Avoiding Misconceptions

One other important piece we bring to bear when helping kids master the Big Ideas is a clear understanding of what's hard for kids. In certain subjects there is good research on kids' misconceptions—careful survey work that looks closely at how kids learn and what's really hard for them, and, ideally, ways to break these misconceptions.

It turns out that the research on this is pretty clear—kids may do their work correctly for the duration of a course, but if their deep misconceptions are not broken down, kids will revert back to them for guidance within six months after the course.

For example, fractions in this country are a complete train wreck. A survey of tenth graders a few years ago asked this fractions question:

What is the same as 5 1/4?

A. 5 PLUS ¼
B. 5 MINUS ¼
C. 5 TIMES ¼
D. 5 DIVIDED by ¼

Forty percent of the kids who answered got this question wrong. That's seriously bad performance! To not understand fractions even to this level means these kids have no conception of what a fraction is at all. The problem is huge; in fact, many folks say that their math skills died in algebra, when in fact they died with fractions.

So, realizing how hard fractions are, and working with education research done by our own people, we focused a lot of time and resources on compelling, engaging, interactive animations that implement what research showed as a successful way to break down misconceptions around fractions.

This again illustrates how our curriculum is different, in several ways: we actually look at the research on misconceptions to help us know where to spend more time, and then we work to invest our most compelling content in these critical but tricky areas, to give your children the best possible chance to understand them.

That's what K12 does better than anyone—we use the right research, the right visuals, the right interactions, and the right use of technology to make key learning really come alive for kids.

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High School Approach