I'm here today to talk about the two ideas that, at least based on my observations at Khan Academy, are kind of the core, or the key leverage points for learning. And it's the idea of mastery and the idea of mindset.
Danas sam ovdje kako bih govorio o dvije ideje koje, barem na temelju mojih promatranja na Khan akademiji, su kao jezgra, ili ključna poluga učenja. A to su ideja ovladavanja te ideja mentalnog sklopa.
I saw this in the early days working with my cousins. A lot of them were having trouble with math at first, because they had all of these gaps accumulated in their learning. And because of that, at some point they got to an algebra class and they might have been a little bit shaky on some of the pre-algebra, and because of that, they thought they didn't have the math gene. Or they'd get to a calculus class, and they'd be a little bit shaky on the algebra. I saw it in the early days when I was uploading some of those videos on YouTube, and I realized that people who were not my cousins were watching.
Vidio sam to tijekom ranih dana radeći sa svojim nećacima. Puno ih je imalo problema s matematikom isprve, jer su imali te rupe prikupljene tijekom učenja. Radi toga, u nekom bi trenutku došli na sat algebre a mogli bi biti malo nesigurni u nečemu iz pre-algebre, te bi radi toga mislili kako nemaju matematički gen. Ili bi došli na sat iz kalkulusa, a bili bi malo nesigurni u algebri. Vidio sam to tijekom ranih dana kada sam podizao neke od tih videa na YouTube, i shvatio kako ih gledaju i ljudi koji mi nisu nećaci.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And at first, those comments were just simple thank-yous. I thought that was a pretty big deal. I don't know how much time you all spend on YouTube. Most of the comments are not "Thank you."
A u početku, ti su komentari bili samo jednostavni "Hvala vam". Mislio sam kako je to prilično velika stvar. Ne znam koliko vremena provodite na You Tubeu. Većina komentara nisu "Hvala vam."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
They're a little edgier than that. But then the comments got a little more intense, student after student saying that they had grown up not liking math. It was getting difficult as they got into more advanced math topics. By the time they got to algebra, they had so many gaps in their knowledge they couldn't engage with it. They thought they didn't have the math gene. But when they were a bit older, they took a little agency and decided to engage. They found resources like Khan Academy and they were able to fill in those gaps and master those concepts, and that reinforced their mindset that it wasn't fixed; that they actually were capable of learning mathematics.
Malo su oštriji od toga. Ali onda su komentari postali malo intenzivniji, učenik za učenikom je govorio kako je odrastao ne voleći matematiku. Postajala je sve teža kako su ulazili u naprednije teme. Do vremena kad bi stigli do algebre, imali su toliko rupa u znanju da se nisu s njom mogli uhvatiti u koštac. Mislili su kako nemaju matematički gen. Ali kad bi postali malo stariji, malo bi se pribrali, te odlučili ipak se dohvatiti. Našli bi resurse poput Khan akademije te bi bili u mogućnosti ispuniti te rupe i ovladati tim konceptima, a to bi im ukazalo kako im mentalni sklop nije fiksan; da zapravo jesu bili sposobni učiti matematku.
And in a lot of ways, this is how you would master a lot of things in life. It's the way you would learn a martial art. In a martial art, you would practice the white belt skills as long as necessary, and only when you've mastered it you would move on to become a yellow belt. It's the way you learn a musical instrument: you practice the basic piece over and over again, and only when you've mastered it, you go on to the more advanced one.
A na puno načina, to je kako biste ovladali sa puno stvari u životu. To je način kako biste učili borilačku vještinu. U borilačkoj vještini, vježbali biste vještine za bijeli pojas koliko je god potrebno a tek kad biste im ovladali biste napredovali da postanete žuti pojas. To je način kako učite muzički instrument: vježbate osnovni stavak ponovo i opet iznova, a tek kad ste ga svladali nastavljate na napredniji.
