khan academy homework helper

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What is khanmigo how does ai tutoring work.

Khanmigo is an AI-powered personal tutor from trusted education nonprofit Khan Academy. For learners and families, Khanmigo offers engaging and on-topic tutoring and is ethically designed with safety and learning as a top priority. Khanmigo is the only AI tool that is incorporated into Khan Academy’s world-class content library, which covers math, humanities, coding, social studies, and more. You can get personalized tutoring on every exercise, video, and article on Khan Academy. Unlike other AI tools such as ChatGPT, Khanmigo doesn’t just give answers. Instead, with limitless patience, it guides learners to find the answer themselves. When rating AI tools for learning, Common Sense Media gave Khanmigo 4 stars , rising above other AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard.

What can an AI study buddy do? What subjects can Khanmigo help with?

Khanmigo can help you master skills with personalized tutoring on Khan Academy's world-class content. Like any good tutor, Khanmigo doesn't just tell you the answer. Instead, it gently guides you to find the answers yourself. Whether you’re studying for an exam or just want to learn something new, Khanmigo can help you with almost any academic subject, including math, science, coding, history, and humanities. 

How do I get Khanmigo? Can anyone use it?

To access Khanmigo as a parent or learner, you must make a monthly or annual payment, be 18 years or older, live in the United States, and have a billing address in the U.S. If you are under 18 years old, your parent or guardian needs to sign up in order for you to gain access. Please ask your parent or guardian to sign up and add you to their account.

Is Khanmigo an AI tool that can help me with writing, coding, and job seeking?

Yes! As your writing coach, Khanmigo boosts creativity with real-time feedback, debate, and collaboration. You can navigate college admissions and your career with personalized coaching. Hone your coding skills as Khanmigo reviews your code and makes suggestions while you learn JS, HTML, Python, and SQL at your own pace.

How much does Khanmigo cost? Why is a payment required for parents and learners?

Khanmigo subscriptions cost $4 a month or $44 for an annual plan for parents and learners. Khan Academy is a small nonprofit funded by donations. Your payment helps us support Khan Academy’s mission while giving you access to a groundbreaking AI learning experience. Thanks to philanthropic support, we are able to provide free access to Khanmigo for Teachers to educators in the U.S. We are working to continue to make this technology more affordable for everyone. The Khan Academy content library and learning platform will always remain 100% free.

Is typing the only way to interact with Khanmigo the AI chatbot?

Khanmigo has both text to speech and speech to text capabilities. You talk, Khanmigo types out what you’re saying—there’s no typing needed. Khanmigo will also read out its responses to you. Let our AI tutor take care of the reading.

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Khan for Educators (US)

Course: khan for educators (us)   >   unit 2, creating assignments on khan academy.

• Discover how teachers are using assignments
• Using assignments to support mastery learning

Why use assignments?

• Rigorous content: Our content is designed to keep students as close to their learning edge as possible with a balance of procedural, application, and conceptual question types.
• Instant feedback: Your students get instant feedback on every question, and you can keep track of their progress using the Scores and Manage tabs.
• Differentiate content: You can select videos, articles, single-skill practice, and mixed-skills practice to assign to an entire class or specific students based on their readiness level.
• Access anywhere: Your students can access their assignments on their smartphones, computer, or tablet, and our content is available in over 50 languages .

Use the Assign tab to create an assignment

• From your teacher dashboard: select the class you want to create an assignment.
• Click the Assign tab under Assignments and select the content you want the student(s) to work on using the checkboxes.

Use the Scores tab to track student progress on assignments

• Navigate to your class page and click on the "Scores" tab under Assignments
• Here, you'll see a list of all the assignments you've given to your class.
• From here, you can view individual student scores and whether a student has started, completed, or not started the assignment. - You can also see their score if the assignment has been completed.
• You can sort this list by due date.
• Notice that videos and articles receive a green check mark when the student has completed the assignment.
• To be marked complete, a student must watch at least 90% of the video at no greater than double speed.

Use the Manage tab to edit assignments

• Navigate to your class page and click on the "Manage" tab.
• Here, you'll see a list of all the assignments you've created for your class.
• Find the assignment you want to edit and click on it.
• You can change the assignment details, such as the due date, the students assigned, and more.
• You can delete the assignment by selecting the checkbox to the right of the assignment and then selecting the red Delete button near the top of the page.

Key things to know about assignments

• Students will see assignments listed in order by the due date.
• You can create assignments and save them for later or schedule assignments to go live for your classes on a specific date in the future.
• When new students join your class, they will automatically receive all assigned assignments but not yet due to the whole class.
• Students can engage in assignments in other languages (including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Turkish, and more) by changing the default language in their settings.

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 5 best homework help websites (free and paid).

Other High School , General Education

Listen: we know homework isn’t fun, but it is a good way to reinforce the ideas and concepts you’ve learned in class. But what if you’re really struggling with your homework assignments?

If you’ve looked online for a little extra help with your take-home assignments, you’ve probably stumbled across websites claiming to provide the homework help and answers students need to succeed . But can homework help sites really make a difference? And if so, which are the best homework help websites you can use? 

Below, we answer these questions and more about homework help websites–free and paid. We’ll go over: 

• The basics of homework help websites
• The cost of homework help websites 
• The five best homework websites out there 
• The pros and cons of using these websites for homework help 
• The line between “learning” and “cheating” when using online homework help 
• Tips for getting the most out of a homework help website

So let’s get started! 

The Basics About Homework Help Websites–Free and Paid

Homework help websites are designed to help you complete your homework assignments, plain and simple. 

What Makes a Homework Help Site Worth Using

Most of the best sites allow users to ask questions and then provide an answer (or multiple possible answers) and explanation in seconds. In some instances, you can even send a photo of a particular assignment or problem instead of typing the whole thing out! 

Homework help sites also offer more than just help answering homework questions. Common services provided are Q&A with experts, educational videos, lectures, practice tests and quizzes, learning modules, math solving tools, and proofreading help. Homework help sites can also provide textbook solutions (i.e. answers to problems in tons of different textbooks your school might be using), one-on-one tutoring, and peer-to-peer platforms that allow you to discuss subjects you’re learning about with your fellow students. 

