I've recently looked at one of the current "Common Core" textbooks for freshmen math in my sibling's school district in California. It is very different from th

I've recently looked at one of the current "Common Core" textbooks for freshmen math in my sibling's school district in California. It is very different from the style of learning I was accustomed to. The textbooks I had introduced a new topic in some introduction pages, gave practice examples, and then a few pages of exercises of increasing difficulty. In contrast "Integrated Learning 1" by CPM takes a very different approach. It is very much continuous where the "text" of a topic is interwoven with a couple problems to do. Class room exercises and experiments constitute a lot of the main lessons. This is in contrast to Khan Academy where the progression of math knowledge is easily understandable and the step-by-step approach for learning by example and doing is emphasized. I was a bit taken aback by this approach. I can see it possibly working better in a class room setting. However I did most of my learning by reading. I'm also concerned that this approach will make it more difficult for students to catch up if their previous math education was not great as this continuous flow style doesn't lay out which topics to study. I'm not sure, but I'm not currently convinced. I'll be seeing how my younger sibling fares next semester, especially as our parents are not great at math and his education has some large holes in it (which we are working on). Thankfully he really enjoys Khan Academy so I anticipate him using that more if Common Core falls short.