Update: Introducing Streaks and Levels!

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Alex G

August 02, 2024 19:59
Edited

Hey y’all! Khan Academy is thrilled to announce two new mechanics designed to make learning a bit more fun and motivating: Streaks and Levels!

Streaks are designed to promote and celebrate consistency, motivating learners to get at least one skill to Proficient or higher each week.

Levels, on the other hand, are designed to break apart the daunting task of completing an entire course into smaller, more manageable milestones. At the end of each level, users can celebrate with a “level up” that recognizes their progress towards their goals!

The theory behind both of these mechanics is simple yet powerful: regular, consistent practice fosters learning and retention, and “chunking” divides larger, potentially overwhelming goals into smaller, more achievable tasks. Together, we believe that learning at Khan Academy can be more encouraging and rewarding than ever.

Why Streaks?

Motivation isn't a fixed trait that students either possess or lack; it can grow or shrink depending on one’s environment and strategies. We wanted our new streaks to embody this philosophy to help users create healthy learning habits that align with learning science in a fun and engaging way.

That being said, we didn’t just want any old streak, we wanted each added week to display meaningful learning. We could have had users renew a streak by watching a video or attempting an exercise, but given the importance of practice and our mastery system, we believe getting one skill to proficient or higher is the ideal indicator that users are on the right track to meaningful progress towards their goals (and we have efficacy research studies to back that up).

We want users to be able to look back on their streak at the end of a school year with a deep sense of pride and accomplishment of their hard work and consistency!

Why Levels?

We can imagine that for some of you, the addition of levels could seem a bit unnecessary. Afterall, some learners are already doing hundreds of hours of learning and hundreds of skills per year on Khan Academy, so why make changes to the user experience to “gamify” learning?

Well, the truth is, although some users are already highly motivated to learn on their own, the reality is that many more users would love a way to view and celebrate their progress in a way that helps get the wheels of motivation learning. We believe levels and streaks are a great way for everyone to celebrate their journey on Khan Academy, and they can be the motivation for many students to make Khan Academy a part of their weekly routine.

How Can I Start?

To get started, simply visit your current favorite Khan Academy exercise and start leveling up skills! Or, visit our support article to find out more about streaks and how leveling up works.

Hope these features are an exciting addition to your Khan Academy experience, and we will continue to refine and improve them in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned!

What level are you on? Let us know below!

Posting on behalf of:

Daniel De Angulo, Senior Product Manager at Khan Academy

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8 comments

cozio

August 03, 2024 01:24
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Could you please give Khan Academy users the option to disable the streaks or levels features (respectively) in their account settings? Some people like these new features, while others do not. For those who don't like these features, it would be nice for there to be a setting to disable either the streaks or levels features (or both) as desired.

If someone likes the streaks feature but dislikes the levels feature, they should be able to disable the levels feature in the settings. Conversely, if someone likes the levels feature but dislikes the streaks feature, they should be able to disable the streaks feature. If someone dislikes both features, they should be able to disable both features in their settings.

Additionally, for those who do like both these features, it would be very helpful for there to be an option (like an X-mark) to collapse the large banner at the top of the users' page that shows the streak duration, as it can be distracting.

Thank you!
G. Tarun

August 03, 2024 06:51
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Hi Khan Academy! Thanks for this gamification: I love that you've recognised that the earlier daily streak was demotivating after missing a day, but it's far less likely that one won't have time to level up in one skill in one week. Some suggestions below for making it even more engaging:

I fully agree with cozio's suggestions - it's helpful to have the option to enable/disable streaks, and to collapse the banner for focused study. I'd love to also see the streak and levels support the growth mindset, and encourage resilience: life gets in the way, but gently get back and be kind to yourself while also staying accountable to things that matter. Isn't this complementary to Sal's guided meditations in a way?

I'm also curious if you can pioneer the digital version of this streak: + for done, - for missed days, and O for emergencies and excused absences. On Khan Academy, the + and - can be automated, but it should be possible for learners to manually mark an O if necessary, and perhaps it can cost some energy points for repeated - or Os but not so much that it demotivates. For classroom users, teachers could perhaps approve Os - if that helps - although I see this system as a gentler, more supportive and realistic variant of the streak or miss system of Duolingo. (Although even there you can bribe the owl with gems and salvage streak sometimes, and there's streak freeze until you run out of gems to buy them with.)

This triple marker streak could of course be daily also, and if it is, it'll be much more growth mindset-oriented than the standard streak. But I can see it working even in weekly streaks, and especially in target-driven study regimes like mastering a course or test prep. In fact, this system could be combined with a mastery goal for a new kind of mission - maybe call it Mastery Quests or something. I like how Khan Academy's gamification is focused on nudging mastery and learning than the mere pursuit of increasing game points.