And best of all, nearly all of them offer their services 24/7, including tutoring! 

What You Should Should Look Out For

When it comes to homework help, there are lots–and we mean lots –of scam sites out there willing to prey on desperate students. Before you sign up for any service, make sure you read reviews to ensure you’re working with a legitimate company. 

A word to the wise: the more a company advertises help that veers into the territory of cheating, the more likely it is to be a scam. The best homework help websites are going to help you learn the concepts you’ll need to successfully complete your homework on your own. (We’ll go over the difference between “homework help” and “cheating” a little later!) 

You don't need a golden piggy bank to use homework help websites. Some provide low or no cost help for students like you!

How Expensive Are the Best Homework Help Websites?

First of all, just because a homework help site costs money doesn’t mean it’s a good service. Likewise, just because a homework help website is free doesn’t mean the help isn’t high quality. To find the best websites, you have to take a close look at the quality and types of information they provide! 

When it comes to paid homework help services, the prices vary pretty widely depending on the amount of services you want to subscribe to. Subscriptions can cost anywhere from $2 to $150 dollars per month, with the most expensive services offering several hours of one-on-one tutoring with a subject expert per month.

The 5 Best Homework Help Websites 

So, what is the best homework help website you can use? The answer is that it depends on what you need help with. 

The best homework help websites are the ones that are reliable and help you learn the material. They don’t just provide answers to homework questions–they actually help you learn the material. 

That’s why we’ve broken down our favorite websites into categories based on who they’re best for . For instance, the best website for people struggling with math might not work for someone who needs a little extra help with science, and vice versa. 

Keep reading to find the best homework help website for you! 

Best Free Homework Help Site: Khan Academy

• Price: Free!
• Best for: Practicing tough material 

Not only is Khan Academy free, but it’s full of information and can be personalized to suit your needs. When you set up your account , you choose which courses you need to study, and Khan Academy sets up a personal dashboard of instructional videos, practice exercises, and quizzes –with both correct and incorrect answer explanations–so you can learn at your own pace. 

As an added bonus, it covers more course topics than many other homework help sites, including several AP classes.

Runner Up: Brainly.com offers a free service that allows you to type in questions and get answers and explanations from experts. The downside is that you’re limited to two answers per question and have to watch ads. 

Best Paid Homework Help Site: Chegg

• Price: $14.95 to $19.95 per month
• Best for: 24/7 homework assistance  

This service has three main parts . The first is Chegg Study, which includes textbook solutions, Q&A with subject experts, flashcards, video explanations, a math solver, and writing help. The resources are thorough, and reviewers state that Chegg answers homework questions quickly and accurately no matter when you submit them.  

Chegg also offers textbook rentals for students who need access to textbooks outside of their classroom. Finally, Chegg offers Internship and Career Advice for students who are preparing to graduate and may need a little extra help with the transition out of high school. 

Another great feature Chegg provides is a selection of free articles geared towards helping with general life skills, like coping with stress and saving money. Chegg’s learning modules are comprehensive, and they feature solutions to the problems in tons of different textbooks in a wide variety of subjects. 

Runner Up: Bartleby offers basically the same services as Chegg for $14.99 per month. The reason it didn’t rank as the best is based on customer reviews that say user questions aren’t answered quite as quickly on this site as on Chegg. Otherwise, this is also a solid choice!

Best Site for Math Homework Help: Photomath

• Price: Free (or $59.99 per year for premium services) 
• Best for: Explaining solutions to math problems

This site allows you to t ake a picture of a math problem, and instantly pulls up a step-by-step solution, as well as a detailed explanation of the concept. Photomath also includes animated videos that break down mathematical concepts to help you better understand and remember them. 

The basic service is free, but for an additional fee you can get extra study tools and learn additional strategies for solving common math problems.

Runner Up: KhanAcademy offers in-depth tutorials that cover complex math topics for free, but you won’t get the same tailored help (and answers!) that Photomath offers. 

Best Site for English Homework Help: Princeton Review Academic Tutoring

• Price: $40 to $153 per month, depending on how many hours of tutoring you want 
• Best for: Comprehensive and personalized reading and writing help 

While sites like Grammarly and Sparknotes help you by either proofreading what you write via an algorithm or providing book summaries, Princeton Review’s tutors provide in-depth help with vocabulary, literature, essay writing and development, proofreading, and reading comprehension. And unlike other services, you’ll have the chance to work with a real person to get help. 

The best part is that you can get on-demand English (and ESL) tutoring from experts 24/7. That means you can get help whenever you need it, even if you’re pulling an all-nighter! 

This is by far the most expensive homework site on this list, so you’ll need to really think about what you need out of a homework help website before you commit. One added benefit is that the subscription covers over 80 other subjects, including AP classes, which can make it a good value if you need lots of help!  

Best Site for STEM Homework Help: Studypool

• Best for: Science homework help
• Price: Varies; you’ll pay for each question you submit

When it comes to science homework help, there aren’t a ton of great resources out there. The best of the bunch is Studypool, and while it has great reviews, there are some downsides as well. 

Let’s start with the good stuff. Studypool offers an interesting twist on the homework help formula. After you create a free account, you can submit your homework help questions, and tutors will submit bids to answer your questions. You’ll be able to select the tutor–and price point–that works for you, then you’ll pay to have your homework question answered. You can also pay a small fee to access notes, lectures, and other documents that top tutors have uploaded. 

The downside to Studypool is that the pricing is not transparent . There’s no way to plan for how much your homework help will cost, especially if you have lots of questions! Additionally, it’s not clear how tutors are selected, so you’ll need to be cautious when you choose who you’d like to answer your homework questions.  

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Homework Help Sites?

Homework help websites can be a great resource if you’re struggling in a subject, or even if you just want to make sure that you’re really learning and understanding topics and ideas that you’re interested in. But, there are some possible drawbacks if you don’t use these sites responsibly. 

We’ll go over the good–and the not-so-good–aspects of getting online homework help below. 

3 Pros of Using Homework Help Websites 

First, let’s take a look at the benefits. 

