Background 2

After reading Salman Khan's book and meeting with James and Bilal at the Khan Academy headquarters, we left feeling inspired and determined.  My sons Eduardo and Elahdio returned to both of their universities close by and I returned to Bolivia.  Upon arriving in Bolivia, Jose and I met about this project.  Jose had been working his way through the Khan math curriculum and was now a master in most things Khan.  We decided that one of the first things that we needed to do was meet with our artisans and see if they were interested in the project.   

Our meeting was a resounding success.  Many of the women were very excited about the idea that we could help their children in math, a subject that tortured both children and parent's alike.  Bolivia's public school system is largely based on rote memory.  Many teachers in this system feel overwhelmed by large classes, few resources and a student population that oftentimes has no parental help at home.  The students,especially in the rural areas, often have little to no, one on one interaction with a teacher.  Math is especially difficult since success is based on the fact that each new concept is based on the mastery of the previous concepts.  Many students feel both frustrated and embarassed by their continued failure in math.  After discussing the project with the artisans, we decided that the best way to go about getting information and signing up the kids was by doing a survey.  

As we are members of the World Fair Trade Organization, we often need to find out basic information about our artisans.  AHA Bolivia works with 200-300 artisans all over the Cochabamba valley, where our offices are located.  The artisans generally work from home or in the case of crochet and handknits, they work from whereever they are.  It is not uncommon to find dried grass in some of our pieces, as a knitter herds her sheep or llamas in the mountainous countryside surrounding the Cochabamba valley.  We have done surveys with our artisans sporadically.  We usually ask demographic questions as well as questions about health and well-being.  In this new survey, we decided to add a section about all the artisans' children and their level in school.  Also we wanted to know if the students were interested in participating in a Khan Academy project during their June/July vacation (winter here in the Southern Hemisphere).  

We hired the daughter of one of our knitters Juseth, to carry out this very difficult task of trying to meet with the artisans and fill out the surveys.  Many of the artisans are semi-literate with some artisans not being able to read at all.  Juseth has a degree in Sociology and she has helped us in the past gather information about the artisans.  She also has some knowledge of Quechua, the language spoken in the countryside in this part of Bolivia.  Although some of the women can only speak Quechua, most of their children will be able to speak Spanish.  We set aside the months of March and April to carry out this task.  By the end of the allotted time, Juseth had done a fantastic job of collecting information and we found ourselves with over 100 students wishing to participate in the project.

Meanwhile, Jose and I were trying to figure out the logistics.  Where would we set up this program?  How would we get the necessary computers?   Was our internet capable of running all the computers at once?  How would the kids from the countryside get to our offices?  Who would supervise the kids?  Etc. etc.  We had a million details to figure out but we were so excited about the enthusiasm that our project had generated that we just figured that everything would work out somehow.

Anna

Comments

After the last classes, we asked our students to write a few comments about what they thought of the program. Here is what some of them wrote:

"Me gusto mucho por que me fue muy bien, tambien por que los profesores fueron muy buenos y geniales con todos. (I liked it a lot because it went well for me, also because the teachers were very good and nice with everybody.)" - Heidy

"Yo creo que estas clases fueron una gran ayuda y a que me aclareco muchas dudas que tenia con respecto a la matematica, lo recomendaria a los que necesitan ayuda en la matematica fue una experiencia muy grata (I think that these classes were a great help and they alleviated many doubts that I had regarding math, I would recommend it to anybody who needs help in math, it was a great experience.) - Adhemar

"Yo digo que que me gustaron mucho y los profesores son muy buenos las clases me ayudaron mucho y me hicieron entender muchas cosas que no entendia muchas gracias. (I really liked the classes and the teachers were really good. The classes helped me a lot and made me understand many things that I hadn't. Thank you very much.)" - Gabriel

"Me gusto mucho porque es una forma devertida de aprender matematicas y otras cosas y lo aprendes bien y ademas los guias son divertidos y te ayudan bien (I really liked it because it is a fun way to learn math and other things and you learn well and moroever the teachers were fun and helped you well.)" - Vicente

"Me gusto mucho y son las mejores clases de matematicas que he tenido (I liked it a lot and they were the best math classes that I have ever had.)" - Kosuke

These are only a few of many grateful comments, which we will continue to post. Sounds like the kids really enjoyed the course, and many of them are excited to return on Saturdays, when we will have the computers open to use the Khan Academy.