Additionally, a leaf or some other icon indicating growth might fit the Khan Academy theme more than the flame? Flame is too...Duolingo at this point (they're a great app in their area of languages, of course), and I must say that while Khan Academy is indeed the undisputed pioneer of gamified learning platforms, Duolingo has managed to build an addictive-as-social-media mobile app for learning. I'm glad to see Khan Academy return to gamify the platform, but in their unique mastery learning philosophy.

Please do share these suggestions with the relevant team. Happy to clarify any point if necessary, and thanks for getting me back to studying on Khan Academy even more regularly now! :)

Also, it looks like the streak is calibrated to US time zone for all users worldwide. I'd suggest localising the streak reset time if that's possible - and I assume it is, since it probably works similar to mastery goal and assignment deadlines.
G. Tarun

August 04, 2024 08:55
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More ideas:
- Curious why skills to proficient is the metric, not mastered: any context on that would be really helpful, and I assume you'd reached that conclusion from the classroom KA experience?
- Optional email/app notifications for streak - perhaps adaptive like Duolingo, but also not intrusive? Some simple yet powerful and inspiring growth mindset nudges.
- I'd also encourage looking at James Clear's Atomic Habits: making it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, and taking less than 2 (or 5 or 10 - a small number) mins to perform, is key to building a lasting habit. Incorporating such principles will make the platform even more engaging, but in a way that supports actual mastery learning rather than just increasing levels or streaks.
- Thanks for including something for autodidacts and individual learners too: classroom users already have the all-year-round LearnStorm tracker now, but this is exciting too!
- Confetti and sounds for streak and level-ups too? (Just like the correct answer and mastery level-up sounds).
G. Tarun

August 07, 2024 16:31
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Even more suggestions: I'd love to see mastery enabled for Python, so the streak and level-up works there too! I'd imagine a LOT of programming users will now want to take the Python course, and schools teaching Python with KA Classrooms/Districts too I suppose.

I'd suggest adding unit tests to Python as review/refresher of the exercises, while the course must ultimately be "mastered" through the mix of challenges, talk-throughs, and hands-on projects. Or perhaps a new level-up for projects completed could be built into the system!
cozio

August 08, 2024 12:57
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I approve of G. Tarun's suggestions.

Also, could you please add a dark more for Khan Academy on the web?

Extensions work, but they also make digital graph paper lines invisible.

Khan Academy web users would be eternally grateful—but it's completely fine if you can't make this happen, it's okay.

This is just a suggestion.
Infrared

October 27, 2024 17:34

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It would be cool to to have some badges regarding the new streaks; these would be a wonderful replacement for the old clockwork badges from a few years ago.

If this could happen thanks! It's okay if it is too difficult.

I am really happy about the new streak feature. I heard about the old one, but did not get to use it, so I am to finally do it now!

Edit: Thanks for doing this!
G. Tarun

May 05, 2026 07:05
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Hi! Great system, and I look forward to the 2026 redesign for learners. Currently, however, the Mastery Challenge button seems placed a tad too much to the right corner, so it's not always immediately obvious to scroll horizontally on smaller screens.

The new design previewed on the videos looks really promising, and I hope such action buttons are more centrally and prominently placed on the screen. I'd love for design elements to similarly direct focus onto the practice interface and the learning tasks over the many important but logistical elements on the website and footer.

Also, it'd be helpful if somewhere it's clarified that levels operate on two levels: levels for a given course (finite, depending on the skills and content in that course), and overall levels for a learner across courses (in theory infinite — since there's new content added regularly, and a LOT of content already so it'll likely take significant time to reach 100% in literally every skill on the platform)
adrielman13

September 20, 2026 23:30

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Here's a quoted section from the article on the removal of the old edition:

Why are we making this change?

As part of the ongoing project to rebuild all of Khan Academy in a new coding language, we’ve been investigating areas where we have the ability to simplify the learning experience and free up time for our small team to focus on improving our most critical areas.

When we looked at the Streak feature, we found that over 99% of learners did not use it regularly. It’s also an older part of our site that’s been difficult to keep running smoothly (as the remaining 1% of you might have experienced firsthand…). Finally, we’ve heard from some learners and teachers that, as currently designed, streaks can actually be demotivating - especially when circumstances beyond one’s control, like health or access to a device or Wi-Fi, can be the reason a streak gets broken.

What if I have a currently active streak I’m working on?

We will be recognizing everyone who has a long, currently active streak on the day that Streaks get removed with special commemorative badges. There will be new badges for people who have maintained an active streak of 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 days of activity. We’re so impressed with everyone who has achieved these streak levels!

What would be a reason for the KA team to introduce this widget a second time?

P.S. The first streak badges had flames on the images too!