She may use a plane, chisel, saw, sander, or any number of tools to create the masterpiece she wishes to build. A great classroom program, just like a great piece of furniture, needs many tools in its construction. Supplement teacher information in the textbook with teacher resource books; attendance at local, regional, or national conferences; articles in professional periodicals; and conversations with experienced teachers.
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. TeacherVision Staff. Should you teach from a textbook? Or rely on other resources? Find the answer here One of the most common resources in the classroom is the textbook; learn the advantages and disadvantages of this tool plus ways to integrate other resources into your teaching. New teachers will find this resource particularly valuable. Includes suggestions such as using the textbook as a guide for students, supplementing the textbook with outside readings, and more.
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Textbooks: Advantages and Disadvantages As you visit classrooms, you probably notice that most, if not all, of those classrooms use a standard textbook series. Jabberwocky A textbook is a collection of the knowledge, concepts, and principles of a selected topic or course.
Fire Alarm Some textbooks may fail to arouse student interest. Expert Opinion Remember, no textbook is perfect, and no textbook is complete. Excerpted from. Over time, this situation leads to a chronic lack of proper sleep which leads to serious health issues. Chronic lack of sleep increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes, as well as cancer.
For most people, digital books are hard to remember. One study divided participants into two groups. One group read printed text, the other group read on a device. The two groups read the same text. When they were asked to put the events in chronological order, the e-book group fared worse.
The implication is that students who study from textbooks will learn better than those who study from digital devices. Many students, and people in general, choose paper books instead of e-readers because printed text is not so hard on the eyes. Reading a back-lit screen is tiring for the eyes and can strain them. Learning content designed for memorization and recitation under the watchful eye of a monitor gave way to a more evolved, object teaching design which was endorsed by the school and teacher reforms advocated in the Common School movement.
An early example of this object teaching approach to learning content can be found in Warren Colburn's book first published in , First Lessons in Arithmetic on the Plan of Pestalozzi.
In this textbook, the idea was that the student already possessed an understanding of quantity through experience, so what was needed was a series of questions that would help him or her unlock the understanding of that experience.
This shift in the approach to learning was reinforced by the teacher training movement driven through the Common School movement. In particular, teacher training expanded rapidly through the establishment of normal schools and a preferred method of instruction taught at these schools was object teaching. This was further reinforced by the commercialization of the textbook industry that looked to take advantage of a demand for learning materials spurred by school reform efforts.
In the K market, at least, this has become the relationship and traditional cycle of evolution with regards to learning content. National or regional school or educational reform efforts emerge and these are necessarily embraced by teacher training institutions in order to ensure that future teachers are relevant and current in their methods.
In order to support new reforms, and to enhance their chances for adoption, the textbook industry embeds the new or evolved pedagogy into its books. In this way, the government, educational institutions, and the textbook industry have worked together independently to make textbooks an integral component of K learning.
With the passing of each decade, textbooks and their ancillary materials have become more deeply embedded as a core component of the education solution that can no more be left out of the equation than the teachers themselves. In higher education, textbooks have also become integrated into actual instructional and learning design of departments and institutions, but the path leading to that integration is different than the one we have described in public school education. In the university sector, the reform analogous to the Common School movement occurred through the changes introduced into higher education by Harvard University's president Charles Eliot Among Eliot's principle reforms were the professionalization of the professoriate and the standardization and legitimization of professional degrees for doctors, lawyers, and other learned professions.
One result of this reform was a natural tension between the notion of the university as a utilitarian enterprise designed to support the economic growth of the U. The resolution of this tension over the ensuing century has been the general education or core curriculum, the course set all university graduates must take regardless of their degree choice.
And, while the required courses vary from institution to institution, the general education requirement has become a mainstay of higher education in the U. If general education requirements drove enrollment for a common set of specific courses, the GI Bill provided the foundation for an explosion of enrollment in higher education from This broad enrollment increase went hand in hand with a growth in professional degrees and the overall course catalog for universities and colleges.
These two factors, the general education curriculum and the enrollment and program increases precipitated by the GI Bill, led to the parallel growth of the textbook publishing industry for higher education. In particular, the swelling ranks of university students meant that textbooks targeting the general education courses now had impressive markets in which to sell.
Of course, the increase in course sections taught in the general education level also led to a rise in inexperienced faculty and teaching assistants.