But what we point out -- this is not the way a traditional academic model is structured, the type of academic model that most of us grew up in. In a traditional academic model, we group students together, usually by age, and around middle school, by age and perceived ability, and we shepherd them all together at the same pace. And what typically happens, let's say we're in a middle school pre-algebra class, and the current unit is on exponents, the teacher will give a lecture on exponents, then we'll go home, do some homework. The next morning, we'll review the homework, then another lecture, homework, lecture, homework. That will continue for about two or three weeks, and then we get a test. On that test, maybe I get a 75 percent, maybe you get a 90 percent, maybe you get a 95 percent. And even though the test identified gaps in our knowledge, I didn't know 25 percent of the material. Even the A student, what was the five percent they didn't know?
Ali ono na što ciljamo -- to nije način na koji je tradicionalan akademski model izgrađen, tip akademskog modela unutar kojeg je većina nas odrasla. U tradicionalnom akademskom modelu, grupiramo studente zajedno, obično po dobi, te oko srednje škole, po dobi i opaženim sposobnostima, te ih zajedno vodimo u istom ritmu. I što se tipično događa, recimo da smo na srednjoškolskom satu pred-algebre, a trenutna jedinica je o eksponentima, učitelj će održati predavanje o eksponentima, pa ćemo otići doma, napraviti domaći rad. Slijedeće jutro, pregledati ćemo domaći rad, Pa novo predavanje, domaći rad, predavanje, domaći rad. To će nastaviti kroz otprilike dva ili tri tjedna, a tad ćemo imati test. Na tom testu, možda ću ja dobiti 75 posto, možda ćete vi dobiti 90 posto, možda ćete vi dobiti 95 posto. Te iako je test identificirao rupe u našem znanju, ja nisam znao 25 posto materije. Čak i odličan učenik, kojih je to 5 posto koje nije znao?
Even though we've identified the gaps, the whole class will then move on to the next subject, probably a more advanced subject that's going to build on those gaps. It might be logarithms or negative exponents. And that process continues, and you immediately start to realize how strange this is. I didn't know 25 percent of the more foundational thing, and now I'm being pushed to the more advanced thing. And this will continue for months, years, all the way until at some point, I might be in an algebra class or trigonometry class and I hit a wall. And it's not because algebra is fundamentally difficult or because the student isn't bright. It's because I'm seeing an equation and they're dealing with exponents and that 30 percent that I didn't know is showing up. And then I start to disengage.
Iako smo identificirali te rupe, cijeli će razred potom preći na slijedeću temu, vjerojatno napredniju temu koja će se nadograđivati na te rupe. To mogu biti logaritmi ili negativni eksponenti. A taj se proces nastavlja, i odmah počnete shvaćati koliko je to čudno. Nisam znao 25 posto temeljnije stvari, a sad me guraju u napredniju stvar. I to će se nastavljati kroz mjesece, godine, sve do neke točke, to može biti sat algebre ili sat trigonometrije kad ću pogoditi zid. A to nije stoga što bi algebra bila iz temelja teška ili zato što učenik nije bistar. To je stoga što vidim jednadžbu koja koristi eksponente a tih 30 posto koje nisam znao se pokazuje. I potom se počinjem odvajati.
To appreciate how absurd that is, imagine if we did other things in our life that way. Say, home-building.
Kako bi shvatili koliko je to apsurdno, zamislite kad bismo druge stvari radili na takav način. Recimo, izgradnju doma.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So we bring in the contractor and say, "We were told we have two weeks to build a foundation. Do what you can."
Dakle dovodimo izvođača radova i kažemo, "Rečeno nam je kako imamo dva tjedna za izgraditi temelj. Učinite što možete."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So they do what they can. Maybe it rains. Maybe some of the supplies don't show up. And two weeks later, the inspector comes, looks around, says, "OK, the concrete is still wet right over there, that part's not quite up to code ... I'll give it an 80 percent."
Pa oni učine ono što mogu. Možda pada kiša. Možda se nešto materijala nije pojavilo. I dva tjedna kasnije dolazi inspektor, gleda uokolo, kaže: "Ok, beton je još uvijek mokar eno ondje, ovaj dio nije baš po propisima ... Dat ću mu 80 posto."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
You say, "Great! That's a C. Let's build the first floor."
