Overview from Khan Academy’s Chief Learning Officer, Kristen DiCerbo
I’ve spent my career working with various organizations and exploring how to use technology to support learning. If you had asked me even two years ago if I thought we’d be where we are today with AI, I would have said no. The latest capabilities of this technology extend well beyond what was previously possible and offer unprecedented opportunities to advance student learning. I want to share with you why I believe Khan Academy is the right organization to bring AI into the classroom and why we believe Khanmigo is such a powerful tool to drive student learning outcomes.
First, why Khan Academy out of all the players in this new space?
As a nonprofit organization, we measure our success as an organization based on the impact we make on student learning. Everything we do is held to this standard: if it won’t have an equitable and positive impact on students or the educators guiding their learning, it’s not for Khan Academy. In addition, Khan Academy staff includes researchers and former educators who partner closely with teachers and administrators in schools and classrooms every day. Because of this, we understand both the conditions that allow children to learn and the practical challenges to achieving those conditions. We have a track record of creating high-quality resources that accelerate learning. And we are a beloved and trusted partner to teachers, parents, and students, who can help them navigate this foundational shift in education.
Second, why is AI such a game changer?
Let me start by saying that at Khan Academy, we have always believed that nothing could replace an amazing teacher. We have worked to build technology tools that help teachers and students apply research-backed education principles. After many years of steady progress, we believe that AI presents a unique opportunity to solve two pressing challenges that often arise in classrooms of 30+ students:
While AI will never be a replacement for human-to-human learning, it can approximate the experience of working with a personal tutor more than any previous technologies have, largely because of its ability to have a conversation with the learner. This means that as students engage in independent practice on skills the teacher has taught, they can now converse with an AI tutor like Khanmigo to receive personalized guidance aligned to their skill level—and get real-time feedback. Here’s how it works with Khan Academy’s AI tool, Khanmigo:
While Khanmigo is an exciting evolution in Khan Academy’s toolkit, it’s not a silver-bullet solution to all the challenges we face in education. That said, AI has ushered in a new horizon full of possibilities, and it’s our responsibility to ensure these opportunities benefit all learners equitably. I’m proud of our work over the past year to bring Khanmigo to students and educators everywhere. It’s an exciting new leap forward in service of student learning—and one of many yet to come.
As a nonprofit organization, we measure our success as an organization based on the impact we make on student learning. Everything we do is held to this standard: if it won’t have an equitable and positive impact on students or the educators guiding their learning, it’s not for Khan Academy.
Here’s a look at how learners and educators are using Khan Academy’s AI tutor and teaching assistant:
When students are stuck, Khanmigo is built to guide students through step-by-step support, empowering them to find the answer. After students ask Khanmigo a question, Khanmigo will share how to approach finding the answer without sharing the result. Additionally, Khanmigo is designed to be patient while guiding students through each step, and many learners have said that they appreciate Khanmigo’s patience and kind tone. As one learner notes, “… and then, if it’s wrong, it’ll tell you that’s wrong but in a nice way.”
We’ve also heard anecdotes from learners that Khanmigo has helped them improve in key subject areas (like math) where they had struggled in the past. According to a 10th grade math student, “Personally, I struggle with math. Before a test or quiz, I ask Khanmigo to give me practice problems, and I feel more prepared—and my score increases.”
Using Khanmigo as a patient and kind tutor to help problem-solve and practice a wide variety of subjects are just two ways that students use Khanmigo. Looking at the past year of user data, learners frequently utilized the following Khanmigo features:
For educators, Khanmigo is designed to assist with time-consuming tasks and enable more personalized teaching.
According to a recent study, teachers spend more than 50% of their time on tasks that prepare them to teach. And they routinely work more than 50 hours each week. At the same time, teachers also have important human-to-human work to do when leading and instructing a classroom full of students.
Teachers who have used Khanmigo in the past year tell us that it saves them valuable time and enables them to personalize the learning experience for their students. With respect to personalizing learning, Khanmigo empowers students to independently receive tailored guidance: “[Khanmigo] raises the level of being independent in the classroom,” said 5th grade teacher Anna Tan in an interview with Good Morning America. Instead of waiting with their hand in the air until the teacher comes around to help, students with questions now have a way to seek out assistance and possibly resolve their questions on their own in the time it would normally take for the teacher to reach them.
Here is a look at the Khanmigo teacher tools used most by educators in the past year:
In addition to keeping tabs on how students and teachers use Khanmigo, we also spent more than 20 days in the field with our district partners over the past school year, interviewing students and teachers about their Khanmigo experiences. Additionally, anytime a user leaves us in-product feedback, we review each piece of feedback and use these insights in product development. Over the past year, we’ve received more than 6K comments from Khanmigo’s users that have helped us learn, iterate, and improve. More information on how we incorporate product feedback from educators can be explored here. Key lessons learned from our users and how we’re addressing these concerns can be explored here.
A note on Khanmigo’s development: We are committed to developing responsible AI, which means learning from the best practices of leading organizations, educating our community about risks and known issues, and fostering a culture where ethics and responsible development are embedded in our employees’ workflows and mindsets. Read more about our responsible AI guidelines here.
Additionally, we are a founding member and part of the steering committee of TeachAI, a consortium focused on empowering educators to teach with AI and about AI. TeachAI has published a set of guidelines for district leaders to help them realize the benefits of AI while managing potential risks. See our AI Guidance for Schools toolkit, as well as other foundational policy ideas and resources, here.
“[Khanmigo] raises the level of being independent in the classroom.”
