Perhaps you’re familiar with Khan Academy and its founder, Salman Khan. According to the TED: Ideas Worth Spreading website, the mission of the not-for-profit Khan Academy is to provide a world-class education for free to anyone in the world.
Formerly a hedge fund senior analyst who also worked in technology and venture capital, Khan has impressive credentials with an MBA from Harvard Business School, an M.Eng and B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in mathematics from MIT. Equally impressive is his ability to simplify course content so that self-paced learners understand in ways that motivate and inspire them. Over 1 million students visit the site per month to view his 2000+ video tutorials on everything from basic addition to advanced calculus, physics, chemistry and biology.
In his 2011 TED Talk Let’s use video to reinvent education, Khan discusses the inevitable learning gaps of one-size-fits-all classroom learning and the use of his tutorials to flip the classroom, leaving students to view the lesson/lecture at home and freeing teachers to facilitate one-on-one classroom learning, including the use of assessment tools that lead to true growth. At the end of Salmon’s talk and a long standing ovation, Bill Gates joins him on stage for a Q & A session that we think you’ll also want to see.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about this or another TED talk as well as flipping the classroom.