
Here's a question on YouTube from Jrfoster.
What made both of you want to work at Khan Academy?
I can answer that first Meaghan,
and then you know if you wanna jump in.
So, for my self personally, it was complete serendipity.
So, I have always been a fan of Khan Academy
from the first time I saw Sal's TikTok, way back in the day.
And then I was kind of just browsing the job boards,
when I saw Khan Academy's position open
and it fit everything that I wanted to get out of,
out of my professional life you know
so, as a marketer I'm always interested
in you know the marketing work,
the functional work it's self.
But I always was looking for something
that was very mission orientated, foreign organization
and I wanted to be a teacher growing up, to be honest,
that was one of the things I was really passionate about.
I was a tutor in high school, it was something that really
just give me a lot of motivation and energy
and unfortunately as a first generation,
you know immigrant family,
my parents did not want me
to become a teacher unfortunately.
So, I felt like this was the best of both worlds,
where I get to you know use my Marketing chops,
but I get to do in a way that I still get to bring
education to kids and family's all around the world.
Meaghan, yourself?
- That's really beautiful Dan.
(laughs)
Yeah, I was a high school Science teacher for nine years
and during that time I did use Khan Academy,
a little bit with my students.
But one thing that was always a challenge
for me as a teacher,
is that wanted to be able to reach more students.
And Khan Academy was such a powerful tool
and Sal's approach to learning was so powerful for me
and my students that it was, as you mentioned,
kind of serendipitous for me to find a role
that I was able to make the switch from classroom teacher,
to working in Educational Technology.
And now I feel like I'm able to help more students
beyond the walls of my classroom
and I hope that it feels that way
to teachers and learner sometimes.
And I'm really grateful to work with,
such incredibly passionate people like Dan
and the rest of our team, who are just so committed
to our mission to provide a free, world class education,
to anyone, anywhere.
And I'm so grateful for the opportunity
to be a piece of that.
- Yeah, so I think we're at time.
Meaghan, thanks for joining me today.
I know it was little bit of last minute,
but I'm happy to have you here.
- Thanks for having me Dan.
(laughs)
- So, thank you audience for joining us.
Sal will be back tomorrow with guest Mellody Hobson
from Ariel Investments.
And they'll be covering the economic impact of this.
And I wanted to again, thank you all for joining.
If you liked what you heard here today,
if you like Sal's Daily Homeroom,
please remember to like, subscribe, follow
and let your friends, families and colleagues
know about this session and about Khan Academy.
We have active communities on Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter and YouTube and so thank you
for being a part of that and please share Khan Academy
with other people, and with that, goodbye.