#1: Better Grades Beyond Homework

This is a big one! Getting outside help with your studies can improve your understanding of concepts that you’re learning, which translates into better grades when you take tests or write essays. 

Remember: homework is designed to help reinforce the concepts you learned in class. If you just get easy answers without learning the material behind the problems, you may not have the tools you need to be successful on your class exams…or even standardized tests you’ll need to take for college. 

#2: Convenience

One of the main reasons that online homework help is appealing is because it’s flexible and convenient. You don’t have to go to a specific tutoring center while they’re open or stay after school to speak with your teacher. Instead, you can access helpful resources wherever you can access the internet, whenever you need them.

This is especially true if you tend to study at off hours because of your extracurriculars, work schedule, or family obligations. Sites that offer 24/7 tutoring can give you the extra help you need if you can’t access the free resources that are available at your school. 

#3: Variety

Not everyone learns the same way. Maybe you’re more of a visual learner, but your teacher mostly does lectures. Or maybe you learn best by listening and taking notes, but you’re expected to learn something just from reading the textbook . 

One of the best things about online homework help is that it comes in a variety of forms. The best homework help sites offer resources for all types of learners, including videos, practice activities, and even one-on-one discussions with real-life experts. 

This variety can also be a good thing if you just don’t really resonate with the way a concept is being explained (looking at you, math textbooks!).

Not so fast. There are cons to homework help websites, too. Get to know them below!

3 Cons of Using Homework Help Websites 

Now, let’s take a look at the drawbacks of online homework help. 

#1: Unreliable Info

This can be a real problem. In addition to all the really good homework help sites, there are a whole lot of disreputable or unreliable sites out there. The fact of the matter is that some homework help sites don’t necessarily hire people who are experts in the subjects they’re talking about. In those cases, you may not be getting the accurate, up-to-date, and thorough information you need.

Additionally, even the great sites may not be able to answer all of your homework questions. This is especially true if the site uses an algorithm or chatbot to help students…or if you’re enrolled in an advanced or college-level course. In these cases, working with your teacher or school-provided tutors are probably your best option. 

#2: No Clarification

This depends on the service you use, of course. But the majority of them provide free or low-cost help through pre-recorded videos. Watching videos or reading info online can definitely help you with your homework… but you can’t ask questions or get immediate feedback if you need it .

#3: Potential For Scamming 

Like we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of homework help websites out there, and lots of them are scams. The review comments we read covered everything from outdated or wrong information, to misleading claims about the help provided, to not allowing people to cancel their service after signing up. 

No matter which site you choose to use, make sure you research and read reviews before you sign up–especially if it’s a paid service! 

When Does “Help” Become “Cheating”?

Admittedly, whether using homework help websites constitutes cheating is a bit of a grey area. For instance, is it “help” when a friend reads your essay for history class and corrects your grammar, or is it “cheating”? The truth is, not everyone agrees on when “help” crosses the line into “cheating .” When in doubt, it can be a good idea to check with your teacher to see what they think about a particular type of help you want to get. 

That said, a general rule of thumb to keep in mind is to make sure that the assignment you turn in for credit is authentically yours . It needs to demonstrate your own thoughts and your own current abilities. Remember: the point of every homework assignment is to 1) help you learn something, and 2) show what you’ve learned. 

So if a service answers questions or writes essays for you, there’s a good chance using it constitutes cheating. 

Here’s an example that might help clarify the difference for you. Brainstorming essay ideas with others or looking online for inspiration is “help” as long as you write the essay yourself. Having someone read it and give you feedback about what you need to change is also help, provided you’re the one that makes the changes later. 

But copying all or part of an essay you find online or having someone write (or rewrite) the whole thing for you would be “cheating.” The same is true for other subjects. Ultimately, if you’re not generating your own work or your own answers, it’s probably cheating.

5 Tips for Finding the Best Homework Help Websites for You

Now that you know some of our favorite homework help websites, free and paid, you can start doing some additional research on your own to decide which services might work best for you! Here are some top tips for choosing a homework help website. 

Tip 1: Decide How You Learn Best 

Before you decide which site or sites you’re going to use for homework help, y ou should figure out what kind of learning style works for you the most. Are you a visual learner? Then choose a site that uses lots of videos to help explain concepts. If you know you learn best by actually doing tasks, choose a site that provides lots of practice exercises.

Tip 2: Determine Which Subjects You Need Help With

Just because a homework help site is good overall doesn’t mean that it’s equally good for every subject. If you only need help in math, choose a site that specializes in that area. But if history is where you’re struggling, a site that specializes in math won’t be much help. So make sure to choose a site that you know provides high-quality help in the areas you need it most. 

Tip 3: Decide How Much One-On-One Help You Need 

This is really about cost-effectiveness. If you learn well on your own by reading and watching videos, a free site like Khan Academy is a good choice. But if you need actual tutoring, or to be able to ask questions and get personalized answers from experts, a paid site that provides that kind of service may be a better option.

Tip 4: Set a Budget

If you decide you want to go with a paid homework help website, set a budget first . The prices for sites vary wildly, and the cost to use them can add up quick. 

Tip 5: Read the Reviews

Finally, it’s always a good idea to read actual reviews written by the people using these homework sites. You’ll learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of what the users’ experiences have been. This is especially true if you intend to subscribe to a paid service. You’ll want to make sure that users think it’s worth the price overall!

What’s Next?

If you want to get good grades on your homework, it’s a good idea to learn how to tackle it strategically. Our expert tips will help you get the most out of each assignment…and boost your grades in the process.

Doing well on homework assignments is just one part of getting good grades. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting great grades in high school in this article.

Of course, test grades can make or break your GPA, too. Here are 17 expert tips that’ll help you get the most out of your study prep before you take an exam.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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• Category: AI

Khan Academy and Microsoft partner to expand access to AI tools that personalize teaching and help make learning fun

• Sally Beatty

Tucked away in a high school chemistry classroom in Northern Indiana are pressure gauges intended to teach a fundamental principle of chemistry known as Boyle’s Law. 

