Education Transformation, Khan vs. Veritasium, etc....

Good point- i'm at the community college level, and teach a graduate social media course. I have found however, that my son is a more apt learner of some concepts than some of my students.

Metaphorically speaking, if you create a wheelchair ramp and door button and high contrast, obvious signs for those with disabilities, it helps everyone else who happens to use them (think how nice it is to hit the door button with your knee when your arms are full, or be able to push your cart full of AV media on a well-built ramp).

Do learning styles (uh oh, here we go again with the styles!) really vary that much between ages and institutions? Is a good lesson not a good lesson for most ages?

And while we've deviated quite successfully from the original poster's question, I can't resist but share these recent discoveries I found while reading up on the Khan Academy. Forgive me if the posts are duplicates:

First paragraph- needed a good facilitator, but core element was youtube: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19FOB-WWLN-Kelly-t.html

This article talks about khan academy changing math (again, perhaps more K-12, but what college doesn't have to deal with the math issue?): http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/

However, reading the critiques on one version of this story let me to this blog, and in particular, this post about "pseudoteaching" : http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/pt-pseudoteaching-mit-physics/ - which in part suggests that even the very best presenters (i.e. MIT's Walter Lewin in Physics) are not getting better results for their behavior.

and a cross thread brought me to this guy, who's videos challenge a bit- he likes to explore people's misunderstandings:
Here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bTdMmNZm2M&feature=relmfu

and here's one about the misunderstanding/reinforcing of that misunderstanding- VERY IMPORTANT:
http://www.youtube.com/user/1veritasium#p/u/36/eVtCO84MDj8

Jump to 1:50 if you're in hurry. The gist of what he is saying is that if you have a misconception, traditional presentation methods will simply reinforce your misunderstanding because you'll zone out if you think you know it already. He proposes in part, focusing on MISconceptions, to force viewers to think, 'waittaminute...?!"..


And finally, a critical view along similar lines- how harvard graduates (harvard is a university, though my daughter is applying there!) don't know how seasons or moon phases work: http://www.learner.org/resources/series28.html (you have to click the VOD button and allow pop-ups, but there is a short version of this on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg but it doesn't do the original justice.

Hope this was useful for some of you. I find it all fascinating, and am trying to figure out where and how the education revolution will occur.

d.i.