Books and Resouces

[Kerry Parker and Andy Price]

Kia ora

For those of you who are interested in the standards-reallignment and our ability to provide students with appropriate resources I am forwarding part of a discussion from the UK-based 'Physics Teachers News and Chat' listserve.  David Sang is a well-informed and thoughtful physics teacher and author of many, many excellent texts and course books.  Food for thought for resource development here?

Kerry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Sang 
To: PTNC at NETWORKS.IOP.ORG 
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 5:58 AM
Subject: Re: [PTNC] David Sang- Physics 2 (Cambridge Advanced Sciences)


Hi


Just to add to Ken's comments:


Almost all Physics/Science textbooks for GCSE and A-level are now tied to individual specs. In practice, teachers are very reluctant to buy a more general book. This is probably a consequence of the endless push for 'better' exam results and the competition between awarding bodies.


It's deplorable, really. Unless the author resists, everything is edited into the examiners' preferred formulations. Students don't learn to sort through a text to find what they need to know. They feel that they will be confused if they are presented with material beyond the spec. In class, they complain if the teacher strays from the straight and narrow. Teachers trust that the book will be reflected in the exam. Physics ends up being what the examiners define it to be.


Ten years ago, publishers would send a draft text to a consultant to check the scientific content. Now I don't think this ever happens. The text has to match the spec, not the science.


More deplorable is the tie-up between awarding bodies and publishers, so that there is only one endorsed book per spec. (Pearson owns Longman and Edexcel; they also own Heinemann who have an exclusive deal with OCR. AQA is tied up with Nelson Thornes.) This is something the IoP could usefully campaign on.


I'm not saying that it's all the fault of the examiners or awarding bodies or publishers or teachers (or authors). But it's a consequence of the mark-chasing sausage-factory version of education we have ended up with.


Now, where's my quill?


Cheers


David Sang
sunny Bognor Regis






On 13 Mar 2009, at 10:00, Zetie, Ken wrote:


  “No use” means, presumably, that these books were written so tightly to an arbitrarily defined specification that when a new spec comes along they have to be discarded and a new text book found that conforms to the new arbitrary content. Of course, not buying these books will disadvantage your students, not least because the examiners occasionally forget the contents of their own spec and include a question on the one topic in the text book which is off-spec (which made it in by mistake, because it was in the original spec but then got cut out of the spec but not the book).

  Not that I’m thinking of a specific example (OCR A2 question on spectra a few years ago…) ahem.

  Ken


  ---
  Ken Zetie, Head of Physics, St Paul's School, London. kpz at stpaulsschool.org.uk 



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