What You Will Learn

• How Khanmigo operates as a student tutor and teacher assistant
• How Writing Coach supports the full writing process and rubric-aligned feedback
• How to use Khanmigo for lesson planning, differentiation, and student engagement
• District partnership requirements, rostering, and professional learning needs
• Khan Academy's data privacy, moderation, and ethical AI practices

Study Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the comprehensive guide on understanding Khan Academy's AI tools, with a focus on the innovative Khanmigo platform. This course is designed to provide you with an in-depth understanding of how AI is transforming education through Khan Academy's unique approach. By the end of this guide, you'll have a clear grasp of how Khanmigo functions as both a tutor for students and an assistant for teachers, along with insights into its practical applications and the ethical considerations surrounding its use. This knowledge is invaluable for educators looking to enhance their teaching methods and for students aiming to maximize their learning experience.

Khan Academy's Enduring Mission and the Role of AI

Sal Khan's Vision:
Khan Academy has always been driven by the mission of providing "free, world-class education for anyone anywhere." This mission is the backbone of all its initiatives, including the integration of AI. Sal Khan, the CEO and Founder, emphasizes the potential of AI to scale personalized learning and support teachers in ways that were previously unimaginable.

Personalization and Mastery Learning:
The inception of Khan Academy was rooted in Sal Khan's efforts to provide personalized tutoring to his cousins. This personalized approach is now being scaled through AI, particularly with the capabilities of GPT-4, which allows for tailored learning experiences at a massive scale. The vision is to make Khanmigo "a tutor for every student and a teaching assistant for every teacher."

Khanmigo as a Teacher's Assistant

Making Teachers' Lives Easier:
Gintas Bradunas, Senior Product Manager, highlights how Khanmigo is designed to ease the workload of teachers. By acting as a thought partner, Khanmigo assists in brainstorming and lesson improvement, akin to having a supportive colleague.

Lesson Idea Generation:
Khanmigo can help teachers create more engaging lessons by connecting academic content to students' interests. For example, a lesson on fractions could be tailored to fans of the Baltimore Orioles or Taylor Swift, making the content more relatable and engaging.

Lesson Planning:
Teachers can leverage Khanmigo to generate comprehensive five-part lesson plans that include differentiation strategies. This feature ensures that lessons are not only complete but also adaptable to various learning needs.

Assignment Recommendations:
Based on students' previous work, Khanmigo suggests follow-up topics and assignments, which can be directly assigned through the platform. This streamlines the process of curriculum development and ensures continuity in learning.

Writing Coach: AI for ELA and Humanities

Addressing Writing Challenges:
Sarah Robertson introduces the Writing Coach as an innovative tool designed to tackle the challenges of writing instruction. Research indicates that students need more writing practice and specific feedback, which Writing Coach aims to provide.

Support Throughout the Writing Process:
Writing Coach engages students at every stage of writing. It starts by discussing the essay prompt to ensure comprehension and guides students in creating outlines that meet the teacher's specifications.

Practical Applications:
For instance, when a student is tasked with writing an essay, Khanmigo can help them outline their thoughts, ensuring they include the required number of paragraphs and citations. During drafting, it provides support to keep the student on track without doing the work for them.

Revising and Feedback:
Students receive feedback in five main areas, aligned with major rubrics, and can seek clarification as needed. This real-time feedback loop is crucial for improving writing skills.

Teacher Insights and Monitoring:
Writing Coach offers teachers valuable insights into student progress, including time spent on different writing stages and high-level feedback distribution. This data helps teachers tailor their instruction to meet students' needs.

Originality Concerns:
To address potential plagiarism, Khanmigo flags instances where students paste large amounts of text that don't originate from their work within the tool. This feature saves teachers time and ensures academic integrity.

Khanmigo and District Partnerships

Access to Full Features:
Jason from the partnerships team explains that while Khan Academy's core platform is free, full access to Khanmigo requires a district partnership. This includes rostering services, data analytics, and professional learning opportunities.

Professional Learning:
Due to the novelty of AI in education, professional learning on using Khanmigo is mandatory for district partners. This training ensures that educators can effectively integrate AI tools into their teaching practices.

