Wise lessons for developing, choosing and using teaching materials in compulsory education

How do you choose a teaching method as a teacher, specialist group or school team? What do you take into account when developing a learning resource? How do you use the textbook in a thoughtful way in your classroom practice? There is little research available and there are hardly any tools to make a statement about the quality of educational resources in Flanders and the Netherlands. Choices are often made on the basis of loose opinions and experiences or sometimes, even, on how attractive the learning tool has been designed. The educational resources debate is also raging in full force. In that debate, the current teaching resources are put forward by some as one of the main causes of the declining quality of education.

In order to make a research-based contribution to these and other questions, the Expertise Center for Effective Learning at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences has been running the project Wise lessons for the development, selection and use of learning resources in compulsory education over the past few months, commissioned by the Flemish Government. . This research project was carried out in the context of the R&D call Essential characteristics of quality teaching resources in Flemish education: identification and practice-oriented translation .

Three products have been developed that provide the necessary framework to optimally use the quality framework:

• quality frame,
• manual,
• quality cards,

The quality framework is the core. It contains 14 criteria that assess effective didactic components that can be built into learning resources. For each criterion, it is indicated why this criterion is important to include in a learning resource. In addition, a number of examples are briefly given of how you can recognize this criterion in a learning resource and how you can get started with it in classroom practice.

The framework is accompanied by a manual . The manual provides the necessary information to be able to use the quality framework in a well-considered manner. It is useful to read the introduction to this manual beforehand. It defines the focus of the quality framework, clarifies a number of important assumptions (including the crucial role of the teacher in the use of a learning resource) and discusses the use of the framework. In addition, the manual contains extra clarification for each criterion, concrete examples and practical tips for classroom practice that you can use in a modular way.

The criteria of the quality framework are made available in a very practically usable way through quality cards . Each quality card contains one criterion. The quality cards allow the users of the framework to compare the framework with the learning resources in an easily accessible way.

Various initiatives were set up throughout the project to optimize the practical relevance and user-friendliness of the framework. Draft versions were intensively discussed with the project steering group and with a core group specially composed for the project, consisting of teachers, pedagogical supervisors, teacher trainers, representatives of the educational publishers and other developers of learning resources. Also mr. Luc De Man, chairman of the working group that prepared the establishment of a Quality Alliance for educational resources, was an active part of this core group. In this way coordination between the two projects was monitored. An overview of how the current project and the Quality Alliance relate to each other can be found at the bottom of this project page.

Finally, a brief literature study was carried out within this project in collaboration with KU Leuven, with the aim of gaining insight into the scientific evidence available on how principles and techniques for optimally supporting effective and efficient learning are best applied in learning resources.