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How Would You Select a Textbook?

Posted by Cliff on from the select-the-lessons dept.

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?"

2 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    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...

  2. Re:Use other peoples Ideas by graphicsguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bah! The parent is NOT insightful. If the professor wrote a book about the subject they are teaching, it would be absurd to use a different book. In fact, such books are generally developed from the course notes that the professor developed for teaching that very course.

    So what does this mean? Sure, YOU might not agree that the book is the best one, but it is clearly the one the professor feels is best. That doesn't have to be about money at all. (it's more about tenure...)