Category: Technology

In his  controversial and wonderfully counter-intuitive paper ‘Why textbooks count’ linked  here  Tim Oates has challenged the current orthodoxy of education and exam resources making the case for higher quality textbooks as well as throwing into question the relative value of digital resources. Below we have reproduced a summary of Tim’s key message preceded by an introduction to Altain’s perspective on the possibles of a blended approach with potential for delivering the best of all worlds

Sharing Altain’s perspective for a blended approach 

We’ve had quite a bit to say about textbooks exam and board/publisher relations in our evidence to the Education Committee review of exams for 15 to 19 year olds – here and more recently in a short presentation at a Westminster Education forum on possible ways forward for resources and university involvement, here

Tim’s observations on the importance of text books and quality of current publishing provision are no surprise to us (in fairness there are extenuating circumstances for publishers on which more later) – however we do have a very different take on digital.

Our experience of other sectors outside of education suggests a blended future but with print and digital playing complementary rather than competing roles. Key we think is that the debate is not limited to comparisons between print and digital as a medium for education but that it is about strategy too.

For example, both in the UK and globally there is a major rethink on MOOCs taking place that includes an assertive consideration of their possible role in secondary education. It is early days but research published by the DfE in June this year here  indicated that teachers and school heads are able to discriminate between scenarios, for example seeing good potential for a beneficial blending of digital and traditional resources supporting 16 to 19 progression to HE, but less so in others such as early years learning.

Perhaps something like the EEF’s Pupil premium ‘Teaching and learning toolkit’ linked here  could be deployed to help facilitate an objective evaluation of approaches?

Mirroring Tim’s notion of ‘coherence’, we concluded in our evidence to the Education Committee review of examinations for 15 to 19-year-olds by saying that “Examinations and Exam boards have perhaps unwittingly come to occupy too much of the centre stage when in fact a good education and an effective education system require a symbiotic relationship between a numbers of elements of which assessments is just one”. Possibly we might now add – “and high quality textbooks and digital are two others”?

‘Why textbooks count’, a summary of what Tim had to say

England needs to restore the primacy of ‘real’ textbooks in order to reach international standards of education, Cambridge Assessment’s Group Director of Assessment Research and Development has said.
In a paper published to coincide with a conference held by the Publishers Association, and backed by Minister of State for School Reform Nick Gibb MP, Tim Oates warns that England has been overtaken by the highest-performing education systems, partly because they value textbooks so highly.

Tim, who chaired the 2010 National Curriculum review, shows that in England only four per cent of teachers claim to use science textbooks as the basis for their teaching, compared to 68 per cent in Singapore and 94 per cent in Finland. In the latest PISA international league tables, Singapore was ranked third and Finland fifth for science. The UK was in 21st place.

In Why Textbooks Count, which looks at the best systems around the world, Tim explains that classroom teachers are not to blame for the problem. Instead he highlights an opposition to textbooks among many theory-based educationalists, as well as a failure of the market in England. He says textbooks have been largely abandoned in favour of the use of ‘worksheets’ and “myopic” exam-based books, in stark contrast to places such as Singapore, Finland and Shanghai, where high-quality textbooks are a key part of the classroom, supporting learners and teachers alike.

Summing up the situation, he says: “We may not have been conscious of the movement in England away from the wide use of high quality textbooks, but it has happened. We’ve failed to notice the emergence, in other nations, of extremely well-theorised, well-designed, and carefully implemented textbooks.” He concludes by calling for “self-searching criticism of the status-quo in England” and for a “concerted effort by publishers, the state, researchers and educationalists” to align more with emerging international standards of excellence on textbooks.

In a foreword, the Minister says he hopes the paper will “lead to the renaissance of intellectually demanding and knowledge-rich textbooks in England’s schools”

Your view?

Are higher quality text books the answer? Is a blended approach a possible way forward? Where do you see the new opportunities and how can they be realised?

Please share your views in the comments section below