Abstract:

Focusing on opportunities to learn (OTL) in textbooks is an important perspective for further promoting textbook supported teaching. Overall, OTL in textbooks have important value in reconstructing the fairness of learning starting points, reconstructing the dimensionality of learning relationships, and reconstructing the mechanisms of learning occurrence. Understanding the connotation of OTL in textbooks can be deeply analyzed from ontology, methodology and axiology, and their types can be classified based on their forms of existence, cognitive processes, and modes of participation. OTL contained in textbooks can be specifically characterized through three channels: symbols, structures and strategies. Analysis can be conducted around the dimensions of content coverage, content exposure, content emphasis, cognitive advancement, learning support and inclusiveness. Looking to the future, enriching OTL in textbooks requires further promoting the differentiation of limited opportunities, systematization of multi-level opportunities, interactivity of one-way opportunities, personalization of universal opportunities, and immediacy of preset opportunities. This will drive textbooks to shift from a “content based” to a “learning based” approach, and build an open learning system that can support students in transitioning from “knowledge acceptance” to “literacy generation”.

Key words: textbook, opportunities to learn, limited opportunities, pre-arranged opportunities