The Promises and Challenges of Scaling Hands-on Learning Using An Online Platform

Abstract

Khan Academy’s projects are designed to inspire and empower teachers and students to discover, create, and advance their learning. This paper begins by reviewing my entry project, co-leading the Discovery Lab, which is a hands-on learning summer program. Then it transitions to online project-based video content I created. I next explore effective project-based learning and Design Based Research (DBR) to set the stage for Spider and Spout, our hands-on robotics project pilot studies. Spout provided promising results, which were used for the implementation of Spider, a more advanced fully programmable robot that can be built using only online instruction. These projects suggest that DBR could be used to effectively implement our project-based curriculum. Our Spider pilot project also suggests that it is possible to train students to build projects assisted only by online videos. However, it remains unclear if the students will be able to move beyond the procedural knowledge acquired by following the step-by-step videos to effective project-based learning (more advanced critical thinking and creative problem solving). This report then reveals that more research is needed to draw conclusions about how effective our projects will be at scaling across the education sector or at disrupting or changing existing culture of the classroom. Next, I identify the Discovery Lab 2013 as a means for rapidly gaining research data to improve our projects prior to scaling. Finally, I explore the key components of my learning as a leader.