Flexible Partnerships:
Partnerships are adaptable, starting with as few as 250 student licenses, and include free teacher licenses. This flexibility allows schools to scale their use of Khanmigo according to their needs.

Data Privacy and Responsible AI Implementation

Ethical Considerations:
Sal Khan addresses concerns about cheating, misuse of AI, and data privacy. Khanmigo is designed to act as an "ethical tutor," guiding students without simply providing answers.

Teacher Oversight and Moderation:
Teachers can observe student interactions with Khanmigo, and a moderation AI monitors conversations for harmful content, notifying educators as necessary.

Data Usage Policies:
Khan Academy's data usage policy strictly limits the use of data to measuring impact, personalizing experiences, improving the platform, and informing trusted stakeholders. Importantly, data is not shared with AI companies for general model training.

Commitment to Privacy:
Khan Academy consistently rejects offers from for-profit AI companies to purchase their data, underscoring its commitment to user privacy and its educational mission.

Specific Questions and Answers

Text-Based Writing Prompts:
While Writing Coach doesn't currently support direct uploading of custom text-based prompts, it assists with literary analysis essays for well-known texts, helping students understand themes and characters. Future updates may include custom text support.

Data Sharing Agreements:
Khan Academy has data sharing agreements with multiple districts, ensuring that data is used responsibly to analyze efficacy results. These agreements are available to districts and include state-level and consortium agreements.

Data Sharing with OpenAI:
Student data from Khanmigo is not shared with OpenAI for general model training, ensuring that student privacy remains intact.

Conclusion

Through this course, you have gained a comprehensive understanding of Khan Academy's AI tools, particularly Khanmigo. You now know how these tools are strategically integrated to enhance education by providing personalized support to students and teachers alike. The Writing Coach exemplifies how AI can be leveraged to improve writing skills, offering detailed support throughout the writing process. Moreover, the importance of data privacy and ethical AI implementation has been emphasized, ensuring that these tools are used responsibly. As you apply this knowledge, remember that the thoughtful use of AI in education can profoundly impact teaching and learning experiences.

Podcast

Frequently Asked Questions

Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section for the 'Video Course: Understanding Khan Academy AI Tools.' This section is designed to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of Khan Academy's AI tools, including Khanmigo and Writing Coach. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced educator, you'll find valuable insights here to enhance your teaching and learning experiences with these innovative tools.

What is Khanmigo and what are its primary functions for educators?

Khanmigo is Khan Academy's suite of AI-powered tools designed to act as both a student tutor and a teacher's assistant. For educators, Khanmigo primarily functions as a thought partner for lesson planning, offering ideas to make lessons more engaging and relevant. It can also generate complete lesson plans with differentiation strategies, recommend assignments based on student progress, and facilitate direct assignment within the platform. The overarching goal of Khanmigo for teachers is to ease their workload by providing an AI-powered support network, similar to collaborating with a colleague.

What is Writing Coach and how does it aim to improve student writing skills?

Writing Coach is an upcoming Khan Academy tool focused on enhancing writing instruction in ELA and humanities. It supports students throughout the entire writing process, from understanding the essay prompt and outlining to drafting and revising. Khanmigo engages in conversation with students to clarify assignment expectations and key terms. During outlining, it ensures students are on track with teacher requirements. While drafting, it offers support without writing for the student. For revision, students receive feedback in five key areas aligned with major rubrics and can get real-time follow-up feedback as they revise. The aim is to provide specific, actionable, and timely feedback, addressing the challenges teachers face in providing personalised writing instruction at scale.

How does Khanmigo address the issue of student engagement, particularly in subjects students might find less appealing?

Khanmigo helps teachers make lessons more engaging by providing contextually relevant ideas. The example provided shows how a potentially uninteresting topic like adding fractions can be connected to students' interests, such as baseball or Taylor Swift. By allowing teachers to brainstorm with Khanmigo, they can discover novel ways to hook students and tailor the curriculum to their specific passions and backgrounds, fostering greater interest and participation.

What kind of support does Khanmigo offer teachers for lesson planning?