Graduation

AHA Bolivia's Khan Academy Pilot Program ended on Saturday. Beginning on Thursday, each class had a short graduation and celebration. Anna Hosbein recognized the all of the participants, and each student recieved a certificate of completion of the program. The students were overjoyed to recieve recognition for the program, although many were sad that it was over. Almost all of the students demonstrated a great interest in the Khan Academy and are eager for any opportunity to log on. The comprehensiveness, independence, and funness of learning with the Khan Academy is an experience new to most of the kids. For many of the students, this program was the first time that they had enjoyed learning math and felt empowered to take learning into their own hands. It was amazing to see intelligent kids who had previously struggled with simple mathematics excel when they had the opportunity to learn in a new way. One student, Adhemar, said that the program helped him master some difficulties he had in arithmetic and then quickly advance onto geometry. The overwhelming success of this program is even more exciting when put into the context of the logistical and linguistic limitations the pilot faced. It is our hope that this pilot is only the first step free math education in Bolivia, and that it can be used to build resources and improve the Spanish version of Khan Academy. As we continue to improve the breadth and depth of the program, the educational impact of the pilot can only be extended.

IP

July 11

Today was the last day of the project for 2 of the classes. We ended the classes 30 min early today to have a small closing ceremony. We gave the students a certificate for participating and we had a small meal to celebrate the successful end to the program.

The Tues, Thurs morning class

The Tues, Thurs afternoon class

 We have 3 more classes to wrap up and each gets their own little closing ceremony 2 tomorrow and 1 on Saturday. The students seem to have learned much from the program and can use the website by themselves pretty much. We the tutors fell into more of an aid role by these last days of the program. The students have also started asking each other for help and figuring hard concepts out in groups.

We also passed around some books for the students to put their comments in. Most of the students were happy with the program. The favorite teacher by default for the morning classes was Ariel. Many of the students have said that this program helped them. We have also talked to some of the parents one of the mothers was present for the closing and said, "My son is talking he is usually so shy." She also asked us for all the login information so that they could carry on using the program at home.

EWA

July 10

July 10

Despite what we had been hoping for, it appears that we won’t get an extra week and so classes will resume on Monday.  It has been great to get to know these kids and see them grow and improve over the last couple of weeks.  If such a change was visible over this short period of time, I can only imagine how much more they could accomplish if given more time with the program.

Today I was able to see an enormous improvement in two siblings, Cristina and Jhonny. Coming from a numerous family, (eight siblings in total, though only five of them were part of our program) and a modest lifestyle, eight-year old Jhonny not yet had the chance to go school.  When I first opened an account for him on the website and found out his math knowledge consisted on all the number from one to two hundred, Eduardo and I tried to teach addition to him. He picked it up surprisingly well and by the end of his first day he had already moved to two-digit additions and subtractions. Now Jhonny can solve multi-digit additions and subtractions that involve carrying. Cristina too has seen a major improvement. Struggling with systems of equations, she went back and reviewed her times tables as well as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of negative numbers. We then went back and tried the basic system of equations exercises; however there was still something that pulled her back-lineal equations. Today Cristina had a great breakthrough and got every single question right. She could not believe she had found these equations hard at one point. I reassured her that this has happened to all of us and is more frequent than one would think. Everything builds up, and if you do not have the right foundations then sooner or later things crumble.

These kinds have surprised me in a way I had never thought would be possible. I know they are capable of this and so much more. I hope they too are aware of it too.

AP

July 8

July 8

We are now within the third week of classes, and wish we could have more time to engage in the project. I am amazed by how quickly the kids of all ages have learned to use the Khan Academy website. I have yet to find a student who has not in some way or another benefited from using the website.  Some of our students are now looking at more advanced problems or math subjects than their fellow schoolmates.  Others have perfected previous math concepts and skills, and so their weaknesses have become their strengths.  When I first started working with some of the older kids I noticed most of them wanted to skip basic math concepts such as multiplication and division and pick up from where they left off in their respective grade levels. A great number of them would get stuck and ask for help, and it was while I explained the exercise step by step that I could figure out where the real problem was. I got varied results, some needed to go back and review concepts such as multiplication and division, and others got confused when adding and subtracting or multiply and dividing negative numbers and almost all of them had forgotten how to solve lineal equations.

After explaining the exercise I would come up with a couple of multiplication problems or simple equations, wherever I thought they needed more practice to see if that was the area that troubled them. I noticed that when they were told they had to go back and review some previous material they would do so reluctantly, but as I explained my reasoning, backing it up with the knowledge map they seemed to be more accepting.  As of this week the majority of these older kids have moved on to more challenging concepts or at least worked up their weak areas. I am really proud of their progress. They have come a long way in short amount to time.

