Textbook
I have been using a particular text book for quite some time. Despite being a relatively complete book, I feel it is not very friendly for the particular course I'm teaching. Are there any particular suggestions or guidelines that I can generally follow before I adopt a new textbook? I fear that I may not have time between the end and beginning of each course to review the entire material, nor would I like to compromise the school I work for. What should I do?
Hi Carlos,
Changing textbooks seems to always be hard for instructors since we get comfortable with the current one even though we may not be totally satisfied with it. In selecting a new text you can try and look at the possible options through the eyes of your students. In doing so you can ask yourself some questions.
Does the text have cover appeal?
Are the chapters sequential and carefully laid out?
Is the content in easy to understand format.
Are the adequate examples given?
Does the text fit my instructional style?
Is the reading level consistent with my students' abilities?
Would I want to use this text if I were a student?
Something I have done in several cases was to have graduates of my program review several texts and make recommendations to me.
Hope these suggestions will help you in selecting your next text.
Gary
Carlos,
My department teaches IT courses, which means textbooks are a constant problem. A new version of software comes out, but no books for months. And when it does come out, its completely different than the last book even though the lesson plan does not need to change all that much. Also the quality of the books are very inconsistent and not necessarily designed for classroom use.
So what we do is develop our course outline with very little reference to a textbook initially. We decide what we need to teach to cover the topic appropriately for our students. Then we "map" the course outline to the best available book. This way if we change textbooks because a better / new one becomes available all we have to do is update the "map". The map is usually provided to the students as part of the syllabus or support materials.
Not sure if that would work in your school, but maybe it will stir some ideas.
Jeff
This depends of the book your using. IT text books change constantly. In some cases when a new version of the book comes out, chapter 4 becomes chapter 13 and vise versa. Students seem to have a problem when you jump chapters and then go back to them. New concepts in courses must be researched as top priority. The topics that you are familiar with can be adjusted in your class notes.
