Khanmigo to bring AI-powered support to Vietnamese students and teachers

(VOVWORLD) – As AI continues to transform education worldwide, US-based Khan Academy is leading the integration of AI to improve teaching and learning experiences. Following the remarkable success of Khan Academy’s free online platform in Vietnam, now one of the largest user bases outside the US, the organization plans to introduce Khanmigo, an AI-powered assistant designed to support teachers and students more effectively. In this exclusive interview, Emily Goldman, Director of International Strategy and Operations at Khan Academy, shares insights into how Khanmigo works, its benefits for Vietnamese educators and learners, and how it aligns with Vietnam’s digital transformation goals in education.

Bao Tram: Thank you for joining us. To begin, could you tell us what Khanmigo is?

Emily Goldman: Thank you for inviting me to speak with you. Khanmigo is Khan Academy’s AI tool, designed to serve both as a teaching assistant and a student tutor. We began exploring AI early because it was clear from the start that AI could be a powerful force for good in education, but also a major distraction if not used thoughtfully. That’s why, in 2023, Khan Academy began collaborating with OpenAI to develop an AI tool that fits teachers and students.

So today what we have is a teaching assistant, which does things like help teachers create a lesson plan that’s aligned to their curriculum, help teachers review content that they’re supposed to teach but can’t quite remember, help them create differentiated exercises. The way that Khan Academy thinks about AI for teachers is that in order for them to do their most important job the best way they can, which is inspiring their students to learn and helping them learn, we need to take some of that extra bureaucratic work away from them so that they can focus on being present with their students and really guiding that learning journey. It’s more about supporting teachers than it is about anything else.

For students, it’s designed to really jump in as a support to students. A student who’s working on a problem and gets it right doesn’t need Khanmigo support, but a student who’s working on a problem and is almost right, but a little bit not quite getting the right answer can benefit from Khanmigo jumping in and saying, hey, I saw what you did there. Do you know where you went wrong? Maybe I can help you. And Khanmigo will also do things like help the student to imagine why the content they’re learning is relevant to them. So it can do things like remember their interests and say, I remember you’re interested in basketball. Do you know how you could apply this idea to basketball? So it’s really about sparking student interest and then supporting them in their learning.

Bao Tram: There are many AI tools available today. What makes Khanmigo stand out?

Emily Goldman: There are a couple of things about Khanmigo that I think make it a little bit different. One is that it sits on top of Khan Academy’s content.

When you’re asking Khanmigo to write you a lesson plan to help you solve a problem,  the content that it is helping you learn on is strong educational content. So that’s one big differentiator from doing things like putting a math problem into any other system and saying, help me solve this problem.

The other is that it is trained as a tutor. Something that was very important to Khan Academy when we were starting to design Khanmigo was that AI, if it’s not trained to do tutoring like a Khanmigo, will tell students the answer. If a student says how do I solve this problem, it’ll tell them exactly how to solve it and what the answer is. So there’s not much learning happening in that discussion with the AI. What Khanmigo is trying to do is not tell them the answer and say, what do you think the answer is and how did you get there?

I think the last thing is that we did a lot of research as we started to build Khanmigo on what are the best practices in tutoring. And there are a couple of them. So one of them is that students work at the very edge of their ability and it’s something that’s hard for them, but they can probably get there.

Another is they get immediate feedback on their work and then finally that they understand the context of what they’re learning, why they’re learning it. They have a desire to learn it because they understand why it’s important. So when we were building Khanmigo, we were building every aspect of that experience based on those principles that are academically proven to result in really strong tutoring.

Bao Tram:  How do you feel about Vietnamese teachers starting to use Khanmigo, particularly in helping students understand AI?

Emily Goldman: I think one of the things that I’m really excited to learn from Vietnamese teachers when they start to use Khanmigo is what does it inspire them to do in their classroom when they think about teaching students about AI? There is a desire to use AI in the classroom because every teacher knows their students are using it somewhere in their lives. But in order to use it effectively in education, the teacher needs to not only master the tools, but also understand the technology enough to teach their students about the benefits of it, the risks of it, and how to use it to learn, not just to get answers.

And so what I’m really excited about in watching teachers use Khanmigo in Vietnam is hearing how they’re using it as a tool to get to their final destination, which is having their students using AI in a critical, thoughtful manner that helps them learn.

Emily Goldman: I think the Vietnamese government from the conversation that we’ve had is really asking the right questions. I was very impressed with the kinds of questions and the kinds of thought that is going into AI strategy and education in Vietnam, particularly around how do we use the tools to get to our final destination of making sure that students are learning more and better.

I’m really impressed with the way that the Vietnamese government is pushing back on that and saying, no, we need to understand what our objective is. Our objective is for teachers to deeply understand AI so that they can then help their students deeply understand AI and use it for learning. And the tools are tools. It’s not the destination. So I’ve been really impressed with the way that the government is thinking about that and also starting to plan for that.

Bao Tram: Thank you for spending time with VOV24/7.

Emily Goldman: Thank you so much for having me on your program.

Source: https://vovworld.vn/en-US/digital-life/khanmigo-to-bring-ai-powered-support-to-vietnamese-students-and-teachers-1399886.vov