‘Textbook of the Year 2016’ Award Ceremony Surprises at the Leipzig Book Fair
On March 18, winners of the ‘Textbook of the Year 2016’ were announced at the Leipzig Book Fair. The expert jury of representatives from academia, teaching and publishing presented awards to textbooks for the upper secondary level: ‘philo’ is the textbook of the year 2016 in the category ‘History and Society’. ‘Green Line Oberstufe’ took the prize in the ‘Languages’ category. The jury elected not to present an award in the ‘STEM’ category, but decided to create a special prize for digital educational media, which went to ‘mBook’.
This is the fifth year that the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research has presented an award for best textbooks. A new partner in the endeavour is the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb). In the words of Thomas Krüger, president of the bpb, ‘Through this cooperation on the textbook award, the bpb hopes to highlight the importance of good textbooks and good lessons in empowering young people to think critically, form well-grounded opinions, and engage themselves politically and socially’.
‘We have outstanding textbooks this year in the categories “History and Society” and “Languages”. Through their innovative concepts, all award-winners exemplify the enormous value educational media can offer for teaching and learning in all areas of life. However, the jury could not award a prize in the “STEM” category this year. In our view, the few works submitted did not present new enough approaches’, according to Eckhardt Fuchs, director of the Georg Eckert Institute and chairman of the jury.
Patron of the ‘Textbook of the Year’ award is the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs. Brunhild Kurth, vice president of the Standing Conference and State Minister of Culture in Saxony added, ‘The nominated titles are an impressive demonstration of how ambitious textbooks in the areas of foreign languages and humanities can look at the secondary level. But the special strength of the winning books is that they do even more: they encourage creative, problem-oriented, cross-disciplinary thinking’.
Impulses for independent thought, a differentiated approach to developing competencies, and diverse, exciting material – the winners have it all. The jury’s selection criteria included the didactic concept, relationship to the subject, orientation towards the students, nature of the assignments, clarity, and design.
- Photos available upon request.
- For further information, please visit: http://www.schulbuch-des-jahres.de/
Winner in the category ‘Languages’
Green Line
Upper level
Basic and advanced course
North Rhine-Westphalia, Klett Verlag, 2015
Authors: Ellen Butzko, Louise Carleton-Gertsch, Paul Dennis, Krista Eichler, Cornelia Kaminski, Nilgül Karabulut, Hartmut Klose, Silke Krieger, Gerda Piotrowiak, Michael Rogge, Thomas Tepe
Green Line impressed the jury with its range of materials and broad spectrum of texts on current topics such as globalisation, migration and diversity, science and utopia. With a nuanced approach to developing different competencies, Green Line supports all learners and, through exciting topics and exercises, spurs students on to high achievement.
Winner in the category ‘History and Society’
philo
Introductory course
North Rhine-Westphalia, C.C. Buchner, 2014
Editors: Bernd Rold, Jörg Peters
Authors: Klaus Draken, Matthias Gillessen, Martina Peters
philo explores classic philosophical questions using current controversies, for example the NSA surveillance scandal or tax evasion. With visual impulses and exciting juxtapositions of classic and modern texts, philo succeeds in its student-oriented approach and presents philosophy as a modern intellectual subject.
Special prize for digital educational media
mBook
The Long 19th Century
Editors: Waltraud Schreiber, Florian Sochatzy, Marcus Ventzke
Authors: Marcus Raasch, Lukas Kneser, Stefan Sipl, Carlo Lejeune
mBook opens the history classroom to the digital world and takes a new strategy towards historical learning: in short videos, the authors describe their approaches and thereby show students the centrality of individual perspectives in writing history. The selection of material also includes contributions from the internet, drawing connections to contemporary debates.
The Georg Eckert Institute would like to congratulate all of the award winners.
Contacts
Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research
Catrin Schoneville
Tel.: +49 (0)531 / 59099 -504
Mobile: 0151 / 62842664
Email: schoneville@leibniz-gei.de
www.gei.de
Federal Agency for Civic Education
Daniel Kraft
Tel: +49 (0)228 / 99515-200
Email: presse@bpb.de
www.bpb.de