In their place, Hobart High School chemistry teacher Melissa Higgason is using a variety of seemingly random items – including mini marshmallows, plastic water bottles, balloons and eyedroppers – to inspire her students to design their own experiments and see what happens to gas under different conditions. 

“There are simulations where students are changing a variable and watching a number climb up and go down,” said Higgason. “But gas laws are very abstract. It’s hard for kids to make all those connections without hands on experiences that are relevant to them.”  

While Higgason has decades of experience in education, she’s the first to admit the idea of using everyday items to teach physics came from an AI-powered teaching assistant called Khanmigo for Teachers , a pilot program introduced last year by Khan Academy, the non-profit online educational organization started in 2008 by Sal Khan with a mission to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere.   

Today at Microsoft Build, Microsoft and Khan Academy announced a new partnership that aims to bring these time-saving and lesson-enhancing AI tools to millions of educators . By donating access to Azure AI-optimized infrastructure, Microsoft is enabling Khan Academy to offer all K-12 educators in the U.S. free access to the pilot of Khanmigo for Teachers, which will now be powered by Azure OpenAI Service.   

The two companies will also collaborate to explore opportunities to improve AI tools for math tutoring in an affordable, scalable and adaptable way with a new version of Phi-3, a family of small language models (SLMs) developed by Microsoft.

With AI tools, teachers have more time to spend on students 

“I use Khanmigo to spice up my classroom to make it fun and engaging,” said Higgason. For example, in another class of Higgason’s, Khanmigo suggested explaining net ionic equations by asking students if they’ve ever been to a dance party, comparing ions to dancers who change partners.   

Besides offering creative lesson plans, Khanmigo provides an array of AI-powered suggestions and teacher tools that relieve teachers of many of the administrative burdens that contribute to teacher burnout. With a click of an onscreen dashboard, in just a few minutes and often less, teachers can generate custom lesson plans, suggest student groupings, or “level” up or down text passages for learners who are either struggling or need more of a challenge. Used together, Khan Academy estimates these tools can save teachers an average of five working hours each week. 

“Teachers are super overworked,” said Sal Khan, noting record numbers of teachers are leaving the profession. School districts in underserved areas have been especially hard hit, with teachers citing low pay and unmanageable workloads exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as some of the top reasons they are giving up on teaching. Using AI for education isn’t just a powerful way to potentially help accelerate student learning, said Khan, it’s also a way “to make teaching more sustainable.” 

Bringing high-quality educational experiences to more learners 

While earning rave reviews from teachers like Higgason since it launched in March 2023, Khanmigo previously cost teachers $4 per month. The fees covered the cost of developing and testing the new technology and accessing the large language models (LLMs) that power Khanmigo. 

As part of the new partnership, Khan Academy’s teacher tools will now be powered by Azure OpenAI Service. Microsoft’s donation of Azure infrastructure will enable the nonprofit educational organization to scale those teacher tools more widely and offer them to all K-12 teachers in the U.S. at no cost.   

The companies will also explore how small language models (SLMs) such as Microsoft’s new Phi-3 family of models, which can perform well for simpler AI tasks and are more cost effective and easier to use than larger models, might help improve and scale AI tutoring tools. To that end, Khan Academy is collaborating with Microsoft to explore the development of new, open-source small language models based on Phi-3. The goal of the exploratory work is to enable state-of-the-art math tutoring capabilities in an affordable and scalable manner. 

Small language models offer many of the same capabilities found in large language models but are smaller and trained on smaller amounts of data. They are also designed to be more accessible and easier to use for organizations with limited resources.  

Under their new agreement, Khan Academy will also give Microsoft access to explanatory educational content such as math problem questions and step-by-step answers to develop AI-powered math tutoring capabilities using Phi-3. Khan Academy will also provide ongoing feedback and benchmarking data to evaluate performance. None of Khan Academy’s user data will be used to train the model.  

Khan is excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft to train small language models in math tutoring – an area where he sees great potential. 

Not only are small language models easier to customize than large language models for specific tasks, such as teaching math, English or chemistry – they are also more efficient. “If they can get comparable to the larger frontier models but at a dramatically lower cost, that dramatically increases the speed at which we can make this accessible to more people,” said Khan. 

In the future, Khan hopes small language models that operate locally on a device (as opposed to the cloud) will create opportunities to provide teacher tools and tutors for resource-constrained schools outside the U.S. that lack computing infrastructure.   

Finally, the two organizations will also work to integrate more Khan Academy content into Copilot and Teams for Education, a free version of Microsoft’s popular Teams app to enhance collaboration and learning customized to meet the needs of educators and students. The integration will make Khan Academy’s vast educational library available to even more learners, while providing high-quality content to users of Copilot and Teams for Education. 

Tutoring with AI and the Socratic method 

Back in Hobart, Indiana, students in Higgason’s class, who have access to a separate set of AI-powered Khanmigo learning tools through its Khan Academy Districts partner program, have embraced its conversational Socratic method of tutoring, characterized by cheerful, energetic questioning to encourage critical thinking by students

They’ve also welcomed the AI teaching assistant’s creative suggestions to enliven normally staid chemistry lessons that have saved Higgason so much time.  

“Using a marshmallow and an eye dropper in a lab – I didn’t think you could use that to show a gas law,” said Madisyn Sanders, a 16-year-old sophomore. “It was a really interesting experiment.”  

“Khanmigo learns the same way I do,” added Aleksandar Tatum, 16. “It’s almost taking the steps with you. It helps you build a connection to help you better understand subjects.”  

Using AI to cheat is a major concern of many parents and teachers, but cheating is difficult with Khanmigo, as it does not do the writing for students. Instead of providing answers, Khanmigo asks questions and provides support as a tutor would do. 

In English class, Tatum and his classmates were asked to read “Romeo and Juliet”and then write a story that changed some of the scenes. Tatum prompted Khanmigo to describe a scene he had trouble remembering. “It was a genuine question I had about Act 1 Scene 3,” he said. But Khanmigo would only respond, “I’m here to help you create a story,” and Tatum had to go back to the original text to refresh his memory.  

