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?"

Use other peoples Ideas

[neomage86]

Look at what other respected professors use (at other universities) and evaluate those options. They have massive resources at their disposal, so they should have made a good choice. You can then choose what best suits your particular teaching style.

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[keeleysam]

As /. reminded me, textbooks don't work very well in computer programmming classes. By the time you purchase them, they will be outdated, so I find that worksheets or packets work much better, and I can fit them to what I want to teach, not what someone else wants to.

Use a reference instead

[crmartin]

Have them buy an approrpaite reference, like an O'Reilly book, and use that. Then make notes that replicate what you would have done if you were teaching one person, use overheads from that.

Write your own

[Sandman1971]

Write your own and sell that. It's what 75% of my college teachers did. That way, you can also keep it up to date as time goes on, and you only include the stuff you want to teach.

Re:How would I select a textbook:

[Ithika]

Perhaps because most browsers don't support languages like Smalltalk (!) and Tcl (!)?

Re:Use other peoples Ideas

[RhettD]

"Look at what other respected professors use (at other universities) and evaluate those options. They have massive resources at their disposal, so they should have made a good choice. You can then choose what best suits your particular teaching style." I'd be careful about this, while sometimes this is the case, other times the selection of a textbook for a course is more of a political matter. Textbooks are big business at the university level.

As a current student

[krs-one]

I can attest to how expensive computer science textbooks are (along with just about every other science). It irks me to no end when a teacher makes me (or rather, highly recommends) me to buy a $90 Java book where I could go pick up a $25 Java book from B&N or Half Priced Books that would teach me the same thing. Or, when a teacher (this is especially true in math) recommends to buy the latest edition of a textbook (and Calculus books are not cheap) when the previous edition can be purchased for $10. First and second year calc hasn't changed in 6 years! (End Rant) So thats what I recommend, go to the local big bookstore (B&N, Borders, etc..) and see what regular programming books they have on JavaScript (I dunno, something by O'Reilly might work, I haven't touched a JS book in years). One that is pretty up to date with DOM and newer JS features shouldn't be hard to find. Recommend that one to your students.

Sure, it may not be WebCT compatable (but WebCT sucks anyway), but you're students will thank you for letting them purchase a much cheaper book.

-Vic

Is it just me?

[Anonymous Cumshot]

Or is academia the only thing keeping Java alive? It really seems as if contemporary CS programs are there in large part to promote the continued use of Java.
</conspiracy>

Why is Java so popular in academia but not so popular everywhere else? It would make more sense for instructors to teach something like python instead (since it is arguably both easier to learn and quicker to write).

Is it not time for Java to be deprecated in favor of something that's superior?

Re:Use other peoples Ideas

[bbc]

"Look at what other respected professors use (at other universities) and evaluate those options."

It is not uncommon for "respected" professors to push the books they themselves wrote onto unsuspecting students. It's a handy way to supplement their income.

Re:Use other peoples Ideas

[graphicsguy]

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...)

Re:Is it just me?

[HeghmoH]

My (limited) experience is that it's rather the opposite. That is, Java, like C++ before it, is taught because it's what everybody think industry uses, and they feel that they should teach the same.

Of course, teaching to what industry uses is completely missing the point in a CS program. Languages are easy to learn, what they should be teaching is something that is best suited to learning the underlying concepts, which Java most certainly is not.

This may be stating the obvious, but...

[ArmchairGenius]

If you have the time, I would try to read as many as possible and then simply select the one you think is the best.
This will also benefit you in that it may give you ideas for your class, and conversely, if you know what your general curriculum will be already then you can simply see what book matches best with that.

Re:Is it just me?

[graphicsguy]

I teach a Data Structures course using Java. As you say, languages are easy to learn (well, not really so easy for many students new to programming). The fact is, there are lots of languages, including Java, that are perfectly acceptable for teaching a Data Structures class. One of the reasons we use C++ or Java in our introductory-level classes is because these are the languages the students are expected to know in a large percentage of our more advanced classes. So it provides a convenient base.

Re:How would I select a textbook:

[Anonymous Coward]

1) You include Python and TCL in your list, which are no more "serious" than JavaScript.

2) Why isn't Javascript a "serious" language? Are you familiar with how it works? It's a very sophisticated, dynamic, prototype-based language. I've seen people add Ruby-like blocks to it, for instance.

