Khan Academy: How Free Online Math Courses Helped Me

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Two years ago, when I was preparing to make the transition to an English-language middle school, I faced a realization: up until that point in time, my entire primary education had been in Chinese. I had learned everything I knew about math in Chinese only, and I didn’t even know the English words “addition” and “subtraction”!

My parents and I realized that if I were to start middle school math in English, I’d have an uphill climb. So, the year before I transferred, I started using the online math courses at Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org). Founded as a totally free, not-for-profit online learning resource back in 2008, it has exploded in popularity ever since, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The site now offers courses in a range of subjects including science, economics, reading, and history but is still best known for its world-class math courses. 

Studying math with Khan was hard at first, I knew how to do all the problems in Chinese, but I just couldn’t understand it in English. In order to build up my familiarity with the English terminology, I started with the lowest grades first.

I set a goal of doing a minimum of 20 minutes per day, at least five days a week when I found out I would be transferred to the Western Academy of Beijing (a school that follows the IB curriculum and is English based) for the start of middle school. As I practiced, I began to understand math in English more and more. Soon enough, I understood all the skills that I learned in elementary in English. When I entered sixth grade, I was no longer worried about my math. From then on, I’ve been able to keep my math grades up with the support of Khan Academy fairly consistently.

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Here are some tips from one Khan Academy learner to another:

1. Make sure you set a reasonable goal for yourself! Set a few skills that you’d like to practice within a reasonable amount of time. If you’re going to work on Khan Academy for a long period of time, make sure you remember to give yourself breaks. Also, make sure that you have a goal for the long term, so you won’t give up easily. For example, my goal is to keep my grades up in school and familiarize myself more with vocabulary in English.

2. Watch the instructional videos. I’ve made the mistake of skipping over these many times, but the videos are super important. In many cases, they show you how to master the skill in many different ways, and they are clear and easy to understand. Without them, I’ve gotten very frustrated over problems.

3. It’s a great review of tests and classwork. If you ever get stuck on a concept of skill in class, Khan Academy is a great resource. The videos explain themselves wonderfully, and if you get a problem wrong, you can see the step by step explanation for the question.

4. Make sure the skills that you’ve practiced are mastered before you move on to other skills. It might be difficult to remember a skill that you just learn without practicing it a lot. I tend to get distracted by other problems a lot but sticking to one skill will definitely help you master everything faster.

Overall, having Khan Academy to practice math with has been great. It’s motivated me because of its features that allow you to acquire achievements, to track your own progress, and to master different skills. I would recommend Khan to anyone interested in practicing math outside of school to strengthen their understanding of math.

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Photos: Khan Academy, Unsplash 

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