Everyone is talking about the flipped classroom. Sal Khan and his Khan Academy have become a household name in educational innovation. In brief the Khan Academy provides short video lectures on a range of school curriculum topics from maths and science to history. As with most disruptive innovators, Sal didn’t set out to change the way school systems function. Rather, he was simply trying to tutor his younger cousin at a distance through making youtube clips – and the idea took off. The free lessons have now been watched over 82 million times, and are starting to be embedded within learning sequences in a few pilot schools in the USA. On friday it was announced that he has earned another 5 million in funding to scale up the operation.
The fundmental hope is that the school/homework division of learning might be FLIPPED. With lectures being watched by students at home, and student completing applied learning and exercises at school under the guidance of the teacher and with classmates.
There are plenty of challenges to this model. I have heard many pedagogical thought leaders argue that the point is not to move lectures from the classroom to the home. BUT rather to get rid of them as a standard pedagogical practice entirely.
To find out more about the Khan Academy and make your own mind up see the following video:
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