In fact it's kind of surprising how powerful it is, considering what most people use it for. Some with PostScript.. when I first realized how capable PS was, I was amazed! More powerful than the languages I was using, and stuck in a damn *printer*!!!

Check list

[mefus]

• Did I write it?
• Did the guy on my approval committee write it?
• Are minor changes required, ensuring the book will be useless for next year's students when the new edition comes out?
• Will the campus bookstore offer payola?
• Is the publisher considering my book for publication?
• Is the book essentially a coffee table picture book costing $100?
• Do I plan on using a page or two from the book?
• Does it have very little content per page?
• Does it teach to the dumbest person in class?

Re:O'Reilly! What else?

[Deraj DeZine]

For the class the poster is teaching, that makes sense. In general, however, the O'Reilly books are very specific (how to use this one piece of software) and are either reference books or very introductory material. It's not a big deal for the majority of classes, I'm sure, but the O'Reilly books teach programming as a tool instead of a science.

It depends on the students and intent

[xanthan]

If the purpose of the course is to give immediate knowledge that they can take to a job and say "See, I know JavaScript!" then stick to books that you can find at the local bookstore (e.g., the "Teach Yourself in 21 Days" variety). There is nothing wrong with them for what you need to do with the content and what your students expect.

If the intent is to use JavaScript as a kind of stepping stone class to other higher level content or to really get into the depths of JavaScript (it is, after all, a full blown programming language that is quite capable), using a series of articles from web sites would serve you well for getting them bootstrapped and functional, but a more traditional text that teaches functional programming will make them more productive in the long run.

Whatever you choose, be sure you take a careful evaluation of the content and be sure to match it up with your course outline. Use the content of the book to reinforce or provide additional reference material for the lectures. (Please don't just lecture the contents of the book!)

Finally, keep project ideas in mind. You'll need a few simple project ideas that reinforce a particular chapter/lesson from week to week. Plan for a "big" 2-3 week project at the end of the course that brings all of their skills together and can serve as a reference project on their resume.

Best of luck.

Choosing textbooks

[howard_coward]

I've been teaching at the college level for many years. Recently it has become true that ...
1. Textbooks are all the same.
2. They are outrageously expensive.

You lean like bandits on the megapublishers to lower prices, or...
You write up your own notes.

Re:Use other peoples Ideas

[MagicDude]

Using the book the professor wrote himself is probably the best in terms of learning material. Any material in the book is obviously material that the guy considers important, and anything not in the book is not going to be part of the course. I can recall many times when we were using some random textbook in a course, and a chapter will cover some material that the prof doesn't consider important, so you end up skipping it. Then there'll be some other topic that the prof does consider important but isn't in the textbook, so you end up getting pages and pages of handouts with badly drawn diagrams from the professor to cover this topic. Using a prof's book is really preferential to having to deal with the conflicting styles of your teacher and the author of the book you're using.

Re:Use other peoples Ideas

[Black Acid]

Agreed--take any books a professor wrote himself is using with a grain of salt. Not necessarily for the reason you listed, but often the professor writes a book and only uses it because he wrote it--in choosing a textbook, he's biased. Worse yet, he or she may be able to persuade the whole department to use it for every section of that class at the university.

its the publishers.....

[eufaula]

from the reactions of my colleagues (i teach full-time these days at a community college, and echo the feeling) we HATE to have to switch books in most instances. dont blame us -- the textbook industry is pushing for the adoption of new books every year or 2. why? think about it. about the only time that a new text is profitable for the publisher is in its first year -- after that, its resold over and over and over again. the bookstores are just as bad -- being in education, i see the costs on these books (to the college) and then see what they sell for. the markup, on average (at our college anyway) is about 35%. i _always_ tell my students to check out the web for copies before plunking down their cash with our bookstore (which like most keep raising prices).

it really sucks for everyone involved (except the publisher). we, as faculty, have to constantly look for new material (when in most cases there is nothing wrong with the current text) and adjust our courses for these changes. the bookstores are stuck with copies of books that the publisher wont take back because there is a new version out, and the students -- they get the worst end -- most new textbooks _FLAT_OUT_SUCK_. they are written so quickly that they are full of errors and light on insightful explnations. they read more like poorly-written dictionaries with _no_resale value. the books, are in my opinion, supposted to aid in the course, not be the course. these days, a lot of them make better doorstops than course aids.

do what i did for the UNIX class i teach -- write your own materials. we charged the students $5 for the packets (which i will GDL as soon as i clean them up)

Ex-Instructor weighing in

[wawannem]

I worked for a couple of years at a small university [unoh.edu] and being new to teaching, but somewhat of a versed IT pro, I decided to be very idealistic about picking textbooks. I think it is *very* important to read what you are choosing to teach from before you decide. Don't just assume that the book from the last time the course was taught will be *good enough*!!