Saul, who is more or less ten years old and rather shy was mind blown when I explained he find the answer to the 9’s time table using his hands. We had been trying to figure out the 9’s time table for a while and had tried several approaches, (drawings, adding 9 to the product, writing the table down) but none seemed to work.  When I first explained the finger folding technique he seemed skeptical. After showing him it worked with any number up to 10 he just couldn’t believe it.

Luis Daniel and Ariel, two eleven year old boys who have been sitting next to each other for the past few classes have always been very competitive when it comes to getting the right answer and accumulating as many points as possible. They could often use their ‘‘chanchullas’’ (cheat sheets) or the multiplication and division tables found in back of the notebooks we gave them. When they got caught using them we would laugh about it. I would tell them they could use them if they deemed it necessary, but reminded them they would have to learn them eventually for school. Today I saw a change in them, even though they continue to indulge in a competition, Ariel helped Luis if he got stuck somewhere and Luis did the same.

AP

Day 9 July 4th

Day 9 July 4th

As we begin to wrap up our first week of full classes, the program is running smoothly. Both the students and teachers have begun to find a rhythm of learning and teaching, and the general mood of the classroom is one of excitement. Most of the kids are now comfortable with the Khan website, and their learning is progressing faster and faster. As a teacher, I am finding that I am helping less with technology issues and more with actual mathematics. I am beginning to get to know students personally and understand their individual strengths and weaknesses. Just today I had the opportunity to work individually with two students outside of the classroom. I gave Jose practice problems on systems of equations and Erick problems on square roots. Jose continued to practice systems of equations the whole time, but after a few problems it was clear that Erick could move beyond square roots. His peers usually continued on to simplifying radicals, the next topic on Khan Academy. I had seen, however, that many of them struggled with this concept because the Bolivian schools teach square and cube roots before exponents, which made simplifying radicals difficult. Because I had the opportunity to pay more attention to Erick, I decided to go back and teach him exponents. I was excited to teach one on one, and avoid the regular laughter that accompanies my bad Spanish when I try to explain something to a group. Erick was much more polite, and what´s more, he was excited to learn and engaged the math I was teaching. We went through an explanation of exponents and a few practice problems, and Erick picked it up incredibly quickly. After recess, Jose and Erick switched to the computers, and as I´m writing this, Erick is speeding away with exponents. He´s a smart kid and I´m glad that I had the opportunity to pay attention to him and help him with certain concepts that are difficult for his peers who have only been taught in schools with large classes and little personal attention.

IP

Background- part 1- How we made some stuffed animals and met Salman Khan

Background- part 1- How we made some stuffed animals and met Salman Khan

Last year I read Salman Khan's book, The One World Schoolhouse.  It inspired me so much  that I wanted to see if we could use his curriculum to help tutor the children of the artisans that work for our company, AHA Bolivia.  I started to use some of the videos myself and then introduced them to Jose, one of my assistants.  I had him read the book and asked if he would help me with this project.  I think he got excited about it as he started a manic accumulation of points and developed an in depth knowledge of all things Khan.  

I was going to travel to the Palo Alto area in the US in February of 2013 and decided that we should try to figure out how to talk to Salman Khan or the people in his organization in person.  They did not want to be found.  We tried a million different ways to get the Khan Academy people to respond to us.  Nothing.  Then Jose came up with a brilliant plan- since our company made crochet and knit stuffed animals, why not make little stuffed animals of the avatars on the Khan website.  We made these wonderfully quirky creatures that embodied the Khan avatars, took photos of them and then added the photos to our various and sundry e-mails going off into cyber space directed at the Khan people.  They responded.

When I travelled to the US, I corralled my two sons and we all went to a meeting with two of the Khan team- James and Bilal.  During the meeting, Bilal took photos of the dolls while we talked about our project.  What James and Bilal kept asking us was- but what do you want from us?  Frankly, all we wanted was to let them know what we were doing and open a dialogue with them.  We asked if they had knowledge of someone using the Khan Academy curriculum in a developing country in another language.  They said that so far they had heard only rumours about some projects but did not have extensive knowledge of any of them.  We asked if they would be interested in what happened with our project.  They said- absolutely and please make a blog.  After 5-6 months and massive amounts of preparation- our project has started and we have finally made a blog.  

