Khan Academy Has a Strong Community of Teachers and Students in Gyumri

The Ayb Eeducational Foundation, together with the representatives of its partners, the MoESCS, the U.S. Embassy, Shirak Regional Administration, summed up Khan Academy's project at the Gyumri Information Technologies Center. As part of the project, a series of workshops had been organized for STEM teachers in public schools of Gyumri. Workshops and the expansion of the subject list of Khan Academy have become a reality with the funding of the U.S. Embassy, and created a new opportunity for scientific and technological progress in our country.

Thanks to the program, the teachers of Gyumri’s public schools have become part of a large educational community, where the best teaching practice is already used—particularly the tools for hybrid-mode education that are highly demanded today. As a result of the program, more than 50 teachers and 900 students have become skilled in using online resources. In addition, as a result of the program, the platform will have about 800 Armenian-language free videos on natural and exact sciences that have been localized to meet new state standards.

During the sum-up event, the ESCS Minister Vahram Dumanyan addressed a message to the beneficiaries of the program. According to the minister, Khan Academy is one of the paths providing great opportunities for our students to realize their right to education and to have an easy access to it. With the help of the platform, learners in the Armenian language, parents and teachers, generally anyone interested in self-learning, get the opportunity to access the world's leading educational resources free of charge. The U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy also addressed a video message to the participants of the program, stressing that investment in the field of education is especially fruitful because it is directed to an area that has the potential to serve the goals of growth and prosperity of the country. Hasmik Mikaelyan, U.S. Embassy cultural/educational program specialist, highlighted in her speech the fact that the enrichment of online resources related to STEM subjects and their use in the learning process can also help many students decide to specialize in the field of science and technology. Hovhannes Harutyunyan, governor of Shirak marz, mentioned that under current conditions, the Ayb Educational Foundation, which has been carrying out various programs to improve the education quality for years, implemented a strong and targeted program necessary for Shirak marz. Sona Koshetsyan, director of the Ayb Educational Foundation, attached importance to this cooperation, which is aimed at delivering the best educational content to marzes. She thanked the active community of teachers of Shirak marz, who contribute to the dissemination of innovative educational solutions and best practices, expressing hope that the online platform will be their companion in the teaching process, regardless of the teaching format. At the end of the program, the teachers of Gyumri public schools received certificates of participation. The results of the competition of the students, who had been challenged to score 500,000 points on Khan Academy online platform, was also summed up. It is very encouraging that the students who showed the highest results and were awarded prizes had gotten close to the mark of 3 million points.

Thus, as a result of the program, in addition to replenishing the online resources of Khan Academy, the Ayb Educational Foundation has also formed a strong community of teachers and students in Gyumri that freely uses the opportunities provided by the platform.