Vi kažete: "Odlično! To je trojka. Hajdemo sagraditi prvi kat."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Same thing. We have two weeks, do what you can, inspector shows up, it's a 75 percent. Great, that's a D-plus. Second floor, third floor, and all of a sudden, while you're building the third floor, the whole structure collapses. And if your reaction is the reaction you typically have in education, or that a lot of folks have, you might say, maybe we had a bad contractor, or maybe we needed better inspection or more frequent inspection. But what was really broken was the process. We were artificially constraining how long we had to something, pretty much ensuring a variable outcome, and we took the trouble of inspecting and identifying those gaps, but then we built right on top of it.
Ista stvar. Imamo dva tjedna, učinite što možete, inspektor se pojavi, to je 75 posto. Super, to je dva plus. Drugi kat, treći kat, kad odjednom, dok izgrađujemo treći kat, cijela se struktura uruši. A ako je vaša reakcija rekacija kakva je tipična u obrazovanju, ili kakvu puno ljudi ima, možete reći, možda smo imali lošeg izvođača radova, ili smo možda trebali bolju inspekciju ili češću inspekciju. Ali ono što je zapravo bilo loše je bio proces. Umjetno ograničavamo koliko dugo trebamo nešto raditi, poprilično osiguravajući promjenjiv ishod, a potrudili smo se ispitati i identificirati te rupe, ali potom smo nadogradili direktno preko njih.
So the idea of mastery learning is to do the exact opposite. Instead of artificially constraining, fixing when and how long you work on something, pretty much ensuring that variable outcome, the A, B, C, D, F -- do it the other way around. What's variable is when and how long a student actually has to work on something, and what's fixed is that they actually master the material.
Pa je ideja učenja za ovladavanje činiti točno obrnuto. Umjesto umjetnog ograničavanja, uglavljivanja kada i koliko dugo ćete raditi na nečemu, poprilično osiguravajući taj promjenjiv ishod, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- učinimo to na drugi način. Što je promjenjivo je kada i koliko dugo učenik zbilja mora raditi na nečemu, a što je uglavljeno je kako moraju zbilja ovladati materijom.
And it's important to realize that not only will this make the student learn their exponents better, but it'll reinforce the right mindset muscles. It makes them realize that if you got 20 percent wrong on something, it doesn't mean that you have a C branded in your DNA somehow. It means that you should just keep working on it. You should have grit; you should have perseverance; you should take agency over your learning.
I što je bitno shvatiti kako to neće samo učiniti da učenik bolje nauči svoje eksponente, nego će i ojačati mišiće za ispravan mentalni sklop. Učinit će da shvate kako ako imate 20 posto nečega pogrešnog, to ne znači kako imate 3 žigosano negdje u svojoj DNK. To samo znači kako biste trebali nastaviti raditi na tome. Trebali biste ustrajati; trebali biste biti uporni; trebali biste upravljati vlastitim učenjem.
Now, a lot of skeptics might say, well, hey, this is all great, philosophically, this whole idea of mastery-based learning and its connection to mindset, students taking agency over their learning. It makes a lot of sense, but it seems impractical. To actually do it, every student would be on their own track. It would have to be personalized, you'd have to have private tutors and worksheets for every student. And these aren't new ideas -- there were experiments in Winnetka, Illinois, 100 years ago, where they did mastery-based learning and saw great results, but they said it wouldn't scale because it was logistically difficult. The teacher had to give different worksheets to every student, give on-demand assessments.
Sad, puno skeptika može reći, dobro, hej, sve je to lijepo, filozofski, ta cijela ideja o učenju temeljenom na ovladavanju i njegovoj vezi sa mentalnim sklopom, učenicima koji upravljaju svojim učenjem. Sve to ima puno smisla, ali čini se nepraktično. Kako bi to zbilja izveo, svaki bi učenik trebao imati svoju stazu. Morala bi biti personalizirana, morali bi imati privatne staratelje i radne materijale za svakog učenika. A to nisu nove ideje -- bilo je eksperimenata u Winnetki, Illinoisu, prije 100 godina, gdje su poučavali temeljeno na ovladavanju, i vidjeli odlične rezultate ali su rekli kako se ne bi moglo proširiti jer je bilo logistički zahtjevno. Učitelj je morao davati različite radne materijale svakom učeniku, davati procjene na zahtjev.
