Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Common Core ELA, Khan Academy and the Flipped Classroom

I don't think very many people have noticed that the "flipped classroom" concept is in basic contradiction to the Common Core Literacy/ELA standards.

The fundamental logic of Common Core ELA is:

  1. Preparing students for success in college is the primary goal.
  2. Disciplinary literacy -- literally being able to read your textbooks and other assigned reading independently -- is the most important factor leading to success in college.
  3. Therefore, the central focus of the K-12 curriculum across all subjects should be subject-area reading (and writing).

On the other hand, the Khan Academy-style flipped classroom says:

  1. Homework should be watching videos, not reading.

OK, maybe that's not the explicit message of Khan Academy, which is more like:

  1. Don't try to work at home by yourself and listen to lectures at school.
  2. Listen to lectures at home and work in school.

They just skip over the part where you always have been able to read at home, but apparently there is some problem with that now.

Also, kind of funny that the only major subject that didn't have a set of disciplinary literacy standards imposed on it by the ELA people -- math -- was also the only one that would have had the power to block the move. Maybe the math people were insisting on some "math across the curriculum" standards in English in exchange.

No comments: