KHAN4STEM: increasing digital readiness of teachers in Europe

In 2022 “Education Without Backpacks” Association in partnership with the Belgian organization “Libraries Without Borders” (Bibliothèques Sans Frontières) started work on the KHAN4STEM project, financed by the Erasmus+ program.

What is KHAN4STEM’s goal?

The project’s theme is more effective and inclusive European Math and Science Teaching with the support of the internationalized work of European Khan Academy Advocates such as us “Education Without Backpacks” for Bulgaria and “Libraries Without Borders” for Belgium. This project’s goal is to significantly increase digital readiness of teachers and digital inclusion of students of the European Union’s countries, as well as to popularize the free educational platform Khan Academy among teachers from all over Europe as a tool to help them.

What will be the end result of KHAN4STEM?

• • • • • • We will build a sustainable transnational network of teachers at ease with online learning platforms. They will become “digital ambassadors” in their schools and communities, enhancing adoption of effective teaching methods and supporting their colleagues to adopt technologies in their work also.
          • We will build and widely disseminate a training tool supporting teachers to include free digital tools into their teaching practice (with Khan Academy as a case study).
          • We will train our network of teachers to work with Khan Academy, to support teachers in their native country and potentially English-speaking teachers across Europe.
          • The two partner organizations – “Education Without Backpacks” and “Libraries Without Borders” – will improve their capacity for international work and joint advocacy at the European level on topics around digital school transformation and digital educational resources.

Follow the blog (only in Bulgarian) and Facebook page (also only in Bulgarian) of “Education Without Backpacks” for the possibilities to take part in the training, part of the project, and for more relevant news.

More for Khan Academy

Khan Academy is:

• • • • • • one of world’s most inclusive and effective digital learning and teaching tool;
          • constantly developed for more than 10 years, with the mission to provide free world-class education to anyone, anywhere;
          • especially strong in Math and STEM, available on multiple devices, even offline, in 50 languages, with 140 mln users globally.

In the European Union Khan Academy has already over 6 mio registered users in the EU including over 5.3 mio students and 780.000 teachers and coaches.

Teachers use Khan to assign students learning content according to the relevant lesson topic and students’ individual needs/progress. Khan has “mastery learning” tools – it tracks students’ progress, adapts to their skills, suggesting learning content accordingly, and animates students towards achieving 100% mastery of skills for their grade/course.

Khan Academy in Belgium and “Libraries Without Borders”

In French-speaking Belgium, over 13% of students and 15% of teachers are registered on Khan. Khan is recommended on the official e-learning platform of the Ministry of Education e-classe, it is part of the official training catalogue IFC, and over 1500 teachers have been trained in the last two years. Outside of schools, we also support tutors in local organisations helping students with fewer possibilities (“écoles des devoirs”).

Khan Academy in Bulgaria and “Education Without Backpacks”

In Bulgaria, around 12% of students and 25% of teachers are registered on Khan Academy and these numbers continue to grow. Bulgarian MoE recommended Khan Academy in its first guidelines to all Bulgarian schools when schools closed in March 2020 because of the pandemic. MoE supports a currently implemented impact assessment of Khan Academy. “Education Without Backpacks” is an association with an expertise in the domain of digital tools and consults MoE and schools on digitalization in general. With trainings and webinars on digital tools and connected practices, “Education Without Backpacks” reached at least 6000 Bulgarian teachers in 2021.

The project “KHAN-4-STEM: More effective and inclusive European Math and Science Teaching – supported by the internationalized work of European Khan Academy Advocates” is financed by the Erasmus+ programme, Ключова дейност 2. The project is implemented in partnership by “Education Without Backpacks” (Bulgaria) and “Libraries Without Borders” (Belgium).
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of “Education Without Backpacks” and “Libraries Without Borders”, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.