To Khan or not to Khan?

Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos

Before I go any further I would like to say that I love what the Khan Academy does, generally, since it seems to be helping so many students. I think that it's very dangerous, though, to just assume these videos will help everyone and the flipping of the classroom in the Khan manner (Khan videos at home, homework at school with the instructor) is clearly the only logical step forward in education. But again, I love the idea. The flipped classroom is such a cool idea, and I wonder if there is some way to use it in our discussion sections that would carry the same value.

The rest of this post is in response to the video, so it will likely make more sense after you watch it.

I think this movie states well the problems that can lie in the Khan Academy and other video-based learning methods. Particularly when working with evolution instruction (which is something I do basically constantly), this misconception idea is everywhere. Working in an instructional materials development class, we were shown through trial and error and outside readings that the most learning occurs when you are presented with your misconceptions first. This is true with all STEM learning, I would wager, but with evolution the misconceptions are so engrained that it is often hard to pull the students away from them. A simple "what is evolution?" or "what is natural selection?" at the beginning of class can work wonders to push students out of their comfort zones.

I cannot lie, I love the idea of morphing these videos into misconception-based films. I am actually thinking very seriously about amending the project I was going to have my students do (a 3-5 minute group video on one part of evolution) to a misconception-minded approach- take one misconception, show it, and explain from there. To this end, if anyone knows other good misconception-focused videos that would be good to show as examples, I would be much obliged.

Since I am generally surrounded by people with a very similar mindset as mine in this avenue, I am really interested in what other people have to say or what others may think of this. This video just really makes me think!