Not really good in math? Chemistry Redox reactions giving you a pain? No problem, anyone can find a quick and easy
explanation online, for free. Who can be thanked for that? Mr. Salman Khan, the
founder of Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a resource for students all around the
world to utilize in order to gain benefit for educational purposes. This
organization blossomed and was jump started after Khan began tutoring his cousin
online from half way across the world. After one cousin started, a lot of his
other cousins wanted to be able to be tutored by him as well. He began to
expand the scope of his tutoring by implementing drawing within the lessons as
well. Through a strong and fervent positive feedback he decided to not only
make these tutoring lessons available to just his cousins, yet he saw a bigger
vision to expand to kids all over the world. He never wanted anyone to be excluded from his resources or tutoring, therefore he made it free, and accessible to all. This essentially shows that Khan's work was never driven by greed, rather it was driven by pure passion and wanting to make a real and actual difference within the world. He saw himself as a constructive creative, yet wished to foster many more in upcoming generations.
Khan Academy was founded as a
nonprofit organization in 2014 and is solely run on donations. It has
accumulated millions from major companies including Google in order to help the
cause. The videos are tutorial based and range across all subjects including
Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, as well as many other widely studied subjects.
The list goes on and on. The videos not only cover a variety of subjects, they
simultaneously cover a wide range of the world’s most commonly and popularly
spoken languages around the world. This is quite exceptional as it goes back to that same notion of accessibility to all, and exclusion of none.
By receiving degrees from
MIT as well as Harvard University, one can see how Khan is very intrinsically
motivated, yet simultaneously through the incredible feedback he has gotten
since the beginning of this organization, one can also see how he is
extrinsically motivated as well. His creative process and work is also fostered
through collaboration with his colleagues who give him new ideas and new ways
to reach his audience that could prove to be more powerful as well as
effective. Collaboration was something that Sunstein and Thaler cited in their
article as very important to the overall creative process and to the creative
flow of a person. One can see how Khan has personified this notion within his
company and throughout his career.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team
It is very interesting how you mentioned that this idea doesn't stem from greed, rather, it comes from a place where the goal is for everyone to have access to this resource. This ultimately shows Khan's intrinsic motivation to elicit success out of each of his "students" by makinng these videas widely accessible. I also liked how you presented the fact that hes not trying to make this his own thing and only have the material taught one way. His collaboration with others actually helps a plethora of people due to the different type of teaching/learnning styles everyone has.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that Khan Academy was a nonprofit! I think that's a huge testament to how intrinsically motivated Khan is. He could have easily decided not to make it a free resource so he could profit from it, but I'm really glad he didn't--Khan Academy has helped me a lot in my math and science classes in the past!
ReplyDeleteIt's a really interesting post about one of the most accessible resources for us student. I really find it amazing that you mention how he started it, both intrinsically and extrinsically, from his passion and understanding rather than for profit. Without collaboration, it is impossible to maintain such well-known online tutor center. I think it could be the cause, the belief and the collaboration of Khan Academy that it attracts donors as huge as Google. Khan was definitely one of the first and most successful to start this idea of free online tutor.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your title is the best, so witty and funny! Love it! Also, up until today I hadn't really seen a picture of Salman, for someone reason I always imagined him to be some old man. Lastly, god bless Khan Academy, they are the saviors of this century's student population!
ReplyDeleteThis article was so interesting to me because I personally have benefited from Khan Academy on more than one occasion. It's amazing to see that the platform is run completely on donations, Mr. Khan is doing an amazing deed by helping millions of students while the people benefiting are reciprocating by donating and keeping him running. Hopefully this grows into an even more useful tool!
ReplyDelete