« Back | May 15, 2023 - ASU Prep Academy
When you are a student at Khan World School at ASU Prep you have access to all sorts of exciting education innovation, including Khanmigo, the latest AI tools from Khan Academy. Thanks to her creative AI conversation with Jay Gatsby, Saanvi, a promising ninth grade KWS student, earned a mention in Sal Khan’s latest Ted Talk—How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education. Check out the clip below and learn more about this innovative online school at one of their virtual info sessions.
« Back | April 14, 2023 - ASU Prep Digital
Students of all religions, cultures, and beliefs call ASU Prep home, and we are honored to include and welcome them. Passover is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays. It commemorates the Israelites’ Exodus from slavery in Egypt to freedom. The holiday, which usually falls in March or April, is often celebrated for eight days and incorporates remembrance of Jewish history, family, and themes of springtime. This year, it concludes the evening of April 13.
The Passover holiday is a “festival of freedom.” The festive seder meal occurs on the first two nights of the holiday and is observed with families, friends, and communities. The seder involves the re-telling of the Exodus. In order to protect their first-born children, the Israelites marked their doors with lamb’s blood so the angel of death would pass over them, thus the name Passover, or “pesach” in Hebrew.
Through stories, songs, and the consumption of ritual foods, families retell the story of deliverance and pass on traditions and religious beliefs. Many Jews do not eat certain leavened foods during Passover. There is a specific section of the seder called the four questions, where the youngest person at the table asks about the different Passover symbols and the elders explain.
In 2020, an estimated 15 million people worldwide identified themselves as Jewish. Jews believe God made a special covenant with Abraham, the founder of Judaism, and that he and his descendants were chosen people who would create a great nation. The origins of the Jewish faith are explained throughout the Torah.
ASU Prep wishes all our community celebrating Passover, a wonderful holiday.
« Back | April 14, 2023 - ASU Prep Digital
ASU Prep is proud that students from all over the United States, as well as around the world, call our schools home. With its diverse student body and faculty and staff, it is also home to a wide variety of religions and beliefs.
Christians around the world celebrated Easter this past Sunday, which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion. The significance of Easter is Jesus’ resurrection and triumph over death. Christians believe it is this triumph that affirms Jesus was the prophesied Messiah of Israel and the King of a new heaven and a new earth.
In the Christian calendar, Easter follows Lent—the period of 40 days not counting Sundays before Easter—which some Christian sects observe by acts of penance and fasting. Some Christians choose to give up specific preferences, such as sweets, soda, or social media, during Lent as a reminder to pray and to refocus on spiritual matters.
Easter has accumulated a great many secular traditions and symbols. Decorating and hiding eggs for example. The egg became a symbol representing new life. In the U.S., another common custom is that the Easter bunny leaves children baskets with toys and candies on Easter morning.
Christianity is the largest religious group in the world—approximately one-third of the world’s total population–with an estimated 2.6 billion identifying themselves as Christians. Like many religions, Christianity has several denominations, but Easter brings them together in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.
« Back | April 13, 2023 - ASU Prep Digital
ASU Prep Leaders and Tech Programs Receive Recognition Across
Three Categories, Including Prestigious Designation as Winning School Leader
TEMPE, Ariz. (April 11, 2023) – A forward-thinking, innovative approach to education is once again earning accolades for ASU Preparatory Academy and its leadership team. At the annual EdTech Awards, ASU Prep leaders and initiatives earned honors in three categories, including School Leader, School Leader Setting a Trend and Learning Management Solution.
Among the honorees is Julie Young, Managing Director of ASU Prep and Vice President of ASU Educational Outreach, who was named the winner of the School Leader category. In addition, Amy McGrath, Chief Operating Officer for ASU Prep and Deputy Vice President of ASU Educational Outreach, was named a finalist in the School Leader Setting a Trend category.
Rounding out ASU’s presence at the awards was the ASU Prep Learning Cloud, which was a finalist in the Learning Management Solution category.
“Through ASU Prep, we’re leveraging rapidly advancing technology to bring personalized educational opportunities to K-12 students everywhere,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “Peer recognitions like this affirm that our learning network is effectively harnessing emerging technologies to support student success.”