Khanmigo offers several features to support teachers in lesson planning. It can generate full five-part lesson plans based on selected topics, including differentiation strategies inspired by experienced educators. Teachers can also use Khanmigo as a brainstorming partner to develop engaging lesson hooks and relevant examples. Furthermore, it can recommend subsequent topics and assignments based on students' prior work, aiding in curriculum sequencing.

How does Writing Coach assist students who struggle to start writing or develop a thesis statement?

Writing Coach proactively supports students from the initial stages of the writing process. It engages them in a conversation about the essay prompt to ensure understanding of expectations and key terminology. During the outlining phase, Khanmigo guides students in structuring their essays according to the teacher's requirements and offers support in formulating thesis statements without directly providing them. This helps overcome the "getting started" hurdle and provides scaffolding for students who find these initial steps challenging.

How does Khan Academy address concerns about cheating and plagiarism with tools like Writing Coach?

Writing Coach incorporates features to help mitigate cheating and plagiarism concerns. It tracks the student's entire writing process, including outlining and drafting. If a student pastes a significant amount of text that doesn't originate from their work within Khanmigo, it raises a flag for the teacher to investigate. This provides teachers with visibility into potential originality issues, a significant concern with the rise of widely available AI writing tools.

What measures does Khan Academy take to ensure data privacy and the ethical use of student data with its AI tools?

Khan Academy prioritises data privacy and ethical use. Student interactions with Khanmigo are observable by their teachers. The platform employs moderation AI to identify and shut down harmful conversations, notifying educators. Crucially, Khan Academy has agreements with underlying AI companies that student data from Khanmigo interactions cannot be used for general training of future AI models. Data is solely used to measure impact, personalise experiences, improve the platform, and inform trusted stakeholders like teachers and districts. Khan Academy explicitly refrains from monetising student data and prioritises its responsible handling.

How can schools or districts gain access to the full features of Khanmigo, including student access?

While the core Khan Academy platform remains free, student access to Khanmigo is currently available through Khan Academy's district partnership program. This program involves rostering services, data analytics, and professional learning for both the core platform and Khanmigo. District partnerships start with a minimum of 250 student licenses, with teacher licenses being provided for free within a participating district. Professional learning on leveraging Khanmigo is a mandatory component of these partnerships to ensure effective implementation. Interested schools or districts can contact districts@khanacademy.org or use the provided QR code for more information.

How does Khanmigo benefit students directly?

Khanmigo acts as a personalised tutor for students, providing tailored assistance and feedback in real-time. It helps students grasp complex concepts by breaking them down into manageable parts and offering explanations that match their learning style. This personalised approach not only enhances understanding but also boosts student confidence and motivation. By catering to individual needs, Khanmigo ensures that students stay engaged and progress at their own pace, ultimately improving their academic performance.

What are the main feedback areas Writing Coach focuses on?

Writing Coach provides feedback in five key areas: content development, organization, language use, style, and conventions. These areas align with major writing rubrics and help students focus on crucial aspects of their writing. By receiving targeted feedback, students can improve their work systematically, ensuring that their writing meets academic standards and effectively communicates their ideas.

How does Khanmigo support teacher workload?

Khanmigo alleviates teacher workload by automating routine tasks such as lesson planning and grading. It serves as a brainstorming partner, helping teachers generate creative and engaging lesson ideas. Additionally, Khanmigo provides insights into student progress, allowing teachers to tailor their instruction to meet individual needs. By streamlining these processes, teachers can focus more on delivering high-quality education and less on administrative tasks, ultimately enhancing the learning experience for students.

What challenges does Writing Coach address in the writing process?

Writing Coach addresses several challenges students face in writing, such as understanding prompts, organizing ideas, and revising drafts. It guides students through each stage of writing, providing support and feedback tailored to their needs. By clarifying expectations and offering constructive feedback, Writing Coach helps students overcome common obstacles like writer's block and lack of confidence, enabling them to produce coherent and polished essays.

How does Khan Academy ensure ethical AI use in education?

Khan Academy is committed to ethical AI use by implementing strict data privacy measures and transparency in AI interactions. They ensure that AI tools like Khanmigo and Writing Coach are used to enhance learning rather than replace human interaction. By providing educators with visibility into AI-student interactions and maintaining control over data usage, Khan Academy ensures that AI tools are used responsibly and ethically, prioritizing student welfare and educational integrity.