But now today, it's no longer impractical. We have the tools to do it. Students see an explanation at their own time and pace? There's on-demand video for that. They need practice? They need feedback? There's adaptive exercises readily available for students.
Ali danas, to više nije nepraktično. Imamo potrebne alate. Učenici da gledaju objašnjenja u vlastitom vremenu i ritmu? Za to postoji video na zahtjev. Trebaju vježbu? Trebaju povratnu informaciju? Postoje prilagodljive vježbe lako dostupne učenicima.
And when that happens, all sorts of neat things happen. One, the students can actually master the concepts, but they're also building their growth mindset, they're building grit, perseverance, they're taking agency over their learning. And all sorts of beautiful things can start to happen in the actual classroom. Instead of it being focused on the lecture, students can interact with each other. They can get deeper mastery over the material. They can go into simulations, Socratic dialogue.
A kad se to dogodi, različite se fine stvari dogode. Jedna, učenici mogu zaista ovladati konceptima, ali izrađuju i vlastiti mentalni sklop rasta, izgrađuju ustrajnost, upornost, preuzimaju upravu nad svojim učenjem. I svakakve prekrasne stvari se mogu početi događati u zbiljskoj učionici. Umjesto da su usredotočeni na lekciju, učenici mogu uzajamno međusobno djelovati. Mogu dobiti dublju vlast nad materijom. Mogu ići u simulacije, sokratski dijalog.
To appreciate what we're talking about and the tragedy of lost potential here, I'd like to give a little bit of a thought experiment. If we were to go 400 years into the past to Western Europe, which even then, was one of the more literate parts of the planet, you would see that about 15 percent of the population knew how to read. And I suspect that if you asked someone who did know how to read, say a member of the clergy, "What percentage of the population do you think is even capable of reading?" They might say, "Well, with a great education system, maybe 20 or 30 percent." But if you fast forward to today, we know that that prediction would have been wildly pessimistic, that pretty close to 100 percent of the population is capable of reading. But if I were to ask you a similar question: "What percentage of the population do you think is capable of truly mastering calculus, or understanding organic chemistry, or being able to contribute to cancer research?" A lot of you might say, "Well, with a great education system, maybe 20, 30 percent."
Da biste cijenili o čemu to ovdje pričamo te tragediju izgubljenog potencijala, volio bih provesti maleni misaoni eksperiment. Ako bismo otišli 400 godina u prošlost u Zapadnu Europu, koja je čak i tada bila jedan od pismenijih dijelova planeta, vidjeli biste kako oko 15 posto populacije zna čitati. I pretpostavljam kad biste pitali nekoga koji zna čitati, recimo člana klera, "Koliki postotak populacije biste rekli kako je uopće sposobno čitati?" Mogli bi vam reći:"Pa, sa odličnim obrazovnim sustavom, možda 20 do 30 posto." Alo ako ubrzate do danas, znamo kako bi to predviđanje bilo debelo pesimistično, kako je prilično blizu 100 posto populacije sposobno za čitanje. Ali kad bih vam postavio slično pitanje: "Koliki postotak populacije biste rekli kako je sposobno zbiljski ovladavati infinitezimalnim računom, ili razumjeti organsku kemiju, ili biti sposoban doprinijeti istraživanju raka?" Puno bi vas moglo reći:"Pa, uz odličan obrazovni sustav, možda 20, 30 posto."
But what if that estimate is just based on your own experience in a non-mastery framework, your own experience with yourself or observing your peers, where you're being pushed at this set pace through classes, accumulating all these gaps? Even when you got that 95 percent, what was that five percent you missed? And it keeps accumulating -- you get to an advanced class, all of a sudden you hit a wall and say, "I'm not meant to be a cancer researcher; not meant to be a physicist; not meant to be a mathematician." I suspect that that actually is the case, but if you were allowed to be operating in a mastery framework, if you were allowed to really take agency over your learning, and when you get something wrong, embrace it -- view that failure as a moment of learning -- that number, the percent that could really master calculus or understand organic chemistry, is actually a lot closer to 100 percent.
