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Beyond the Textbook?

A couple of days ago I noticed #beyondthetextbook emerging on Twitter. It turns out that this hashtag related to an gathering sponsored by Discovery Education in Washington D.C.

My (remote, somewhat helicopter-like) contribution, was pretty much summed up by the following:

The problem isn't the textbook. The textbook is a symptom of a problem around *assessment*. #beyondthetextbook

After reading Audrey Watters’ post about the gathering (as well as those by others), I’d like to expand up on that and highlight some thoughts from others with whom I’m in agreement.

Trojan textbooks

I want us to weigh classroom practices, power, authority, politics, publishing, assessment, expertise, attribution, and the culture(s) of the education system. I would argue that the textbook in its current form — and frankly in almost all of the digital versions we’re also starting to see now — is tightly woven into that very fabric, and once we tug hard enough at the “textbook” thread, things come undone.

(Audrey Watters)

The textbook is easy to talk about. It’s a physical thing that people have known as students and, for some, as educators. The trouble is that, just as with any technology, it’s difficult to separate the thing from the practices that surround the thing.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with textbooks – especially if you define them as Bud Hunt does as “A collection of information organized around thoughtful principles intended to provide support to instruction.” I’m not so keen on the word ‘instruction’ (I’d substitute ‘learning’) but like his basis in ‘thoughtful principles’.

Getting assessment right

One of the reasons I’m such a big fan of badges for lifelong learning is that assessment is broken. I don’t mean ‘broken’ in the sense that a bit of a repair job would fix. I mean structurally unsound and falling apart. Liable to collapse at any moment. That kind of broken.

It’s a problem I felt as a classroom teacher. It’s an issue I had to deal with as a senior manager. It’s evident in my sector-wide role in Higher Education. The hoops through which we’re asking people to jump not only don’t mean anything any more, but they don’t necessarily lead anywhere.

To me, that constitutes a crisis of relevance. So when we’ve got textbooks solely focused on providing content in bite-sized chunks in order to allow people to pass summative tests, then we’ve got a problem. A huge problem.

But let’s be clear: the problem is to do with the high-stakes assessment. It’s akin to the current attacks on the efficacy of teachers. The problem isn’t with (most) teachers, it’s with what you’re asking them to do. Likewise, with textbooks, it’s not the collecting of information in one place – it’s what people are expected to do with that information.

Open content and the blank page

I’ve seen many state their belief that the best kind of textbook is the blank page. By that, they mean that textbooks should be co-constructed. I certainly can’t argue with that, but we must always be careful that we don’t substitute one form of top-down structure with another.

Back in 2006 I wrote a couple of posts on my old teaching blog. One covered the idea of teachers as lifeguards, and other focused on the teacher as DJ. In the former I talk about the importance of teachers ‘knowing the waters’ so that they can allow students to explore the waters, growing in confidence (but be there when things go wrong). In the latter I discuss the similarities between teachers and DJs around ‘tempo’ and ‘playlists’.

Both the lifeguard and DJ analogies work with textbooks, I think. The difficulties are always going to be around time and competency. It’s all very well for those new to the profession, willing to burn the candle at both ends to remix the curriculum and create their own textbooks to move #beyondthetextbook. But that’s a recipe for burnout.

Conclusion

As usual, I’ve more questions than answers, but if I have one contribution to the #beyondthetextbook debate it’s that our current use of textbooks is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. It’s difficult to debate nuanced things online, and even more so via Twitter.

I think we need a renaissance in blogging – and the kind of blogging where we reference other people’s work. If we’re going to debate problems in education, let’s do so at length, with some nuance, and in a considered way.

Thanks for reading this far. I’d love to read any comments you have below!

Obliquity, PISA, and ‘shareholder value’ in education.

At TEDx Warwick last Saturday I was first up, meaning I could sit back, relax and listen properly to the other speakers. Whilst I could write several posts about floating islands, medical implants and sustainability, I want to focus on just one of them.

John Kay, author of Obliquity: why our goals are best achieved indirectly, gave what I considered to be a fascinating talk. His book has been on my Amazon wishlist almost since it came out and I’ve now got several more reasons to read it.

Before I go any further, the stimulus for writing this post comes from the TES article ‘Wales asks schools to teach to the Pisa test‘. As I mentioned in my recent Purpos/ed Ignite presentation, education is under the control of governments, and PISA is pretty much the only tool they have to compare educational outcomes. Unfortunately, it focuses on a very narrow aspect of education and is accused of using discredited statistical techniques.

John Kay’s key point was that we often achieve the ends we desire indirectly. He summed this up perfectly by his example of ICI, the chemical company. I haven’t got the exact quotations he used, but in the 1970s ICI’s mission statement focused firmly on innovation and customers. ‘Shareholder value’ was merely a by-product of the core function of the company. By the 1990s this had reversed, with ‘shareholder value’ being the number one priority.

Of course, ICI no longer exists having lost its innovative edge. Likewise, if we focus on narrow and questionable measures of education to make comparisons with other countries, we miss the point of learning. PISA is the educational equivalent of ‘shareholder value’. Focusing on the by-product rather than the core mission is worrying.

Perhaps it’s time to take education out of the hands of politicians?

If you’re interested in debating the purpose(s) of education, you might want to join the debate at purposed.org.uk. Look especially at our call for more #500words contributions!

If not now, when? Why we need #openbadges and #dmlbadges for lifelong learning RIGHT NOW.

badges

You know what? If I could, god-like, step outside of time and decide just when to make a large-scale change to western education systems, I think I’d choose right now. Why? People are ready for change. The current system isn’t working and we haven’t got the money to prop it up any more.

And you know what else? If I could choose an organisation to come up with an alternative system, I’d entrust a non-governmental international organisation that had demonstrated its non-profit and open credentials to drive things forward. Kind of like Mozilla, then. But you’d also need big-hitters and a backer credible with educators. Step forward HASTAC, the US Department of Education and NASA.

It’s now or never. As a father of two children under five, I passionately want something different in place for my children going forward. I think this is the only chance for changing educational assessment radically before my children become adults.

If you’re involved with education at any level you know how much assessment drives learning. Whether we’re talking about intrinsic or extrinsic motivation relating to badges, we can all agree of the importance of getting something out of learning experiences. Something that shows what you know. That’s why I think badges are perfect for MOOCs, for example.

But it’s no good sitting on the sidelines. I’m off to the Mozilla Festival today to meet more people involved in the #openbadges project and, hopefully, Mark Surman (CEO of Mozilla) to discuss his proposal for a web literate planet. What can YOU do? Well, there’s $2 million of (international) competition money available for a range of things relating to badges:

  • I encourage educators to get involved in the content competition, identifying the types of content may suit badges. Closing date: 14 November 2011
  • I encourage researchers (faculty members and students alike) to get involved in the research competition to establish a sound theoretical basis for badges. Closing date: 28 November 2011
  • I encourage designers and coders to get involved in the design competition to implement the technologies required for a badge infrastructure. Closing date: 12 January 2012

As I’ve explained recently, the world doesn’t change in and of itself: it takes human agency to do so. Are you going to step up and help move things forward?

Image CC BY-NC-SA keoshi

 

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