The EdTech Awards were established in 2010 to recognize, acknowledge and celebrate the most exceptional innovators, leaders and trendsetters in education technology. Celebrating its 13th year, the U.S.-based program is the world’s largest recognition program for education technology, recognizing the biggest names in edtech—and those who soon will be.
This year’s finalists and winners were narrowed from the larger field and judged based on various criteria, including pedagogical workability, efficacy and results, support, clarity, value and potential.
“A very big congratulations to all The EdTech Awards 2023 finalists and winners—and congratulations to all who endured the upheavals of the last few years only to come through stronger, more experienced, resilient and resolute in laying out the future of learning,” said Victor Rivero, who as Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest, oversees the program.
« Back | April 11, 2023 - ASU Prep Digital
“How can we design a national research and development center and amass evidence on innovations, best practices, and policies to support schools and states that want to retool or restart their high schools?” This is the question Sean Leahy of “The Learning Futures” podcast recently asked to a panel of educational leaders to discuss.
Elizabeth “Betsy” Fowler, Deputy Head of Schools at ASU Preparatory Academy and Executive Director of Special Projects, was among the panelists. She was joined by Chelsea Waite, Principal and senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at ASU; Erin Whalen, Executive Director and School Principal of Da Vinci RISE High; and Nate McClennen, Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Getting Smart.
Undoubtedly, designing the new American High School is a systems challenge. It’s not just how to design new models or how to replicate and spread models, or the policies needed to be in place. It’s all things together and a lot more.
« Back | April 10, 2023 - ASU Prep Digital
Khan World School (KWS) at ASU Prep is where self-motivation, curiosity, and creativity meld together. The results are in—thanks to outstanding student performance in our first year—KWS is transforming lives around the world! Read what this parent has to say:
“My husband and I are incredibly happy with Khan World School at ASU Prep. We are proud to have our son in the program. The rapidity with which he has grown has been astounding to us. It’s like he’s finally in a place where the challenge of school has awakened his brain. It’s certainly not an easy program, but it’s not overwhelming either. The topics broached are poignant and timely, and the content is not just surface level but thorough examinations of the material.
Much of the time, there isn’t a straightforward answer to the question posed, which causes him to really scrutinize any given subject deeply and search his own mind for what he believes, too. We’ve had some of the most astonishing conversations with our 14-year-old, and that is a reflection of the school and its guides.
This has been a wild ride so far, and we’re excited for the continued journey together.”
« Back | March 15, 2023 - ASU Prep Academy
Online Honors Program Enrolling Students in Grades 6-12 for 2023-24 School Year
TEMPE, Ariz. (March 9, 2023) – Building on its successful pilot of a unique honors program for ninth graders, ASU Preparatory Academy is expanding enrollment for Khan World School at ASU Prep (KWS) to all middle and high school students for the 2023-24 school year. The accelerated expansion, which answers growing demand for digital learning options for advanced students, comes on the heels of an assessment that shows KWS students’ academic achievement is far exceeding expectations.
“With the launch of any new learning model, we’re carefully assessing its efficacy in meeting student needs and ensuring we are anchored to our commitment to increasing academic achievement,” said Amy McGrath, Chief Operating Officer at ASU Prep. “With KWS, we had high expectations, but the outcomes were far more dramatic than we anticipated. It’s a clear signal the program can bring meaningful opportunities for accelerated students who are motivated by curiosity and the joy of learning.”
Based on an assessment conducted after the first semester, KWS students’ Math scores rose an average of 50 points from the beginning of the year (typical growth is 11 points). Similarly, English/Language Arts scores saw a notable jump with a 48-point increase (typical growth: 10 points), and Reading scores showed appreciable progression, as well, with a 35-point increase (typical growth: 10 points).
While the results are remarkable in their own right, what’s even more notable is the unconventional methods that led students to this level of achievement, says Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy and author of The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined. “This is not a passive, sit-back-and-absorb-it-all experience,” Khan said. “Students frame their own vision for success and are responsible for the decisions and actions that move them down the path at their own pace.”