When Jzehbel Garcia, 17, asked Khanmigo to provide the formula for “molality,” another abstract chemistry concept, Khanmigo responded with a hint and then a question: “What two pieces of information do you think you need to calculate molality?”  

“What’s really nice from a teacher’s perspective is it does not give my students answers. It gives them questions,” said Higgason. “Science is about asking really good questions. That’s how we learn and grow and innovate.”  

Khan Academy also provides guardrails and safety mechanisms in Khanmigo. Messages at the top of the screen notify students that their chat history and activities are visible to parents and teachers. The system also automatically flags questions or comments from students that are considered problematic, so teachers can review and decide if follow-up with the student is needed.  

Using Khanmigo teacher tools to meet unique student needs 

Before Khanmigo was introduced to Hobart in 2023, “I was drowning,” said Stephanie Franco, a teaching specialist who supports over 40 students still learning English by collaborating with more than 70 teachers located in two different buildings on the school campus.  

She was skeptical about bringing AI into the classroom, concerned like many parents and educators that it would lead to cheating.  

But once she discovered Khanmigo’s translation tools, “it was a breakthrough,” said Franco. Before Khanmigo was available at Hobart, she would spend hours scouring her students’ assignments to change wording or vocabulary that could prove challenging.  

Now she simply copies and pastes those assignments into the Khanmigo teacher chat function and types “make this understandable to a 7th grader.” In seconds, she said, she has a new assignment tailored to the needs of her students: “So instead of my students not being able to be included in the same assignments as their classmates since they’re still learning English, I can now provide them with a similar assignment that is more tailored to their learning needs.”  

Besides offering support for multi-language learners, Franco also teaches English as a second language. Again, she taps Khanmigo to create lesson plans and prompts to engage her students in discussion. “I’ll say, ‘Help me find a story that would help my students with reading comprehension.’ Or I can tell Khanmigo about a famous story and it will make up questions to ask the kiddos,” she said. 

Asking questions is not something that comes naturally to most high schoolers. Writing, too, is a challenge for many students, who often don’t know where to begin. Ben Horjus, who teaches essay writing and composition at Hobart, said many high school students “struggle to pick a focus area, to recognize credible sources, and to synthesize information so they can develop a stance supported by research. In this vast sea of information, it’s hard for them to know how to navigate and not feel lost.”  

With these challenges in mind, Horjus uses several Khanmigo teacher tools, including the “learning objectives” feature, which gives him ideas for student assignments along with activities and discussion topics. He also likes using it to develop guides for instruction for individual students or groups of students.  And he’s looking forward to using the “leveler” function, which can be used to simplify complex text, to demystify the more challenging parts of “The Crucible,” which he plans to teach next fall.  

Coming full circle  

In many ways, Khan said, the advent of AI-powered teaching and learning is a throwback to the origins of education, when 1:1 tutoring was the norm. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian conqueror, was tutored by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, who in turn was tutored by Plato, who was tutored by Socrates, who pioneered the Socratic method of asking questions to guide students to knowledge. 

“You could imagine that if young Alexander was having difficulty with some topic, that Aristotle would slow down or speed up, or make sure that this young man who’s going to be a future king or emperor is engaged in his learning,” said Khan. 

By partnering with Microsoft, Khan hopes to provide more support for teachers so they can bring personalized teaching and learning to more classrooms, enabling many more students to one day help solve the world’s toughest challenges. “We can use the same tools,” said Khan, “to treat every kid like a future emperor.” 

Related links:  

Learn more: Khanmigo for Teachers  

Read more: Enhancing the future of education with Khan Academy  

Read more: Khanmigo for Teachers is free to all U.S. teachers thanks to support from Microsoft  

Learn more: Microsoft Education  

Read more: Tiny but Mighty: The Phi-3 small language models with big potential   

Top image: Melissa Higgason, who teaches chemistry at Hobart High School in Hobart, Indiana, instructs her students on how to use marshmallows and water bottles to understand an abstract chemistry concept, an idea suggested by Khanmigo for Teachers, a pilot AI-powered teaching assistant. Photo by Scott Eklund for Microsoft.

Enhancing the future of education with Khan Academy

May 21, 2024.

By Microsoft Education Team

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Today, we announced a new partnership with Khan Academy to help turn the promise of AI in education into reality and increase access to innovation. As part of the partnership, Microsoft is enabling Khan Academy to provide free access to Khanmigo for Teachers to all US educators, we’re collaborating to explore opportunities to improve AI-powered math tutoring with a new open-source small language model, and bringing high-quality education experiences to more learners.

AI holds potential in education to accelerate learning, prepare students for the future, improve efficiency, and so much more. To realize these benefits, we need to address challenges like accuracy, overreliance, cost, connectivity, efficacy, and providing enough support to educators. We can only accomplish this through collaborative efforts across technology providers, academia, the education community, governments, and non-profit organizations like Khan Academy.

Providing Khanmigo for Teachers to all US educators for free

Khanmigo for Teachers , a pilot AI-powered teaching assistant, is free for all US educators as of today due to our partnership. Khanmigo streamlines class prep and gives teachers more time and energy to spend with students. As your planning ally and instructional collaborator, Khanmigo leverages Khan Academy content to simplify AI for teachers. No prompting is required. Khanmigo will help create engaging lesson hooks, provide insights on student performance, recommended assignments, and support for refreshing your knowledge. Learn more from our Khanmigo for Teachers Quick Guide and Khan Academy’s blog to get started today.

“Khanmigo brought back the joy in my classroom. It’s given me new confidence in what I’m able to do as a teacher to help build young innovators that are going out into our world. And it’s changed my perspective on what I want to be doing in 10 years, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.” – Melissa Higgason, Chemistry teacher at Hobart High School, Indiana, US

At a time when educators likely have more on their plate than ever , we hope free tools like Khanmigo for Teachers and Microsoft Copilot can help them to save time and focus on what matters most. Copilot offers AI-powered chat with current responses from the web and links to sources, image generation and analysis, and commercial data protection. Our latest research found that educators have already started to find value from tools like these by creating class materials, brainstorming new ideas, simplifying complex topics, and differentiating instruction with AI assistance.

