Is anyone else bothered that schools no longer use books?

[Anonymous]

Former teacher and as a parent, I loathe it, along with all the cutesy and sometimes not that well-written Teachers Pay Teachers handouts. I agree with the teacher above who says that at least textbooks are things they can riff off, as opposed to finding all their resources themselves. And sure, kids can use the highlight tool, but they need to do things tangibly. The whole thing really sucks.

[Anonymous]

Former teacher and as a parent, I loathe it, along with all the cutesy and sometimes not that well-written Teachers Pay Teachers handouts. I agree with the teacher above who says that at least textbooks are things they can riff off, as opposed to finding all their resources themselves. And sure, kids can use the highlight tool, but they need to do things tangibly. The whole thing really sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid in elementary, middle and high school and none of my kids seem to use books. Of course they read in English but that is it! My high school kid is taking world history with no book. My middle school kid has no algebra book. My elementary school kid has no science book.

Does this bother anyone else?

I hate that everything is online. I want to buy my high school kid a book he can flag and highlight.

Not at all; that is the world we live in.

Should we also use abacuses and slate and chalk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its been clearly shown that people remember information better when they read it in a book vs on a screen. Its been clearly shown that people retain information better when they write it down vs. type.
Yes, its a huge problem.

Can you share the research on this. I’m curious. (I think the same is true for writing notes vs typing… here too I’m not sure of research.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid in elementary, middle and high school and none of my kids seem to use books. Of course they read in English but that is it! My high school kid is taking world history with no book. My middle school kid has no algebra book. My elementary school kid has no science book.

Does this bother anyone else?

I hate that everything is online. I want to buy my high school kid a book he can flag and highlight.

I also not bothered by schools that no longer use stone tablets. Please get with the program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its been clearly shown that people remember information better when they read it in a book vs on a screen. Its been clearly shown that people retain information better when they write it down vs. type.
Yes, its a huge problem.

Can you share the research on this. I’m curious. (I think the same is true for writing notes vs typing… here too I’m not sure of research.)

Well there is no credible research per se but I like to say this because I'm a technophobe,

[Anonymous]

Easier to indoctrinate, text books have too many facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its been clearly shown that people remember information better when they read it in a book vs on a screen. Its been clearly shown that people retain information better when they write it down vs. type.
Yes, its a huge problem.

Can you share the research on this. I’m curious. (I think the same is true for writing notes vs typing… here too I’m not sure of research.)

Small sample size, but: "Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds" : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less-kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation

' the performance was largely similar, except when it came to the timing of events in the story. "The Kindle readers performed significantly worse on the plot reconstruction measure, ie, when they were asked to place 14 events in the correct order."

The researchers suggest that "the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print pocket book does".'

Higher cognitive load found in this one, but it's quite old: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563204000202

Note that these are both dealing with eReaders. Not reading on a laptop is a different issue. And rather more of a slam dunk, I think. I vaguely recall a closely related study, where freshman were randomly assigned to courses at the Air Force Academy, some of which allowed taking course notes on laptops. Students who used laptops to take notes did worse, but also students who didn't use laptops to take notes, but were in a class that allowed it, also had worse than expected grades on a common final than students in classes that banned laptops. I believe the mechanism cited was non-laptop users being distracted by laptop students browsing cool websites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its been clearly shown that people remember information better when they read it in a book vs on a screen. Its been clearly shown that people retain information better when they write it down vs. type.
Yes, its a huge problem.

Can you share the research on this. I’m curious. (I think the same is true for writing notes vs typing… here too I’m not sure of research.)

Small sample size, but: "Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds" : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less-kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation

' the performance was largely similar, except when it came to the timing of events in the story. "The Kindle readers performed significantly worse on the plot reconstruction measure, ie, when they were asked to place 14 events in the correct order."

The researchers suggest that "the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print pocket book does".'

Higher cognitive load found in this one, but it's quite old: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563204000202

Note that these are both dealing with eReaders. Not reading on a laptop is a different issue. And rather more of a slam dunk, I think. I vaguely recall a closely related study, where freshman were randomly assigned to courses at the Air Force Academy, some of which allowed taking course notes on laptops. Students who used laptops to take notes did worse, but also students who didn't use laptops to take notes, but were in a class that allowed it, also had worse than expected grades on a common final than students in classes that banned laptops. I believe the mechanism cited was non-laptop users being distracted by laptop students browsing cool websites.

Posted, and dug a bit more. "Reading from paper compared to screens: A systematic review and meta-analysis" https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9817.12269

"Results

Based on random effects models, reading from screens had a negative effect on reading performance relative to paper (g = −.25). Based on moderator analyses, this may have been limited to expository texts (g = −.32) as there was no difference with narrative texts (g = −.04). The findings were similar when analysing literal and inferential reading performance separately (g = −.33 and g = −.26, respectively). No reliable differences were found for reading time (g = .08). Readers had better calibrated (more accurate) judgement of their performance from paper compared to screens (g = .20).
Conclusions

Readers may be more efficient and aware of their performance when reading from paper compared to screens."