KWS, a full-time online school, combines the expertise of ASU Prep and the Khan network (Khan Academy, Khan Lab School and Schoolhouse.world) and in a unique model based on the core principles of mastery-based learning, personalization of each student’s experience and learning together as a community.
Students master core knowledge and explore society’s most challenging problems with support from peers and an inspiring network of world-class learning guides, tutors, coaches and peers who provide personalized instruction, academic guidance and social support.
As participants in the accredited KWS program, students progress through an advanced college-prep curriculum using a combination of high-quality, self-paced online lessons, small-group tutorials and peer tutoring. SAT prep is part of the curriculum and students have the chance to earn university credit in high school, accelerating their path to college and saving time and money when they get there.
KWS enrollment is now open to students entering grades six through 12 for the fall 2023 semester. The program is tuition-free for Arizona residents; out-of-state students will pay tuition to attend, and scholarships may be available. Students interested in enrolling can learn more about admissions requirements and the application process at khanworldschool.com.
About ASU Preparatory Academy
ASU Preparatory Academy is chartered by Arizona State University and serves more than 7,000 students across its network. ASU Prep uses innovative approaches to curriculum to prepare all students for success in graduating from a university. Its mission is to design new models for educational success and raise academic achievement for all learners. ASU Preparatory Academy has schools in Phoenix, South Phoenix, Mesa and Casa Grande. In addition, ASU Prep Digital serves online K-12 students in Arizona and around the world. For more information, visit: https://asuprep.asu.edu.
« Back | September 2, 2022 - ASU Prep Digital
Article written by Krista Hinz. Originally published on ASU News
August 25, 2022
Arizona State University has been named one of America’s Best Employers By State for 2022 by Forbes.
In partnership with Statista, a global provider of rankings and large-scale polling, Forbes surveyed 70,000 U.S. employees across 25 industry sectors and considered employee experiences such as working conditions, salary, potential for growth and diversity.
Audrey Dumouchel-Jones, ASU’s interim vice president and chief human resources officer, said the award showcases ASU’s reputation as a company that provides excellent employment opportunities at the local and national level.
“Our employees drive ASU’s standard of excellence. This award reflects our talented workforce supporting our ASU Charter and striving to build an inclusive and supportive culture for our students and community,” she said. “We are proud to offer all Arizonans exciting development opportunities and a chance to grow their careers.”
In addition to the career advancement opportunities at ASU, other benefits include 12 weeks of paid parental leave (expanded from six in July 2019), adoption and fertility subsidies, paid time off for volunteer service and an emergency child and elder care program.
Of the thousands of companies eligible for this recognition, only a select few are awarded in each state. The award may also reflect Arizona’s rapid growth in the last several years. According to 2020 census data, Phoenix grew in population at a rate of 11.2% (1.45 million people in 2010 to about 1.6 million in 2020), while Arizona has five of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S., including Queen Creek, Buckeye, Casa Grande, Maricopa and Goodyear.
Forbes and Statista collected direct recommendations from employees as well as indirect recommendations from workers in the industry. Since the employee experience can vary greatly depending on an organization’s size and the individual worker, the rankings look at large and midsize employers. Beginning in 2015 with America’s Best Employers, Forbes and Statista have since expanded the coverage to include those employers considered best for diversity, women and new graduates.
« Back | June 22, 2022 - ASU Prep Academy
The Khan World School at ASU Prep is opening to passionate ninth grade students starting in August. And some of that world-class learning will be lead by Sal Khan himself. Well known in the education world as the founder of Khan Academy and Schoolhouse.world, Sal plans to join the faculty for this inaugural class of students. Please watch his announcement below.
Learn more about this exciting online school model at khanworldschool.org
« Back | May 31, 2022 - ASU Prep Academy
Previously published on Forbes.com
The Khan Academy and Arizona State University Prep Digital’s partnership to launch the Khan World School, a virtual school for high schoolers, brings together two of the powerhouses in digital learning with the promise of creating a breakthrough schooling model.
