Instructure, an EdTech company dedicated to elevating student success, amplifying the power of teaching, and inspiring everyone to learn together, has recently announced a partnership with Khan Academy. The collaboration aims to bring together Instructure’s market-leading learning management system, Canvas, the anchor of the Instructure Learning Platform, and Khan Academy’s AI-powered student tutor and teaching assistant, Khanmigo. This integrated solution will put the transformative power of generative AI into the hands of students and educators using the Canvas learning environment.
Generative AI represents an opportunity to enhance the role of technology in supporting educators and creating efficiencies in their day-to-day instruction. This initiative will harness this transformative moment by enabling educators with an integrated Khanmigo experience that supports human-driven, technology-enhanced essay feedback and grading, lesson planning and rubric creation. This solution is a significant step forward in delivering personalization for each student while allowing busy educators to scale their excellence and impact in ways unimaginable a few short months ago.
For students, the use of generative AI presents significant opportunities and challenges. In a world filled with intelligent agents and easily-accessed answers, the need for tools that guide, enhance and support active learning is critical. Initially focusing on student writing, Instructure and Khan Academy aim to support students and their learning through Khanmigo’s tutoring capabilities. Demonstrating an authentic work product becomes easy and transparent by helping students use generative AI ethically, equitably, and with integrity.
Speaking on the partnership, Chief Executive Officer of Instructure, Steve Daly, said:
Generative AI, and tools like ChatGPT, have been a part of every conversation I have had this year with leaders, learners and instructors across our global education community. This partnership with Khan Academy and its deep expertise in generative AI will deliver a powerful solution for one of the world’s largest education communities – an intentional, secure and equitable experience promoting impactful learning experiences for all.
Instructure’s Learn Platform independent research team, along with Khan Academy’s educational research team, will jointly design research for early adopters to measure the impact of these tools on student outcomes – delivering insight into the efficacy of the tools and the utilization of AI to assist teachers and students in achieving their learning outcomes. The platform, comprised of its flagship product Canvas LMS and several products serving K-12 and higher education, supports tens of millions of educators and learners in over 100 countries worldwide.
Founder & CEO of Khan Academy, Sal Khan, added:
Every educator we talk to seeks ways to address students using ChatGPT to write school essays and do homework. How can classrooms use AI tools while ensuring students develop critical thinking skills? We’re teaming up with Instructure to solve this. We’re using AI to show teachers the final essay and how the student got there. So students will be supported in developing critical writing and thinking skills while benefiting from AI designed for education. Khanmigo can also help with rubric creation and grading, saving teachers time. Students won’t get answers, but they will get appropriate levels of support.
Instructure and Khan Academy will bring Canvas and Khanmigo together for a cohort of K-12 and Higher Ed design partners and early adopters during the 2024-2025 school year. Institutions interested in piloting this solution can join the Emerging AI Marketplace.
Khan Academy aims to provide free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. The platform offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study independently in and outside the classroom. It tackles math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, and more, including K-14 and test preparation (SAT, Praxis, LSAT) content. The company focuses on skill mastery to help learners establish strong foundations, so there’s no limit to what they can learn next. The startup has partnered with more than 500 schools and districts nationwide that serve historically under-resourced students. It claims that over 140 million registered learners have used the platform in 190 countries and 51 languages.
