Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy

by Education Without Backpacks
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Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy
Educate Bulgarian Children with Khan Academy

Project Report | Jan 9, 2025
Celebrating 10 Years and Expanding Math Success!

By Teodora Alexandrova | PR & Communications

Dear friends, we are thrilled to share some exciting news – our dream of helping more children improve their math skills is becoming a reality! Over the next three years, the UniCredit Foundation will support our "Better at Math with Khan Academy" program, bringing it to 50 more schools across Bulgaria.

What better way to celebrate our 10-year anniversary than by expanding our impact and reaching even more students?

Thank you for being part of this incredible journey!

Better at Math with Khan Academy: Autumn results

With the support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, we expanded our “Better at Math with Khan Academy” program from 2 to 10 more schools from Burgas, Stara Zagora, Sofia, Panagyurishte, Aytos, and Burgas. In the autumn of 2024 we trained a total of 245 math and primary teachers on how to successfully implement Khan Academy into their math education.

Following the trainings, weekly mentoring sessions began in each school to ensure regular program implementation. Currently, over 3300 students are participating in the program.

Meanwhile, as part of our first three-year program with UniCredit Foundation, we continue our monthly mentoring support for a second school year in our two pilot schools in Sofia. 

Devices Donation Campaign

Many of the schools we are working with lacked the necessary resources. To address this, we launched a campaign to collect devices for 7 of the 10 new schools. Within 1-2 months, we successfully provided three sets of 25 devices to three schools, with generous contributions from companies such as Ubisoft, UniCredit Bulbank, Astea Solutions, Schwartz IT, and Pwrteams. This immediate support enabled hundreds of students to access high-quality learning tools more regularly. Our efforts will continue in the coming year to ensure that every student has the opportunity to benefit from Khan Academy as much as possible.

Advocacy efforts for our programs

  • After joining BESCO in the spring, as of December 2024, we are also a member of the Bulgarian EdTech Cluster, hoping to continue advocating for smarter and more effective digitalization through these networks.
  • For the purposes of the "Better at Math with Khan Academy" program, we established official partnerships with the Municipality of Burgas, the Municipality of Blagoevgrad, and the Regional Education Office in Burgas. 
  • Since the program launched, we have continued seeking new partnerships and are currently in negotiations with the Municipality of Varna and the Municipality of Kyustendil, with meetings planned with several more municipalities.
  • Our team participated in the EdTech Innovators Forum, joining discussions with the deputy minister of education and leading education and technology experts. We highlighted Khan Academy’s role in bridging gaps in educational access and quality, emphasizing its transformative potential.

Success Stories from Our Teachers

At Hristo Botev Primary School in the Pobeda district of Burgas, Mrs. Petrova has witnessed remarkable progress in her sixth-graders’ motivation to study math and participate actively in class. Some students enjoy the Khan Academy math lessons so much that they even join sessions with other classes!

Several teachers in the program initially expressed skepticism, but they soon observed significant improvement among their students. For example, Mrs. Dukova from 11th Primary School in Blagoevgrad reports that her sixth-graders are now more engaged, and their academic performance has improved.

Similarly, Mrs. Dimitrova from Aytos saw positive results after just one month of using Khan Academy for math revision. Some of her sixth-graders even raised their grades from a C to an A!

There are inspiring stories from younger students as well. Mrs. Keremedchieva from 97th Secondary School in Sofia has seen her third-graders make impressive progress with Khan Academy. The students love tracking their progress and consistently strive for 100% on exercises.

A particularly touching story comes from Blagoevgrad, where a second-grade girl, who had read 240 books in a year, struggled with math. After starting Khan Academy at school, her math skills improved significantly, and she now says she loves the subject!

Creating Local Math Content:

In spring 2024, we began developing our own math content – videos and exercises – to address gaps in Khan Academy for grades 5-7, aligned with the Bulgarian curriculum. So far, we have created 19 topics, each including a video and an exercise.

We are among the first international Khan Academy teams to produce local math content. Our videos and exercises can be adapted and used by other countries, broadening our impact.

A Year of Translation Achievements:

2024 was a highly productive year for us in revising and expanding math content, as well as creating new advisory articles and exercises for teachers and students on using Khan Academy and its latest features.

From September to December 2024 alone, we translated 435,500 words and proofread 427,800 words in math and educational resources. In total for 2024, we produced 7 new videos and translated or proofread 1.39 million words across exercises and articles for teachers and students.

Exciting Events:

  • AIMS Human Capital 30th Anniversary – Maria Shishkova, one of our most dedicated Advisory Board members, invited us to celebrate the 30th anniversary of AIMS. A charity auction held during the event raised nearly 30,000 BGN from key companies, supporting our "Better at Math with Khan Academy" program.
  • 2024 Annual Education Awards by the Cambridge Schools Association – At this prestigious event, we presented our math improvement program to 40 school directors and representatives from across Bulgaria. Attendees showed great interest in adopting Khan Academy’s tools to enhance teaching strategies.
  • Game Dev Day 2 – Our chairman and teacher trainer, Ivan Gospodinov, was a featured speaker in the panel "Gamification in Education: Innovation or a Familiar Friend?" He demonstrated how Khan Academy uses gamification to engage students and improve learning, sparking lively discussions with over 70 educators, developers, and innovators.
  • National Seminar on Mathematics Education – At the National Seminar hosted by the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics of the Bulgarian Academy of Science (IMI-BAS), we showcased how Khan Academy can support and improve math education across Bulgaria.
  • Manager for a Day – As part of this initiative, three ambitious young women assumed leadership roles at Education Without Backpacks for a day. They gained valuable experience managing educational projects, strategizing campaigns, and understanding nonprofit operations.

Thank you for supporting us and contributing to our growing impact!

Schwarz IT Bulgaria donated laptops to students
Schwarz IT Bulgaria donated laptops to students
Our chairman during a panel discussion
Our chairman during a panel discussion
Students using Khan Academy in Math class
Students using Khan Academy in Math class
Students revising Math lessons with Khan Academy
Students revising Math lessons with Khan Academy
Happy students using Khan Academy
Happy students using Khan Academy

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Sep 12, 2024
Better Math results with 10 new Khan schools!

By Teodora Alexandrova | PR & Communications

May 17, 2024
Helping Bulgarian students get better at Math!

By Melli Popova | Operations Manager

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Organization Information

Education Without Backpacks

Location: Sofia - Bulgaria
Website:
Facebook: Facebook Page
Twitter: @khanacademybg
Project Leader:
Rozalina Laskova
Sofia , Sofia Bulgaria

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