Xref: utzoo sci.math:5070 sci.physics:5107 comp.edu:1521
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!gatech!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!wucs1!wuibc!gmat
From: gmat@wuibc.UUCP (Gregory Martin Amaya Tormo)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,comp.edu
Subject: Re: How to beat the high cost of text books!
Message-ID: <347@wuibc.UUCP>
Date: 9 Dec 88 17:51:31 GMT
References: <1124@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <1809@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <1053@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: dwd0238%wucec3@wucec3.wustl.edu (David Deitch)
Organization: Washington University in St. Louis
Lines: 81

>For one thing, it is not necessary to follow the order of the material in the
>textbook.  I may want to use some of the material in chapter 6 before some of
>the material in chapter 2.  Or I may feel that a digression, explaining some
>of the concepts in more detail, is justified.

	So why can you not tell the students this?  Assuming you have
planned your path around the textbook in advance, and are not making it up
as you go along, a simple syllibus would tell students what to read in
advance, or even just announce it a few weeks in advance.  Your students
will be with you as you talk, and will probably get more out of it, than if
they are hearing it for the first time.

>Also, there are parts of the book which are irrelevant and are being omitted.
>But the worst situations, which I attempt to warn the students about well in
>advance, are those where the book is just plain misleading.  Books in
>mathematics and statistics are particularly bad in presenting algorithms or
>special cases in such a way as to make the concepts very difficult to
>understand later.  The student who believes that integral is antiderivative
>must disabuse himself of this in order to understand the 4500+ year old
>notion.  Computing the amount of a bill is a much better example.  A concept
>may involve the use of formulas, but it is not the manipulative procedure.
>I expect the student to read the book in advance of class, and most of them
>do not.  But in most courses, the warnings about the misleading nature of the
>book are necessary.

So make them.  If the book is too loaded with them, why use it?

>I also do not read the textbook in class.  I expect the students to read the
>relevant parts, and they do not like this.  Also, do not tell me to write a
>book.  I know what is involved in writing a textbook, but few of the textbook
>authors seem to do anything but copy bad books.

I do not like a prof who teaches right out of the book.   If you take the
time to make your own teaching notes, you are doing the student the service
of presenting the material in a way YOU understand it.  However, I do
expect my profs to follow what is in the book within reason.  Nothing is
more confusing when I read one explanation for something in the text, and
then have the prof say something completely different.  You are imparting a
lot of information in a very short time, and clarity is very important to
ensure all students have a chance to learn.  remember, college is not
survival of the fittest.  Each student pays tuition to learn, not to be
weeded out from those to who the subject comes naturally.

>  The students are accustomed to having only the
>regurgitation of memorized formulas, and routine manipulation.
>

This is so stereotypical it makes me sick.  Thats right.  All students are
the same, in college only for the grade and the GPA that will get him a
good job so he can make more than the prof.  It sounds to me like no one
has any respect for the students!

Let me give you some textbook examples.  A CE law and society class and we
were told to buy a 1000+ page book of law cases.  We went though less than
200 pages and the prof ended up DISAGREEING with the decisions made by the
respective supreme courts in many of the cases.  I paid $49.95 for that
book; that comes out to $.25 per page used.  In a "devices" class, we had a
book on developing assembly programs for 68000 computers.  The prof
mentioned the book once: "This is the text for the course."  He then
proceeded to teach the course from his HEAD (no notes), and never
referenced the book once.  I stopped trying to read the text, because it
had nothing to do with what the prof whas teaching.  That one cost $30.  On
the flip side, I had two courses this semester without textbooks.  In one,
I could not find any continuity in the weekly projects.  There was no
sylibus, or anything - only the prof's lectures.  In the second course, we
were bombarded with xerox copies, some that were of poor quality and
unreadable.  It is hard to organize your approach to a course as a student
this way when everything is so disjointed.  The problem on the surface is
the high cost of texts, but the real problem is how they are used.  In
closing, I just spoke to a friend who paid $70 for a text.  However, he
said it was worth every penny for the help it gave him, and for how the
prof integrated it into the course.  We are not professional students.
Profs have a responsibility to teach the material in a way that all
students can learn, not just those who learn the best.


		David Deitch, Computer Connection
		dwd0238%wucec3@wucec3.wustl.edu
		Fido 1:100/22

		( Please mail to me, do not reply )