Making math more engaging with AI-powered tutoring

There’s an urgent, global need to address math learning gaps, and we believe part of the path forward involves making math more meaningful, personalized, and engaging for students. Many students lack access to foundational courses and have difficulty seeing the relevance of math to their own life and goals. We hope to seamlessly integrate real-world scenarios catered to their interest, provide real-time coaching support that detects mistakes and adjusts problems accordingly, and spark excitement in STEAM education and careers.

To make progress on this vision, we’re collaborating with Khan Academy to explore how to improve AI-powered math tutoring in a more affordable and scalable manner with an open-source fine-tuned version of Phi-3, Microsoft’s family of small language models (SLMs). Khan Academy will support model enhancements by providing explanatory educational content including high-quality math problem questions and step-by-step answer sets, ongoing feedback, and benchmarking data to evaluate performance. None of Khan Academy’s user data will be used to train the model. 

This new version of Phi-3 has already been fine-tuned by Microsoft for calling Python code for complex calculations and was trained on data from Accelerate Learning and UPchieve including synthetic math tutoring chats. It can generate problems for specific grade levels and math topics, help students learn through guided explanations, and provide customized summaries of tutoring sessions for students and teachers with initial functionality supporting middle-school math.  

Caption: Microsoft is collaborating with Khan Academy, Accelerate Learning, and UPchieve to improve AI-powered math tutoring to make it more affordable and scalable. 

With enhancements, this version of Phi-3 aims to offer enhanced math accuracy, support additional grade levels, and explore additional functionality such as giving students feedback based on their handwritten notes. Phi-3 is a family of small language models (SLMs) which offer many of the same capabilities as large language models (LLMs) but are smaller in size and trained on smaller amounts of targeted data. Phi-3 models not only outperform models of the same size and next size up across language, reasoning, coding, and math benchmarks, but they also do so in more cost-effective ways. Further, SLMs offer the opportunity to use powerful AI models on devices in places with low or no internet connectivity.

“We’re thrilled to tackle these important challenges with Khan Academy, this model has the potential to improve the accessibility, reliability, and experience for AI-powered math tutoring in products like Khanmigo .” – Deirdre Quarnstrom, Microsoft Education Product Vice President

Bringing high-quality education experiences to more learners

Microsoft and Khan Academy are collaborating to bring AI innovations and high-quality content to education. We’re getting started by bringing more Khan Academy content into Copilot and Microsoft Teams for Education for millions of learners.

Research indicates that every minute spent on Khan Academy can lead to learning gains. Created by educational experts, Khan Academy’s trusted library of content covers math PreK-12 through early college, grammar, science, history, AP, SAT prep, and more. Copilot already includes Khan Academy references in relevant responses, and we’re working on making the content even more accessible and interactive. We’ll also bring Khan Academy content into Microsoft Teams for Education to streamline educator workflows while creating a focused and contextual environment for learners.

Microsoft Teams for Education is a powerful, free communication app for schools that enhances collaboration and learning. It integrates everyone and everything in one place and has been designed to support the needs of students, educators, staff, and guardians. Khan Academy has now added a new “Share to Teams” feature in its platform to enable easy sharing and application of Khan Academy content in student assignments.

The new “Share to Teams” feature from Khan Academy enables easy sharing and application of Khan Academy content in student assignments.

We’re looking forward to continuing our collaboration and bringing more AI opportunities to life. Get started today with Khanmigo for Teachers and Microsoft Copilot as an AI assistant for educators , and stay tuned for updates.

Learn more about Khan Academy and Microsoft:

• Khan Academy , Khan Academy announcement blog , professional learning videos
• Explore additional free tools for education and resources from Microsoft: Microsoft Copilot , GitHub Copilot , Learning Accelerators , AI for educators learning path , Education AI Toolkit

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Microsoft teams up with Khan Academy to make the Khanmigo AI teaching assistant free

M icrosoft and non-profit educational organization Khan Academy have formed a partnership that will allow all K-12 educators in the US to access the pilot version of Khanmigo for Teachers at no cost. Khanmigo is an AI-powered teaching assistant that can help teachers find ways to make lessons more fun and engaging. it will also recommend assignments, display information on a student's performance so that teachers can assess their progress and provide resources educators can use to refresh their knowledge.

The tool can also quickly create lesson plans and suggest student groups for team activities. Khan Academy says Khanmigo can save teachers an average of five working hours every week. The service previously cost educators $4 a month, but Khan Academy has dropped those fees since its Microsoft partnership allows it to use the Azure OpenAI Service to power Khanmigo for free. 

As part of their collaboration, Khan Academy will also help Microsoft train the company's Phi-3 small language models (SLMs) and develop its AI-powered math tutoring capabilities. The organization will give the company access to explanatory educational materials it can feed Phi-3, such as step-by-step guides on how to solve math problems. Khan Academy is hoping that SLMs like Phi-3, which can run locally on devices, will eventually be able to provide teaching help and tutoring for teachers and students in resource-strapped regions. Microsoft will also add more content from Khan Academy to Copilot and Teams for Education so that more people can access the organization's educational library. 

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Microsoft teams up with Khan Academy to make the Khanmigo AI teaching assistant free

Khanmigo for teachers used to cost educators $4 a month..

Microsoft and non-profit educational organization Khan Academy have formed a partnership that will allow all K-12 educators in the US to access the pilot version of Khanmigo for Teachers at no cost. Khanmigo is an AI-powered teaching assistant that can help teachers find ways to make lessons more fun and engaging. it will also recommend assignments, display information on a student's performance so that teachers can assess their progress and provide resources educators can use to refresh their knowledge.

The tool can also quickly create lesson plans and suggest student groups for team activities. Khan Academy says Khanmigo can save teachers an average of five working hours every week. The service previously cost educators $4 a month, but Khan Academy has dropped those fees since its Microsoft partnership allows it to use the Azure OpenAI Service to power Khanmigo for free.