With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rush to virtual schooling—or what some have termed emergency remote schooling—the results have been unsurprisingly poor. Many studies show that the students in the schools that remained remote longer have suffered greater learning loss.
Out of this challenge, Sal Khan told me that there was a sense that the Khan Academy had a responsibility to create something more robust.
“We have to create kind of an infrastructure for the world,” Khan said. “There’s a strategic oil reserve. There should be a strategic education reserve of systems and processes that in an emergency time a lot of people can lean on.”
As Amy McGrath, COO at ASU Prep Digital said, “Everyone was doing online, but not very well.… But our infrastructure that has been in design for quite some time really thrived. And our learners, in fact, outperformed state averages.”
As the Khan Academy and ASU Prep Digital launch the Khan World School in the fall, here are three areas where the design should result in important advances for education more broadly.
Social
“The stereotype of online learning is that, ‘Oh, you’re just doing your own thing, you feel detached from other people,’” Khan said. “Honestly, that’s the stereotype of some in-person learning as well. You’re just sitting in a classroom and your eyes are glazed over.”
The Khan World School is aiming to tackle that stereotype with a daily, synchronous seminar where students debate topics that often aren’t discussed in schools—things like “Will the Fed be able to control inflation? Will CRISPR change the human genome? And [should] social media be blamed for the polarization in the world?,” Khan said.
“We want to be able to have a place where we can have conversations, and teach students, and maybe the world, that there’s a way to have conversations and to be able to disagree about these things, but be able to do it respectfully, and learn from each other,” Khan said.
I argue in my forthcoming book, “From Reopen to Reinvent,” that this should be one of the six central purposes of K–12 schools: to help students understand that people can see things differently—and that those differences merit respect rather than persecution.
These seminar groupings would include mixed-age learning—a key tenet of the Khan Lab School, a Silicon Valley-based school that Khan and his team have been operating since 2014. The goal? To unlock human connection.
Mastery
The next part of the Khan World School will tackle students’ core learning with a focus on student mastery.
The way in which the school will assess mastery is what’s perhaps most novel. Khan Academy operates a tutoring site called Schoolhouse.world, which is also a platform to validate mastery.
In essence, students record their face and screen as they take a Khan Academy assessment and explain their reasoning out loud. That video artifact is then peer reviewed by others on the platform who have already proved their mastery of the concept to assess whether a student has mastered at least 90% of the concept.
The platform is designed to authenticate that someone’s work is in fact their own to eliminate cheating and verify mastery.
“If anyone ever doubts it, they can click on that video and watch you perform it,” Khan said. “It’s a far better signal than saying someone got a 95% on a test that they took 10 years ago.”
This mechanism also allows students to show what they’ve mastered outside of the traditional school curriculum—say in their outside reading and writing.
According to Khan, this also showcases a student’s communication skills. And for students who help vet other people’s learning, it also shows a signal of compassion and caring.
“Schools like MIT, University Chicago, Case Western, they’ve already put it on their admissions application, because they think this is a such a powerful signal of student mastery and student personality or student desire to give back,” he said.
What’s more, McGrath argues that the Khan World School will help blur the lines between high school and college. ASU Prep Digital already allows high school students to take real college courses from ASU. And according to Khan, the Khan Academy has started pilots with Howard University, in which students are able to earn college algebra credits while in high school if they demonstrate mastery on the appropriate material.
Value
At present, the Khan World School is drawing interest from students around the world. The school will be free for students in Arizona by taking advantage of ASU’s charter school. But for those localities where it isn’t a public option, Khan said that they will be able to offer the school for less than $10,000.
What’s exciting is that affordability comes with quality and the ability to allow students to master concepts on their own time and pace, not at arbitrary junctions.
“We have over 50 efficacy studies at Khan Academy,” Khan said. “We just have a recent one just came out. If students are able to put in even 20 minutes a day for three days a week, doing mastery learning in math, they’re going 50% to 100% faster than their comparable peers…. That’s just an hour a week doing that. Now, imagine Khan World School where that is the way that we’re going to learn everything. You’re just going to have a really strong foundation.”
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