That being said, there is another important factor when choosing books. Make sure there are adequate exercises/test questions to go along with a book. I decided to teach a course on a programming language not necessarily popular with most academics (Perl), and I evaluated the few textbooks available. I felt that none were adequate and decided to teach out of one of my favorite books. It was the worst teaching experience I had. It is nearly impossible to create unambiguous questions for tests and creating exercises that are challenging while still short enough to be small assignments is another task I was not prepared to handle. Students need to learn one concept at a time and they need to do a few exercises to get the hang of each new concept. If you throw all the information at them and expect them to accomplish one large task, then many otherwise bright students will be overwhelmed and will not perform as well as they would like. Then, when the time comes, they will let you know using the all-powerful course evaluation that they were not happy with the course. Many people (especially students) do not realize how much goes into creating a textbook. If it were really a great scam to take money from students, then textbook authors and publishers would be huge, rich companies. Quite a bit of time is spent on the exercises and teaching resources involved in the book. In my estimation, I would say that more time is spent in the external content than is spent on what the student receives.

Re:Ex-Instructor weighing in

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were really a great scam to take money from students, then textbook authors and publishers would be huge, rich companies.

but publishers ARE rich companies...

Selecting a textbook

[HenkLecturer]

When reviewing a textbook, start checking at the end: a book without a *very* extensive index (10 pages at least) had better be used as fuel for a fire.

Above All: follow the standard!

[Frobnicator]

I've trained several interns, and have gone to all three local universities to confront instructors about this problem. I've talked with deans, and even seen one teacher called in and get a repremand for this problem.

Whatever else you do, FOLLOW THE LANGUAGE STANDARD!

If you don't want to follow the language standards, please don't teach langauges that the industry uses. Teach them in languages like SmallTalk, or perhaps lesser-used languages like Scheme and Eiffel.

JavaScript has a standard. It is ECMA-262, or ISO/IEC 16262. It doesn't matter if you choose a book, or web sites, but one thing is critical: Make sure what you teach follows the standards. Since you will also using HTML, follow the HTML 4.1 standard, or XHTML 1.0. Don't use XHTML 1.1 yet, since nearly every server is misconfigured for it. Both standards are available at no cost.

In C, there are too many textbooks that teach things like void main(), encourage the use of scanf and gets, include examples that violate the standard and show undefined behavior, and have generally bad code. If your department teaches C, have your department verify that the books follow the standard. It's available for $18.

In C++, there are too many textbooks that don't follow the C++ standard. They often teach pre-standard C++ or mingle it with standard C++, pretend the language is just C with classes, fail to teach large portions of the language such as templates or the container and algorithm libraries, include examples that violate the standard and show undefined behavior, and have generally bad code. Again, if you teach C++ at the school, make sure your books follow that standard. It's also available for $18.

Doing this will save your students between 6 months to 1 year of correcting your school's bad teaching.

Thank you.

Re:Use other peoples Ideas

[graphicsguy]

The downside of this is, if you have trouble understanding the material in lecture, then the explanation in the book may not be an improvement. This can be a price you pay for the opportunity to learn from a top expert.

Re:Is it just me?

[tod_miller]

This is obviously a troll since the question was about Javascript.

The european commission has recently choosen only to invest in J2EE apps after evaluating .net, CF, et al.

Standard.

If you have heard of a little company called SAP (or whatever they are going-to-have-has-already-will-have-has (reddwarf) be called) then you will know that they have awesome Java desktop solutions.

Oh, and autodesk? Funny thing, they use a lot of Java, and thier architect studio is written in it.

IBM? small company I heard are starting to make big investments into Java and something call lyneux (french?)

So, Java isn't jsut in acedemia, but it is very much under supported in linux dev circles who pref hacking languages (C, python).

Ooooops I just made my own flame post!!! :-) sorry!!!!