As a result, throughout the 60's, 70's, and 80's, textbook companies added layers of instructional support and guidance to address the training gap and to make their products more attractive to adopters instructors and institutions. In the end, just as Webster and Pestalozzi had attempted to introduce instructional quality into schools by mixing pedagogy with content, higher education textbook publishers and authors began integrating their products more deeply into institutional planning and outcomes.
Of course, if you really want to understand the textbook business, you need to have a good understanding of how textbooks are actually created. In fact, this is one of the areas in which we see significant divergence between the trade publishing industry and educational publishing.
I'll start with an overview of higher education textbooks, and then discuss the salient differences between these and the products created for the K market. Naturally, it all begins with an author or a group of authors who can write the content for the textbook.
Unlike in trade publishing, where authors submit manuscripts to agents who, in turn, pitch projects to publishers, textbook authors are generally discovered, courted, and cultivated based on a variety of factors. In general, textbook authors are selected based on their academic pedigree, their current position and ability to influence large adoptions program coordinators at large universities, for example , general standing in the teaching community, and their writing history.
Particularly in higher education, lead authors are viewed as important brands in their own right, and publishers will attempt to generate a small list of titles related to these brands in order to maximize their investment and to lock in the author's commitment to the publisher.
Potential authors are often cultivated by hiring them first for non-royalty projects such as writing quiz banks or other ancillary materials.
Those who prove reliable, who are good writers and have other attractive qualities, are then encouraged to submit a textbook proposal. Once a proposal is received from an individual author, the editorial team will generally brainstorm about what other authors they might add to the team.
The purpose of this is to extend the potential adoption reach two authors, each from sizable institutions in different parts of the U. Once the author team is formalized and a basic proposal has been put together, contracts are written and the real work begins. In competitive signings, those where multiple publishers are vying for the same author and project, the royalty may go higher.
This royalty is the total amount carved off from the net sales of the book and distributed among the author or authors. In some instances, an author may receive a grant, or one-time stipend, as a reward for signing with the publisher.
This amount is usually modest, however, as the goal of the publisher is to "borrow" as much labor as possible from the author s during the creation process without having to pay for it until after the product is published and sold. Now that the authors are signed, the next step is to create a complete textbook project proposal and a sample chapter. This will allow the Acquisitions Editor—the editor responsible for signing new projects and assisting with their development—to create a more accurate budget, and will also allow the Developmental Editor and the Marketing Manager to create a sample that can be reviewed and tested by actual instructors and students.
Keep in mind that at this stage, even though the textbook project has been signed, it has not received full budget approval. This approval won't come until the editorial and marketing teams have completed a thorough competitive analysis, conducted a market survey using the sample chapter, and collected anecdotal comments from pilot users. The presentation will also include projected unit sales based on market research. In other words, the project will be approved for funding or rejected.
If the project is funded, the authors will gather with the editorial staff for planning sessions and the timeline for the project will be finalized. As a rough rule of thumb, from signing to actual delivery of the product to bookstore shelves or e-book sites, the project will take between years to complete. This length of time is determined by the writing schedule, the number of marketing reviews required, the number of pilots, and the complexity of any associated technology.
Remember that, depending on the particular textbook project, there may be ancillary packages, a video script, and other technology components that have to be authored and produced in addition to the textbook. During the actual writing and creation process, the author s will work closely with the Developmental Editor and the Assistant Editor for the discipline group.
As the project moves through its various phases, authors will participate in evaluating feedback from focus groups, hosting pre-launch marketing presentations at discipline conferences, and provide feedback on design and layout for the project.
Final manuscripts are sent out to Copy Editors, the completed textbook and art manuscripts are handed off the publisher's production team, and, eventually, everything is given over to the compositor to create the final, press-ready book files. At the end of the process, after years of labor and waiting, a new textbook is launched into the market. By the time it is actually published, multiple writers, editors, production specialists, technology experts, and marketing specialists have contributed to the project.
In addition, the product has been reviewed by numerous faculty members and has been used in significant pilots in order to test its usefulness. Of course, knowing what goes into a textbook is only one piece in understanding the industry.
You also have to understand how the textbook itself fits within the overall business models for publishers. Large publishers break down their content holdings, and company structures, by discipline area, discipline, and course.
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