Ali što ako je ta procjena samo temeljena na vašem vlastitom iskustvu iz poretka bez ovladavanja, vašem vlastitom iskustvu s vama ili iz osmatranja vaših kolega, gdje ste gurani po tom ustaljenom ritmu kroz lekcije, prikupljajući sve te rupe? Čak i kad dobijete tih 95 posto, Kojih je bilo tih 5 posto koje ste promašili? A to se nastavlja prikupljati -- dospijete do napredne lekcije, odjednom lupite u zid i kažete: "Nije mi suđeno istraživati rak; nije mi suđeno biti fizičar; nije mi suđeno biti matematičar." Pretpostavljam kako je upravo to na stvari, ali ako bi vam bilo dopušteno operirati po poretku ovladavanja, ako bi vam bilo dopušteno zbilja upravljati nad svojim učenjem, te kad nešto shvatite krivo, to i prihvatite -- vidite taj promašaj kao trenutak učenja -- taj broj, postotak koji bi zbilja mogao ovladati kalkulusom ili razumijeti organsku kemiju, je zapravo puno bliži 100 posto.
And this isn't even just a "nice to have." I think it's a social imperative. We're exiting what you could call the industrial age and we're going into this information revolution. And it's clear that some things are happening. In the industrial age, society was a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, you needed human labor. In the middle of the pyramid, you had an information processing, a bureaucracy class, and at the top of the pyramid, you had your owners of capital and your entrepreneurs and your creative class. But we know what's happening already, as we go into this information revolution. The bottom of that pyramid, automation, is going to take over. Even that middle tier, information processing, that's what computers are good at.
A to čak i nije samo "lijepo za imati". Mislim kako je to društveni imperativ. Izlazimo iz što biste mogli zvati industrijsko doba te ulazimo u ovu informacijsku revoluciju. I jasno je kako se događaju neke stvari. U industrijsko doba, društvo je bilo piramida. U temelju piramide, trebali ste ljudski rad. U sredini piramide, imali ste obradu informacija, klasu birokrata, a na vrhu piramide, imali ste vaše vlasnike kapitala i vaše poduzetnike i vašu stvaralačku klasu. Ali znamo što se već događa, kako idemo u ovu informacijsku revoluciju. Temelj piramide, preuzet će ga automatizacija. Čak i taj srednji rang, obrada informacija, to je ono u čemu su računala dobra.
So as a society, we have a question: All this new productivity is happening because of this technology, but who participates in it? Is it just going to be that very top of the pyramid, in which case, what does everyone else do? How do they operate? Or do we do something that's more aspirational? Do we actually attempt to invert the pyramid, where you have a large creative class, where almost everyone can participate as an entrepreneur, an artist, as a researcher?
Pa kao društvo, imamo pitanje: Sva se ta nova proizvodnost događa radi ove tehnologije, ali tko u njoj sudjeluje? Hoće li to biti samo taj krajnji vrh piramide, u kojem slučaju, što rade svi ostali? Kako oni opstaju? Ili činimo nešto ipak nadahnutije? Pokušavamo li zapravo obrnuti piramidu, gdje imate veliku stvaralačku klasu, gdje gotovo svatko može sudjelovati kao poduzetnik, umjetnik, kao istraživač?
And I don't think that this is utopian. I really think that this is all based on the idea that if we let people tap into their potential by mastering concepts, by being able to exercise agency over their learning, that they can get there. And when you think of it as just a citizen of the world, it's pretty exciting. I mean, think about the type of equity we can we have, and the rate at which civilization could even progress. And so, I'm pretty optimistic about it. I think it's going to be a pretty exciting time to be alive.
I ne mislim kako je to utopija. Zbilja mislim kako je sve ovo temeljeno na ideji kako ako pustimo ljude doseći vlastite mogućnosti ovladavanjem koncepata, omogućavanjem obnašanja vlasti nad svojim učenjem, kako bi oni mogli doseći to. A kad razmišljate o tome kao tek građanin svijeta, to je prilično uzbudljivo. Mislim, pomislite o tipu vrijednosti koji bismo mogli imati, te o stopi po kojoj bi čak civilizacija mogla napredovati. Tako da, prilično sam optimističan oko toga. Mislim kako će to biti prilično uzbudljivo vrijeme za biti živ.
Thank you.
Hvala Vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)