Expert staff author textbooks for Queensland students

Students across Queensland are learning from textbooks authored by Stuartholme teachers, Sally Adams in the Business subjects and Jarod Costantini and Ben Hegarty in Humanities.

Business for QCE has two books in the series with Units 1 & 2 covering Creation and Growth and Units 3 & 4 examining Diversification and Growth. Sally has also authored a third book, A+ Series revision and exam preparation book. These books explicitly address the syllabus and unit objectives using the inquiry approach valued in the syllabus, with integration of the underpinning factors throughout. Students develop skills in examining business data and information through a range of analytical tools. To help cement the learning, the books integrate an inquiry approach with case studies. Ben and Jarod’s Humanities and Social Sciences series includes textbooks for Years 7, 8 and 9. When designing and conceiving the series, Ben and Jarod wanted two key foundations of learning at Stuartholme being the inquiry approach to learning, and the Cultures of Thinking pedagogy from Harvard University Project Zero to shape the books. These approaches to learning align with St. Madeleine Sophie Barat’s belief that we must cultivate the wish to learn rather than be taught, and in practice this means promoting questioning and student agency in their learning, rather than allowing students to be passive recipients of knowledge. Activities in these textbooks reflect the kind of learning currently occurring in Stuartholme classrooms, where students are encouraged to collaborate, communicate, and justify their thinking. Students are guided through the inquiry approach to learning through the use of thinking routines. Thinking routines such as Chalk Talk and See-Think-Wonder are designed to enable open-ended discussion of ideas, students’ questions, and issues. These activities value thinking through ideas, engaging with evidence, and considering possibilities, rather than simply finding, or being told absolute answers to questions. The key differentiating features of these textbooks are the inclusion of a diverse range of high-quality sources, open-ended questions and resources tailored to the context of Queensland students.