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Comment by bradgessler | Hacker News Reader

You seem to imply the speed at which the Kahn Academy teaches loops is a bad thing? I'm catching that vibe from your post.

What if the Kahn Academy is teaching the concept in a more clear, concise way than you are? Maybe Java isn't the best language to teach these concepts? Maybe your lessons could be more effective? I don't know what your particular situation is, but I encourage you to play around with your lessons to see if you can teach it as fast as the Kahn Academy. Then again, they could have it totally wrong.

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It's unlikely that Khan Academy's curriculum is better than mine. My curriculum has been relentlessly pivoted and iterated based on feedback from over a thousand real students for the past fifteen years.

I've taught literally one thousand teenagers to program, face to face. I'd be shocked if Salman Khan had taught even a couple dozen students face to face.

Edit: I accidentally submitted this too early, and then replied instead of editing. See my reply for the rest of this thought.

So what I'm suggesting is: take 200 students, and have 100 go through Khan's material, and 100 go through mine. Khan's kids would finish faster.

Then, have all 200 kids attempt to code FizzBuzz on their own, with no assistance. I think probably 60-70% of my students could get it working. I suspect less than 20% of Khan's would have understood/retained enough to get it done.

You are in the 20%, so it's hard for you to see the difference. Salman Khan is in the 1%, and he hasn't been in the trenches long enough to see the difference.

That's what I'm saying.

He does say that java isn't his language of choice, but it's one he has to stick with. But if you've got a CS course as introductory to programming than his assignments go a long way to learning stuff. Bear in mind that this is not a class designed for elementary or high-school students, but for college, for people that really want to learn how to program, and how everything works.

My class is a high-school course. Not sure if you're suggesting that Khan Academy's material is pitched at college students, but I don't think that's true.

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