It's interesting that the AFT is pushing a core curriculum. Apparently they want more than common standards; their recent release called for a "rich, common curriculum content, along with resources to support successfully teaching all students to mastery."
I bet all the folks that endorsed the idea were 'A' students that sat in the front of the class. I want to figure out how to reach the kids (like me) that sat in back and screwed around or the ones that called BS on the system and left.
If you continue to read the AFT announcement and think you understand what a common curriculum is, you see a little gray box inserted into the announcement that says:
To be clear, by "curriculum" we mean a coherent, sequential set of guidelines in the core academic disciplines, specifying the content knowledge and skills that all students are expected to learn, over time, in a thoughtful progression across the grades. We do not mean performance standards, textbook offerings, daily lesson plans, or rigid pedagogical prescriptions.
Ok, now I'm a little confused. So is Catherine Gewertz at EdWeek who reports on on this stuff, " In reporting the discussions about curriculum, I have begun to notice people struggling with semantics and using varied definitions." She also points out that the two big state consortia will use a bunch of the $365m they split to create 'curriculum resources' but they bend over backwards not to call it a national curriculum.
I'm already concerned that assessments of the Common Core standards will lock in the old batch-print system for another generation. A 'common curriculum' (whatever that means) is the wrong idea when we're about ready to develop 'school of one'--not just a 6th grade math program in NYC, but fully customized engaging learning sequences for every student.
Rather than a common curriculum, learning platforms to come will support not just 'multiple pathways' but customized playlists. Customized learning will be facilitated by comprehensive learning platforms surrounded by application and services. Learning platforms will replace today's learning management systems (LMS) that run flat and sequential courseware. Like iPhone and Android, these platforms will unleash investment and innovation.
Next generation platforms will include digital content libraries and tagging schemes. Recommendation engines (like an iTunes Genius for learning) based on a full motivational profile will queue a sequence of the best learning experiences possible. A Facebook-like social layer will support collaborative learning and will include a rich array of applications for learners and teachers. Giant data warehouses will capture keystroke data and will support powerful analytical tools. Platforms will be supported by vendors providing aligned services including student tutoring, staff development, school improvement, and new school development.
As personal digital learning platforms mature, enabling a rapid expansion of schools that focus on students and learning not adults and classes, students in high school and college will increasingly be allowed to chart their own pathways, assembling a personal a transcript from multiple providers. Their ultimate formal certification may be place-based, but their education will be unbounded--an uncommon curriculum.
Calls for a common curriculum come from a mental model of teacher-centric classrooms of age-cohorts on a common slog through a sequential curriculum. Best case scenario that works a little better. The dramatic improvement we seek will require engaging customized experiences for every student--and that opportunity is right in front of us. For no more than we spend today, we can create tech-enabled competency-based student-centered schools that help more students find academic success.
Follow Tom Vander Ark on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tvanderark
Why is it that with a touch of the button students can customized anything to their needs outside of the classroom, but when they cross that threshold we tell them they must fit themselves in to a one-size-fits-all program? Just doesn't make any sense....
A curriculum that I believe in is created by DEPCO, LLC and focuses on the children as well as teaching them. Children really seem to enjoy it and with their preschool program, The Block Academy, you pretty much manipulate them into learning. ;)
Wow! I was nearly breathless at the thought that you and I finally agree on something, the regressive nature of common (national) curricula and the giant gift it is to the existing standardized testing industry.
To paraphrase Seymour Papert, "school needs to teach children how to solve the problems that school didn't teach them to solve," and "at best, schools teach 1 billionth of a percent of the knowledge in the universe, yet we quibble endlessly over which billionth of a percent we should teach."
However, you jumped the shark with your play-list metaphor. That is pure fantasy with little relevance to the complexities of teaching and learning. I know that you're trying to be hip and with-it and all, but predictive recommendations based on prior purchases is a whole other kettle of fish from surrendering pedagogical decisions to machines.
Surely, you are aware that corporate profiteers have already embraced "play-list" metaphor as a rationale for a steady diet of drill and practice, computerized testing and gigantic class size? Hideous examples of risky educational experimentation with names like "Carpe Diem" and "School of One" use the patina of "personal digital learning" as cover for cost-cutting and computer-assisted instruction despite 70 years of research predicting failure of such schemes.
"Recommendation engines (like an iTunes Genius for learning) based on a full motivational profile will queue a sequence of the best learning experiences possible."
This definitely implies the use of a computer to do much of the learning, and despite my love of technology and all it can help us with, the "best learning experiences" do not happen through a computer. They happen when a group of people get together and collaborate to build something wonderful. I don't see how you can easily replicate that with an iTunes library of experiences.
What I would say instead is, an iTunes library of customized support material so that students always have access to the information they need.