To finish up our US experience with the Khan academy, we can't forget the meeting with Salman Khan himself.  After our meeting with James and Bilal was over, we walked into the common area where the exuberent Khan staff got very excited about the stuffed avatars.  As the avatars were being thrown around the room from person to person, Salman Khan came out and in that wonderfully familiar voice and laugh said ¨"(chuckle, chuckle) not very professional."  It struck me then, that more than Salman Khan's face, his voice will be an iconic voice for many American children.  We all exchanged pleasantries and left with the idea that we would put together a mini Khan experience for some kids in Cochabamba Bolivia.

Anna Hosbein de Aliaga

Day 8 July 2nd

July 2

Today we used a different modality than yesterday. Yesterday we tried making all the students accounts first and then having them use the page. What we’re doing now is separating the class into two equal halves. For the first half of the time one of the groups uses the computers and the other is outside playing math games. What we do is make the first group their logins and then they stay the first half of the class. After the snack break we brought in the second group and made them logins and they used the computers until the end of the session. We did this with both the morning and afternoon groups. This is the best solution we could find so far with the quantity of kids we have and our limited number of computers. We have also found that as the students get more familiar with the site they are faster in picking it up and need less help as they go along. Students at similar levels have started engaging in competition to see who can advance the farthest. We look at this as a good sign because it means that the kids are getting comfortable with the program and finding it interesting. Students have also started helping each other solve problems or/and explain concepts that they get to each other. They have also started helping each other navigate the website for when they get stuck. We have also been using the practice exercises mostly but some students have used the videos with the Spanish subtitles and say they help a bit. The only problem with that is that the student cannot fully concentrate on the content in the video because they have to be also attentive to the subtitles. A large part of the students don’t want to leave when their allotted time is up. But in the interest of fairness we have to change the groups so that everyone has a chance of using the computers. It would be ideal if we had more computers and unlimited time so that the students can explore and learn at their own pace. But alas that is not the situation we are in and we are doing the best we can with what we have.

We have also had to teach some of the students how to use a computer. Some of the students have not really had the chance to use a computer. So we teach them the basics of navigating the site and the basics of using a computer. We hope that they are learning math and at the same time learning how to use a computer and the internet. We cannot allow free navigation of the internet by the students because this would put too much of a strain on our internet connection. We have figured out that our connection can be used for about up to 9-10 computer/laptops and we can usually get one tablet to also work. But the internet is rather temperamental and we sometimes have the web pages crashing because the internet connection gets overloaded.

We are taking the program one day at a time. Today was a new approach that seems to be working. But we will keep tweaking and being flexible with the program as we see fit or as situations arise.  

EWA

Day 7 July 1st

Day 7 July 1st

Today was the first day that all the children showed up to their allotted time slots. In total today there were around 35-40 kids. this was separated into 15-17 kids in the morning and then 10-11 kids in the afternoon. as it was the first day at full capacity we ran into some issues but we are learning from them to improve as the program progresses. In the morning it was more challenging then in the evening this was due to the quantity of kids that showed up. We have 10 computers for the program so we could seat all of the students in the morning class. What we had to do was create all of them Khan Academy accounts. We tried logging in with Facebook for the ones that have a Facebook but we ran into the same problem as before that the link was not working. In the end we had to create nearly every student a Gmail account and log them in that way. In the morning we made all the students user names  and showed them the basic workings of the website. We had to have a group outside playing math ans strategy games because we could not seat them all at once. We had planned some games as a contingency in case we could not have all the kids on the computers. We were originally planning to have 2 students per computer but this is unfeasible because we the students are on such different levels. So the contingency is math and strategy games. We will also split the sessions into two parts one before recess and the other after recess. This partition will allow all the students to be able to partake in the games and to use our limited number of computers. We have also discovered that our band with can make up to 8 computers run smoothly having all ten up at the same time is workable but it makes the website lag or take a really long time to load. To try to solve this we are trying to get a separate modem to connect about half the computers to it. But for now we are working with what we have.

In the afternoon the process went smoother. With the exception that Gmail did not allowing us to create accounts for some of the students. But the smaller class size ensured that the students in this shift got to use the computers and if not to work personally with a instructor. The reason for this smaller class size was that there was a substantial amount of no shows. But this is a more manageable class size. What we can take from this is that we should have about as many students as computers. But as the program has started we will continue to have all the students come to their times and we will have other learning activities they can partake in. We also have these personal whiteboards the students may use to solve problems on and it has released them from trying to make their work look good and focus more on the process. In the Bolivian eduction system neatness of ones notebook is a grade in itself. But having these whiteboards helps the students be free from this habit that has been ingrained in them.

We will take what we have learned today and try to make the program better in the weeks to come.

EWA