Khan Academy Launches Khanmigo Writing Coach -- THE Journal

Learning Tools

Khan Academy Launches Khanmigo Writing Coach

By Rhea Kelly
07/22/24

Khan Academy has introduced Khanmigo Writing Coach, an AI tool designed to support through the writing process.

Khanmigo initially launched in March 2023 as an AI teaching tool that helps guide students through coursework and assists teachers with administrative tasks. The tool was piloted by 65,000 students and teachers in classrooms across 53 school districts in the United States this past school year, the company reported in a news announcement. Khanmigo's capabilities expanded in November with the addition of an academic essay feature that provides feedback on writing structure, organization, style, tone, and more. And in May 2024, Khan Academy announced a partnership with Microsoft that enabled the company to make Khanmigo available to teachers at no cost.

The new Writing Coach feature is designed to emphasize the writing process as much as the writing product, wrote Senior Product Manager Sarah Robertson in a company blog post. "Writing Coach doesn't just generate AI feedback or automatically grade essays. Instead, Writing Coach supports students during every stage of the writing process (without doing any of the writing for them)," offering explanations, motivation, and personalized feedback, she explained.

Areas of Writing Coach support detailed by Robertson include:

Understanding the assignment. "Khanmigo helps students break down the assignment, formulate an approach, and ensure they have a solid understanding before moving forward."
Outlining. "Khanmigo guides students through outlining, teaching them the components of a strong thesis, supporting them to develop topic sentences, and reminding them of assignment expectations, such as the need for more supporting evidence."
Drafting. "Khanmigo never does the work for students, but it provides guidance and motivation if they get stuck when writing the first draft."
Feedback and revision. "Khanmigo offers personalized feedback across various dimensions and supports students through the revision process."

Benefits for teachers include time savings, detailed reporting on feedback provided to students, and academic integrity monitoring, Robertson added.

For more information, visit the Khan Academy site.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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