10 in a row

Hi Mr. Baldwin! It's sure a surprise when things change on us, isn't it? There's justification for why the 'five/ten in a row' is gone, and you can find that information here.

In a nutshell, it's to help the student experience. Instead of "YOU MUST GET ALL THESE CORRECT OR START OVER", it's a more forgiving "Oops, you missed that one. Keep trying!"

Growth mindset and all that. :)

Wow - I thought it just removed the option of changing the number from the default. I didn't realise that the whole mechanic changed.

I've just put a comment in the linked thread outlining my concerns with this change - it's very bad.

Growth mindset it better-supported by saying "you can get good enough to answer every question correctly" than by saying "you can't get every question correct so here's an easier goal"

Hello all! My name is Lisa Krueger and I am a Khan Academy Ambassador teaching in Chicago. On June 24th Khan Academy rolled out some new features and the Coach Dashboard has a new look. To better understand all the new features check out New Coach Dashboard and Assign any piece of content on Khan Academy with Assignments! posts under the News and Updates thread on the Community page. Please post comments and suggestions under each of these posts regarding the changes. Please let me know if you have any other questions, comments, or suggestions. Thank you for posting.

I am extremely disappointed in Khan taking away the 5 in a row correct.  Not only did it teach my students the material, more importantly it taught them perseverance and attention to detail.  My students learned that they could get a 100% through hard work and their confidence levels increased dramatically.  I think that lowering the standards is a disservice to the students, telling them they only have to work to 70% of their potential.  If you insist on leaving it at 70%, then I am asking that you allow us to see the % grade the students get on each section so that I can still encourage them to get a 100%.

Hello @PLinehan! I agree with you that this is an important feature. As a Khan Ambassador I share user feedback with the Khan developers and have add this request to the feedback document. Please let me know if you have any other question, comments, or suggestions. Thank you for posting. 

Personal experience:

A few years ago when practice exercises were "get some number correct in a row" my students would try to do well on every single question, because even if they got the last one wrong, the next one is the first of a new streak.

Now with the "do a set number of questions and receive a grade" practices, if they get one wrong, they put in random answers for the rest just to bomb out quickly so they can start over.

The old correct-in-a-row method was WAY better at encouraging growth mindset, at least for the small sample of students I teach. But it was consistent across my students.

We actually have something like that on Khan Academy now. The way Unit Tests work, you have to get every question/problem correct to have mastery. I have observed that every Unit Test contains at least 9 questions/problems even if there are fewer than 9 skills in that unit. So to level up (or maintain a level), you need to get 9 or more in a row correct!

Regina Litman, that differs from the old "n-in-a-row' in two really important ways.

The student behaviour described by Jordan Cooper is pretty common and should be obvious to anyone who remembers80s-style computer games where people would mess up early in a level and "die" as quickly as possible in order to restart the level and do better. With "n-in-a-row', students effectively restart the test with the question immediately following their mistake. They don't need to wade through the remaining questions in the test that can't possibly let them achieve their goal, even if they make no further mistakes within the test.

The other key difference is in how mastery is assessed. The key determinant of mastery in the older system was the ability to correctly answer a question out of context (in a mastery challenge). Getting questions correct in a practice set was only ever worth Level 2 because students knew what type of questions were coming and what skills would be needed to answer those questions. Mastery required students to see the question appear within a mixed set of questions and recognise which of their learned tools would be useful in answering that question.

The first problem is a nuisance, but not critical. To my knowledge, Khan Academy has not replaced the "out of context" testing that used to be provided by the mission mastery challenges. To me, this is critical because it addresses why many students can do practice questions easily but do poorly when they face the same questions in a test or a real-world application.