ed298-ak@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache) (06/05/87)
In article <3900004@nucsrl.UUCP> berggeo@nucsrl.UUCP (George "Backup" Berg) writes: > Another things that I found noteworthy about this curriculum >proposal was that it took a different approach to books. The curriculum was >viewed as levels. Each level consisted of 3-4 classes. After taking those >classes, the student moved on to the next level. Here is where the difference >comes in - students aren't to by a separate book for each class, but rather a >few books which will be used, to a greater or lesser extent, by all of the >classes at that level. This way the students will (it is claimed) view books >not as use-once-and-sell items, but rather as a professional library - a >resource to use throughout one's professional lifetime (or until the next >paradigm change :-) ). > This is an interesting point but it seems to me that there ought to better ways to get students to keep their textbooks. One big step in that direction would be to design textbooks for easy reference (plenty of summaries, "built-in highlighting" of important points, good indexs, etc). Two other unmentioned advantages are economy (many students don't keep textbooks because they simply cannot afford it!), and knowledge ecomony (less books means less places to search for a particular fact). I have two reservations: First, having a few books we require almost yearly updates to keep up with the pace of the field, and most books just don't take frequent revision well. Second, reducing the number of textbooks will make it more difficult for new writers to break into the textbook field. That hurts both up and coming faculty who need opportunities to demonstrate teaching skills, and it hurts students who will have less choice in reading material. Most educators gloss over individual differences, but those differences are very real, and we may be denying a whole class of students who simply don't function well with our current "fashion" in textbooks. Both objections could be overcome if classes permited the use of more than one textbooks. That way faculty to could write textbooks for a given course in "their own way", and students could then choose the text that suits their learning style. For such a scheme to work some standard format for textbooks of each given course would have to be developed, but authors would still be free to use their own style of presentation. It isn't perfect, but it might well be better than what we have now. Edouard Lagache School of Education U.C. Berkeley lagache@violet.berkeley.edu