How Would You Select a Textbook?

benj_e asks: "I'm thinking about doing some adjunct teaching at a couple of local community colleges, and have the opportunity to choose the textbook for an online JavaScript class. In the training classes I've given in the corporate world, I didn't have the need to select a text - there were no textbooks for the software I was teaching students to use aside from the manual. I'm pretty sure I want something with WebCT or Blackboard content, but other than that I'm, well, clueless. So, for all you educators out there - how do you go about selecting a textbook? What goes into your decision making process?"

Comments

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a computer science professor, I feel your pain. But entry-level textbook editions in computer languages tend to change every year (and that's also why they're usually softcover nowadays). That notwithstanding, these books are usually still much better than lecture notes because there's a very large number of people involved in their development -- much more than you'd imagine. This is important because although you and I can get away with lecture notes (hell, I learned C way back by reading a pocket reference), the typical student cannot. Evidence: the typical student does not even know what Slashdot is.

For example, I was recently involved in moving our entry-level CS classes from C++ to Java, and helping the instructors get themselves set up. What to use? As a Java hacker, my gut said: just use lecture notes etc. But wiser heads prevailed. Eventually we went with Lewis and Loftus, which besides being well constructed for its task (teaching elementary computer science in Java) has a massive amount of support materials. We could not possibly match that in quality. Yes, it's $70 on Amazon. You can get it cheaper tho. And it's worth it: we use it for three classes in a row.

What book to use for your JavaScript class? That I can't say, though O'Reilly's book is actually not horrible. But that's my hacker instinct firing off again...

you're the best text book

[b17bmbr]

i teach mod civ and computer programming (ap comp sci) at a high school. i use the textbooks for both classes very little. i find most text books to be horrible and lacking any real content. what i do for mod civ is find much better article, essays, etc., from reputable locations, use source documents, and always supplement with my knowledge of the subject. I use alot of historical texts and sections from them. as for the computer programming, i have found a ton of resources on the internet, but mostly, i explain a concept, then give them work to practice. with the millions of resources available on the internet, it is ahrdly likely a textbook will cover something novel.

and truthfully, if you need a text book, the teach yourself in 21 days series are as good an introdcutory book as you will find. i also like the oreilly series alot too. the best part about the oreilly books is that they are not too expensive, and they will be useful after the class.

Publishers will send evalution copies of textbooks

[kengreenebaum]

I both teach classes on digital media (compression and sound synthesis) and have written textbooks, AudioAnecdotes, AAv2. I know from the inside that publishers will send evaluation copies of textbooks to faculty if requested (and often do so unsolicited).

Examine as many textbooks as you can (they greatly differ in both scope and quality). I strongly suggest selecting a text matches your philosophy, and covers as much of your planned course material as possible. It is best if the text provides more depth than the class so your students might want to retain the book as part of their professional library for future reference.

Feel free to email questions, best of luck. -Ken

O'Reilly! What else?

[techstar25]

Why don't more professors require the O'Reilly books? For most topics, I know we have to purchase some $100 textbook for class, but when we get on the job we end up just buying the O'Reilly reference book. Why not require your students to purchase the O'Reilly book and then just teach selected topics from it? That way they already have the very best reference book to take to work with them. Look at this for instance: Javascript, the Definitive Guide. Now they'll never need another Javascript book. They'll thank you when they get into the workplace.

More advice from a student

[miyako]

Like many of the posters, I'm a student, not a teacher (well, actually I do teach, but not anything applicable to the problem domain).
anyway, here are a list of pet peeves I have with a lot of my text books.

• A lot of text books focus on a particular application (e.g. programming javascript with Dreamweaver and Internet Explorer). Try to avoid these and focus on books that teach the subject in a bit more general terms.
• Look for books that give lots of code examples. Theory is a good thing, but some books that say they are teaching a specific language seem to instead focus on trying to books on programming theory.
• As above, but in reverse. Try to find books that do offer some theory, and don't just focus on having students memorize what a given block of code does.

That aside, whatever text book you pick, remember that all books have flaws, and be willing to deviate from the book when you feel that it doesn't offer up the best approach. I would also recommend NOT using book assignments, they tend to be extremely trivial, uninteresting, and will not get students excited about the project at all.