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Michael Staw
For me, it took 156 days.
In November 2015, I saw an interview with Sal Khan on CNBC. I had been familiar with Khan Academy, as my son had used it on a few occasions.
In the interview, Khan talked about the “holes” in education. And in particular, those in math. He said that when you’re in school, you study for a test, and maybe you get a good score... But what happens to those parts you got wrong? There’s no process to go back and fill in those holes, and they just accumulate.
Of course, some of those holes do fill in through the practice of later problems, but his point is still clear. For subjects that build on past mastery, you really have to get it all right, and continue to build a solid foundation for future learning.
I was inspired, and I realized that like everyone else, I had holes in my understanding as well.
As far as background goes, I had a pretty solid mathematics background. I went to a good high school, where I got (mostly) As, and then went to Princeton University to study computer science.
Nevertheless, I did find that there were a number of areas that either I had forgotten, or never found important enough to commit to memory.
On November 15th, I decided to do the Khan Academy "World of Math", which at the time comprised around 1090 sections, ranging from basic math to differential equations. My goal was to do some math every day until I completed the entire program. And, with the exception of one five-day block, I was successful in that goal, doing math on 151 out of 156 days.
This morning, I completed the program, which, for anyone tracking Khan Academy points, is just shy of 2 million points. As other posters have noted, mastery of skills takes longer and longer as you progress through the levels, and I’d estimate that the last 20% took half of the total time to complete the course.
When I finished, there were 1177 skills, or 90 more than when I had started. Essentially, my finish line advanced at a rate of a little over ½ skill per day.
Through all the practice, and daily immersion in math, I look at things a little differently than I used to, and see many more relationships between things then I previously did. I am looking forward to finding new ways to use these skills in the near future.
I’d like to thank Khan Academy for putting together such a great program, inspiring me to take on this challenge, and making it interesting enough for me to keep up the motivation to make my way through it.
I'd also like to thank my wife and kids for putting up with me over the last 5 months, when it seemed like all of my free time was spent doing math.
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For me, it took 156 days.
In November 2015, I saw an interview with Sal Khan on CNBC. I had been familiar with Khan Academy, as my son had used it on a few occasions.
In the interview, Khan talked about the “holes” in education. And in particular, those in math. He said that when you’re in school, you study for a test, and maybe you get a good score... But what happens to those parts you got wrong? There’s no process to go back and fill in those holes, and they just accumulate.
Of course, some of those holes do fill in through the practice of later problems, but his point is still clear. For subjects that build on past mastery, you really have to get it all right, and continue to build a solid foundation for future learning.
I was inspired, and I realized that like everyone else, I had holes in my understanding as well.
As far as background goes, I had a pretty solid mathematics background. I went to a good high school, where I got (mostly) As, and then went to Princeton University to study computer science.
Nevertheless, I did find that there were a number of areas that either I had forgotten, or never found important enough to commit to memory.
On November 15th, I decided to do the Khan Academy "World of Math", which at the time comprised around 1090 sections, ranging from basic math to differential equations. My goal was to do some math every day until I completed the entire program. And, with the exception of one five-day block, I was successful in that goal, doing math on 151 out of 156 days.
This morning, I completed the program, which, for anyone tracking Khan Academy points, is just shy of 2 million points. As other posters have noted, mastery of skills takes longer and longer as you progress through the levels, and I’d estimate that the last 20% took half of the total time to complete the course.
When I finished, there were 1177 skills, or 90 more than when I had started. Essentially, my finish line advanced at a rate of a little over ½ skill per day.
Through all the practice, and daily immersion in math, I look at things a little differently than I used to, and see many more relationships between things then I previously did. I am looking forward to finding new ways to use these skills in the near future.
I’d like to thank Khan Academy for putting together such a great program, inspiring me to take on this challenge, and making it interesting enough for me to keep up the motivation to make my way through it.
I'd also like to thank my wife and kids for putting up with me over the last 5 months, when it seemed like all of my free time was spent doing math.
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
