Winners announced: The "Textbooks of the Year 2014"
Winners announced: The "Textbooks of the Year 2014"
The title of "Textbook of the Year" has been awarded once again. At a ceremony held at the Leipzig Book Fair on 14 March, the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research conferred the accolade on outstanding textbooks for primary schools. The Braunschweig-based institute and the Leipzig Book Fair initiated the "Textbook of the Year" award to support excellence in textbooks and encourage innovation among textbook editors and publishers. The Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the German Länder is the patron of the award, which has now been presented to exemplary textbooks for the third time.
The award ceremony was attended by approximately 150 figures from the worlds of academia, policy and education and compered by Elmar Krämer of the news and information radio station Deutschlandradio. Speaking at the ceremony, Sylvia Löhrmann, education minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and president of the Standing Conference, said: "The wide and diverse range of textbooks we currently have available to us is of great value to education. That said, we need to remain discerning in this respect. We need to stay aware of the values our textbooks are teaching to our young people; for instance, we should continually ask ourselves whether they are compatible with the principles of democracy and human rights." In this context, she expressed her thanks to the Georg Eckert Institute for its commitment to textbook research and called for educational media in digital formats to focus still more closely on quality.
A panel of experts, encompassing teachers, educationalists and academics, nominated eight of the approximately 40 entries for the award. The following books were awarded the accolade of "Textbook of the Year":
German/MFL: Zebra 3, a reader, Ernst Klett Verlag 2013
The panel was of the view that the reader Zebra 3 presents an outstanding selection of texts which create an impressive synthesis between openness to children's responses and interpretations and a clear structure. The other nominees in this category were the English book Bumblebee 3, published by the Schroedel-Verlag, and the German textbook der die das 1 from Cornelsen.
Mathematics: eins zwei drei 1, Cornelsen Verlag 2011
The panel observed that eins zwei drei 1 was the first maths book for primary-aged children to consistently link up awareness of language and the acquisition of subject knowledge. The shortlist in this category also comprised Matherad 1, published by Ernst Klett Verlag / Verlag für pädagogische Medien (vpm), and Spürnasen Mathematik 1 from Duden Schulbuchverlag.
Additional materials: mathe:pro – Muster und Strukturen, Westermann Verlag 2012
This box of 93 flashcards provides, in the opinion of the judging panel, an excellent opportunity for children to engage closely with patterns and structures in mathematics. The other set of supplementary materials nominated for the award was Märchen für die Grundschule (Fairy Tales for Primary Schools), published by Ernst Klett Verlag.
The Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and the Leipzig Book Fair have been conferring the title of Textbook of the Year on outstanding educational media since 2012. The two previous years saw textbooks for the lower (German years 5 to 10) and upper (German years 11 to 13) stages of secondary schools respectively competing for the award. The purpose of the award is to provide public recognition to outstanding textbooks, their authors and publishers, thus raising awareness of the importance of the genre and encouraging innovation in the sector. The judges' key criteria when assessing submissions are the textbook's educational design, the extent to which it creatively meets the requirements of official educational standards, the nature and types of tasks for learners it contains, whether it is learner-centred, and its visual design.
You can find further information about the award (in German) at www.schulbuch-des-jahres.de.
Visit the Georg Eckert Institute at the Leipzig Book Fair, hall 2, stall C304