As part of their collaboration, Khan Academy will also help Microsoft train the company's Phi-3 small language models (SLMs) and develop its AI-powered math tutoring capabilities. The organization will give the company access to explanatory educational materials it can feed Phi-3, such as step-by-step guides on how to solve math problems. Khan Academy is hoping that SLMs like Phi-3, which can run locally on devices, will eventually be able to provide teaching help and tutoring for teachers and students in resource-strapped regions. Microsoft will also add more content from Khan Academy to Copilot and Teams for Education so that more people can access the organization's educational library.

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Khan Academy Blog

Khanmigo For Teachers Now 100% Free for All U.S. Teachers, Thanks to Microsoft Support

posted on May 20, 2024

Big news for educators! Today at Microsoft Build, Microsoft and Khan Academy announced a new partnership to bring our pilot Khanmigo for Teachers to every U.S. teacher. 

U.S. Educators: Get the Khanmigo pilot for free

Teachers can start using the pilot of Khanmigo for Teachers now and join the ranks of millions who trust Khan Academy, the leading nonprofit in education for over 15 years. With the IEP Assistant, teachers can use the tools right away to create summer learning plans for students in need of targeted support or use the Report Card Comments tool to close out the school year. For a serious head start on next year’s work, teachers might try the Leveler tool to adjust the text complexity to various student reading levels. Differentiation from day one of school? Now that’s a win!

What teachers get

Khanmigo is designed to significantly reduce the time educators spend on preparatory tasks, which studies show can consume more than 50% of their workload . With Microsoft and Khan Academy’s new partnership, the goal is to shift the focus back to what truly matters: teaching and engaging students. With Khanmigo, educators can easily tackle a wide range of duties, such as the following:

• Generating rubrics
• Developing quiz and exercise questions
• Crafting exit tickets
• Creating captivating lesson hooks tailored to student interests
• Supporting Individual Education Plan (IEP) development
• Plus, much more across over 20 different tasks!

Khanmigo’s intuitive interface simplifies AI for teachers—no prompting required. Instead, teachers can dive straight into efficient preparation and spend more quality time with their students.

Teachers find some “sparkle”

Khanmigo doesn’t just streamline prep work; it enriches teaching. By suggesting creative lesson hooks and connecting lessons to the real world and student interests, it promises high classroom engagement. Trained on nationwide standards and designed to work in harmony with teacher expertise, Khanmigo elevates educational content to meet each teacher’s specific needs. Hear from chemistry teacher Melissa Higgason on how working with Khanmigo helped her find her groove.

Get started quickly

To get teachers started, Khan Academy’s Professional Learning team created seven tutorials for ELA, Math, Social Studies, Science, Elementary School, Electives, and Substitute Teaching. These resources will help teachers quickly master Khanmigo and integrate this powerful tool into their teaching strategy, maximizing its benefits from day one.

Bring Khanmigo to students with Khan Academy Districts

At this time, student access for Khanmigo is only available through school or district implementations. We invite district and school administrators interested in Khanmigo’s power as a one-to-one tutor and writing coach to contact our Districts Partnership team to learn about Khanmigo for Districts .

As a nonprofit focused on education, Khan Academy is committed to exploring AI’s role in the future of learning in a responsible manner. We see AI’s potential to positively transform education but are mindful of its risks. Thus, learners under 18 can access Khanmigo only with parental consent or through partnerships with their school districts. This collaborative approach with school leaders, teachers, families, and Khan Academy staff ensures we provide the supervision and support children need. We believe these guidelines will allow us to responsibly integrate AI into education.

What’s on the horizon

As part of this agreement, Microsoft donated access to infrastructure that enables Khan Academy to make Khanmigo for Teachers free to all teachers in the US. The two companies will collaborate to explore opportunities to improve math tutoring in an affordable, scalable, and adaptable manner using Microsoft’s new Phi-3 family of small language models.

Microsoft and Khan Academy will also work to integrate more Khan Academy content into Copilot and Teams for Education, a free version of Microsoft’s popular Teams app, to enhance collaboration and learning customized to meet the needs of educators and students. The integration will make Khan Academy’s vast educational library available to even more learners while providing high-quality content to users of Copilot and Teams for Education.

Teachers: Get your free access

Join Khan Academy and Microsoft in this latest advancement of Khan Academy’s mission to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. With Khanmigo, the future of teaching is brighter and more accessible than ever.

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Enhancing the future of education with Khan Academy

Khan Academy and Microsoft partner to expand access to AI tools that personalize teaching and help make learning fun

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The best way to learn and teach with AI is here. Ace the school year with our AI-powered guide, Khanmigo. 

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Newark Public Schools considers new AI tutor chatbot for districtwide use after pilot testing

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Newark Public Schools wants to see a districtwide expansion of an artificial intelligence tutoring tool after it was piloted at First Avenue School last year, as the district searches for ways to help students catch up from pandemic learning loss.

The district was among the first in the country to test the chatbot called Khanmigo, an AI program developed by online learning giant Khan Academy that is designed for classrooms and acts as a tutor for students and an assistant for teachers. The Newark Board of Education in March approved a data-sharing agreement with Khan Academy to study whether the tool was effective “in the North Ward schools,” according to the agreement. In an email to Chalkbeat Newark on Thursday from Superintendent Roger León, district officials confirmed they are looking to expand the use of the program districtwide.

Khanmigo is still in its pilot phase but is designed to guide students as they progress through lessons and ask questions like a human tutor would, according to Khan Academy spokesperson Barb Kunz. It can also assist teachers with tasks such as planning lessons, tailoring instruction, creating texts and images, and providing recommendations on what students could work on next.

Khanmigo was launched last year in grades 5-8 and used in core content areas, which are typically math, reading, writing, and science, according to the district. The district is monitoring its implementation but has not said how Khanmigo is used in classrooms, what students and teachers think about the tool, or why there is a need for it in Newark. During March’s school board meeting, León said the agreement with Khan Academy is “all too very important work and everyone across the country is trying to figure out how to move the program.”

“The strategy here is not to do it in any one school only,” León added. “This is a program that we are piloting and then it will flourish.”

So far, there has been little research on whether such tools are effective in helping students regain lost ground. Experts also say districts should be clear about their goals in using AI tools like Khanmigo and learn from teachers and students as they use new platforms.