How does Khanmigo integrate with existing curricula?

Khanmigo is designed to complement existing curricula by providing resources and insights that align with educational standards. It offers lesson plans and activities that can be seamlessly integrated into teachers' existing plans. By adapting to various teaching styles and curriculum requirements, Khanmigo ensures that its tools support rather than disrupt the educational process. This integration allows educators to enhance their teaching methods while maintaining consistency with established curricula.

What are the benefits of using AI tools like Khanmigo and Writing Coach in education?

AI tools like Khanmigo and Writing Coach offer numerous benefits in education, including personalized learning experiences, efficient workload management for teachers, and enhanced student engagement. By providing tailored feedback and support, these tools help students achieve mastery in various subjects. For teachers, AI tools streamline administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on student interaction and instruction. Overall, AI tools contribute to a more dynamic, effective, and accessible educational environment.

How does Khanmigo handle different learning styles?

Khanmigo is designed to accommodate various learning styles by offering personalized explanations and resources. It adapts its teaching methods based on individual student needs, ensuring that each student receives the support that best suits their learning preferences. Whether a student learns best through visual aids, hands-on activities, or detailed explanations, Khanmigo tailors its approach to maximize understanding and retention, making learning more effective and enjoyable.

What real-world examples illustrate the use of Khanmigo in the classroom?

Real-world examples of Khanmigo use include teachers using the tool to create engaging lesson plans that connect math concepts to popular culture, such as integrating fractions with baseball statistics or music lyrics. Another example is using Khanmigo to provide instant feedback on student essays, allowing students to revise their work based on constructive criticism. These examples demonstrate how Khanmigo can make learning more relevant and interactive, fostering a deeper connection between students and the material.

How does Writing Coach handle revision feedback for students?

Writing Coach provides detailed, actionable feedback during the revision process, focusing on areas such as content clarity, argument strength, and grammatical accuracy. It offers suggestions for improvement without rewriting the student's work, encouraging independent learning and critical thinking. By providing real-time feedback, Writing Coach helps students refine their writing skills and produce polished, coherent essays that meet academic standards.

What are the key components of Khan Academy's district partnerships?

Khan Academy's district partnerships include access to Khanmigo and other resources, professional development for educators, and data analytics to track student progress. These partnerships ensure that schools have the tools and support needed to effectively integrate Khan Academy's AI tools into their curricula. By providing comprehensive training and resources, Khan Academy helps districts leverage technology to enhance teaching and learning outcomes.

How does Khan Academy ensure effective implementation of AI tools in schools?

Khan Academy ensures effective implementation of AI tools by offering professional development and training for educators. This training helps teachers understand how to use tools like Khanmigo and Writing Coach effectively, ensuring that they can integrate these technologies into their teaching methods. By providing ongoing support and resources, Khan Academy empowers educators to maximize the benefits of AI tools, enhancing the overall educational experience for students.

How does Khanmigo support personalized learning?

Khanmigo supports personalized learning by adapting its teaching methods to individual student needs and learning styles. It provides tailored feedback and resources, allowing students to progress at their own pace and focus on areas where they need improvement. By offering a customized learning experience, Khanmigo helps students achieve mastery in various subjects, fostering a deeper understanding and retention of the material.

How does Writing Coach encourage independent learning?

Writing Coach encourages independent learning by providing students with the tools and feedback they need to improve their writing skills on their own. It offers guidance and suggestions without directly rewriting the student's work, promoting critical thinking and problem-solving. By empowering students to take ownership of their learning process, Writing Coach helps them develop the skills and confidence needed to succeed academically.

What are the long-term benefits of using AI tools in education?

The long-term benefits of using AI tools in education include improved student outcomes, more efficient teaching methods, and enhanced access to personalized learning experiences. By providing tailored support and feedback, AI tools help students achieve mastery in various subjects, leading to better academic performance and increased confidence. For teachers, AI tools streamline administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on student interaction and instruction, ultimately creating a more dynamic and effective educational environment.