ROGERS — Thick textbooks and their linear progression are no longer the keystone for teaching in the Rogers School District.
Goal-driven learning is the new black.
Textbooks are being supplemented in a variety of ways as teachers prepare to launch Common Core standards in grades three through eight this fall. Existing textbooks don’t allow for many of the changes. Common Core curriculum requires more reading in science and history classes, moves nonfiction to the forefront in reading and English classes and has changed the grade level placement of math concepts.
At A Glance
Textbook Cycle
The Arkansas Department of Education schedules textbook reviews by year. This year’s textbook purchase was optional.
• 2009: Foreign language, English as a Second Language and, in high school, business education, marketing, finance and career guidance
• 2010: Fine arts, special education, agriculture
• 2011: English language arts
• 2012: Mathematics, computer science
• 2013: Science, health and physical education
• 2014: Social studies, Arkansas history
Source: Arkansas Department Of Education
“The whole Common Core takes you away from being textbook based,” said Phil Eickstaedt, executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction.
For Jane Mohr, a seventh-grade history teacher at Elmwood Middle School, the change has meant one thing
“Dig, dig, dig,” Mohr said as she scanned her computer screen looking for historical documents that will match Common Core goals.
History teachers have the full Arkansas Frameworks to teach. They are adding 10 reading and 10 writing goals because of Common Core, said Marla Annen, history department chairwoman and seventh-grade history teacher at Oakdale Middle School.
“It’s not hard for us,” Annen said. “Using primary sources? That’s what we do.”
Finding primary sources specific to the state of Arkansas, however, has been a challenge. Teachers can use artifacts, photos, maps or journal entries as an information source. This could be a transcript and audio of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and a photo to give students context, Mohr said. Using a variety of historic pieces helps students more than a single reading, she said.
Instead of purchasing textbooks this year, district administrators are purchasing books or rights to online resources for teachers to use. The Arkansas Department of Education told districts this year’s purchase of math textbooks was optional, Eickstaedt said.
Middle school history teachers are adding more reading, and science teachers will do the same through periodicals and electronic resources. Math teachers can share existing textbooks across grade levels as some lessons have shifted grades, he said. Elementary teachers will have selected math units instead of a full book.
Administrators have put an overall focus on teacher resources instead of textbooks.
Textbooks are expensive, said Virginia Abernathy, assistant superintendent of elementary curriculum and instruction.
Kindergarten through second grade transitioned to Common Core last fall. The transition was smooth, she said. In elementary grades Common Core requires a 50-50 balance of nonfiction and fiction reading. The ratio is 70-30 in higher grades.
“That’s a lot more nonfiction than what we have typically used,” Abernathy said.
New books had to be ordered. Not every purchase was for each student in a class, Abernathy said. Some were purchased for a reading-buddy system, some for the teacher to read to the class.
“I’m spending much less,” Abernathy said.
Textbooks can cost up to $150, even at early grade levels. The annual textbook purchases add up, especially with about 14,000 students in the district, Eickstaedt said.
Textbooks still exist in the classroom; they just have taken the back seat.
Ryan Malashock, an eighth-grade history teacher at Oakdale Middle School, said he finds an emphasis on original, historic documents validates what he already knew.
“The textbook is very good at scratching the top level in a general way,” Malashock said.
What it does not do is allow for in-depth analysis or the multiple perspectives required to think critically, Malashock said. Critical thinking is a goal within Common Core.
In his World War II unit last year, Malashock used documents surrounding Hiroshima, including excerpts from a 1946 New Yorker article, President Harry S. Truman’s announcement of the bombing and atomic bomb test transcripts with descriptions of how viewers winced from the flash.
“You just don’t get that in a textbook,” Malashock said. “It brings in a lot more.”