How does Khanmigo work?

Khanmigo, powered by ChatGPT technology, includes features meant to help students work through math and science problems, analyze text, chat with historical figures, navigate college admissions, and revise essays, among other features . It is also designed to help teachers create instructions for assignments and review student performance.

As part of the district’s data-sharing agreement with Khan Academy, researchers will analyze state testing data to determine how using Khan Academy is associated with student growth and achievement. The initial pilot testing for the tool ended in June 2023 and was offered at no cost to the district, Newark Public Schools officials said last week.

Newark is one of 53 school districts across the country to pilot the tool, which is accessed through Khan Academy’s website rather than a separate app. First Avenue Students can access Khanmigo to get hints for solving challenging math problems or explain concepts they find confusing across all subjects. The chatbot can also guide students in exploring topics they’re interested in or exploring new ones.

But one thing it can’t do is give students the answers, according to Khan Academy’s website .

This isn’t the first time Newark has considered a new classroom tool to improve student learning. Over 40 educational platforms are being used by the district, according to a January committee report . An infusion of COVID relief dollars into Newark schools became the district’s “saving grace” in expanding summer programs and tutoring initiatives in 2023, León said last year.

After the pandemic, city, district, and community leaders sounded the alarm about the need to provide more support to improve student achievement. Student performance in math and English language arts on spring state test scores in 2023 went up by 2 percentage points from the prior year, highlighting slow academic recovery after the pandemic. That required more than 10,000 public school students to attend summer school in 2023 – double the number from the year before. District leaders also developed plans in science and English language arts that focus on new approaches to learning to boost student achievement.

Next school year’s budget includes a $6.8 million increase in tutoring efforts previously covered by American Rescue Plan funds, but few details have been shared about the district’s plan to potentially pay for the Khanmigo program districtwide. The price for school districts to use Khanmigo starts at $35 per student for the school year. There are also discounts for schools and districts with a high number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Other districts that piloted the tool are also looking to expand the program by using grants or other funding sources. Palm Beach County Schools in Florida is receiving up to $2 million from the Stiles-Nicholson Foundation for the use of the platform through June 2025.

Last Friday, philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates visited First Avenue School to see the implementation of Khanmigo in classrooms. In 2020, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed $12 million to Khan Academy to support the continued development of the organization in grades 3-12 math. (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Chalkbeat funder. Learn more about our funding here .)

Experts say more research is needed to evaluate AI in education

Computer programs powered by artificial intelligence have been around in recent decades but applications such as Khanmigo, which learn from students engaging with it, are new and growing quickly as technology develops, said Amanda Neitzel, a director at ProvenTutoring, an initiative at John Hopkins University that helps schools choose evidence-based tutoring programs.

Kunz says Khanmigo is “still very much in the early days of AI” and Khan Academy is helping K-12 school district partners “understand, explore, and use these tools.”

So far, there have been errors in how Khanmigo solves basic math problems , which Kunz said they have since fixed. Teachers and students across pilot districts have also said the tool occasionally offers too much help and was too available, especially when students were taking assessments such as quizzes and course challenges, Kunz said.

Khan Academy changed the prompts to better align with a “socratic tutor,” a tutoring approach that involves a dialogue between teacher and students, and made Khanmigo unavailable when students complete assessments on the site, Kunz added.

Teachers are also requesting more coaching on the differences between Khanmigo’s “student mode,” which guides students through lessons and problems, and “teacher mode,” which is designed to help educators plan lessons and collaborate on solutions.

But Neitzel warns that research on the efficacy of tutoring programs such as Khanmigo in the classroom is needed as they gain popularity among school districts.

“It is important to do those research studies that look broadly across certain student groups because schools have limited resources,” said Neitzel, who is also an assistant research scientist at John Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education. “They need to choose something that has the best shot of helping the most students.”

Feedback important to evaluate, improve new platforms

The effectiveness of AI tools such as Khanmigo depends on their design and implementation and other factors such as teacher feedback, training, and understanding the social emotional effect on students play a role in improving technology, said Alan Reid, a researcher at John Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education.

Reid studies educational technology products and reviews their efficacy in classroom instruction. He says AI products could yield positive learning outcomes by providing personalized attention and learning to students, but does not believe tools such as Khanmigo could replace human instruction completely. He sees educators using new platforms to supplement classroom work but wouldn’t be surprised if a teacher’s role shifts as technology evolves.

“That’s just by the nature of having so many digital programs and products and apps and screens and things that don’t lean on the instructor’s expertise as much as just the instructor becoming more of a guide and a facilitator through these products,” Reid added.

Kunz, the spokesperson for Khan Academy, said “in an ideal world every student would have a human tutor” but the hope is that Khanmigo will be able to provide an AI alternative “that can be scaled so that anyone, anywhere can get help when they need it.”

School districts need to think about different tutoring models and intervention strategies that provide critical support for mastering foundational skills, said Jennifer Krajewski, director of Outreach and Engagement at ProvenTutoring.

Khanmigo could be a useful tool to provide on-demand help with homework, Krajewski said, but could also supplement more robust intervention strategies during the school day depending on what students need and what the school district wants to target.

“I think school districts need to understand that distinction,” Krajewski said, “and start with what are their most pressing needs.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at [email protected] .

“Typically at this point, all students would have financial aid packages from all their schools,” said Mark Stulberg, director of college counseling at North Star Academy’s Lincoln Park High School.

Elementary and special education teachers who don’t teach literacy won’t have to earn a new literacy endorsement required by state law.

Casi dos años después de que empezaran a llegar autobuses repletos de migrantes a Chicago, muchos niños han llegado a escuelas con poco apoyo lingüístico de CPS.

Two years after busloads of migrant children began arriving in Chicago, many have landed in schools where most don’t speak Spanish. Custodians and kindergarten teachers are taking on the role of translator, but students are still falling behind.

“At some point, all of us as board members are highly conscious of the fact that we’re going to have to close schools, we’re going to have to consolidate schools,” one board member said.

One initiative will give $1,000 bonuses to teenagers who work 100 hours or more this summer and complete financial literacy training.