Jump to content

Menu

FYI College text book pricing


MarkT
 Share

Recommended Posts

Yes, its quite a mess.

 

The state community college system here has developed shells for certain standard courses that use entirely open source materials. But of course some colleges are using them, and some are not.

 

One college is using the Office 2013 textbook that we adopted the summer after it came out, and of course there are features that have already changed that we have to work around. At the other college, they use open source materials for Office 2013 that are constantly updated. Same thing with web design. One school is still using textbooks, and one has a standardized shell that is checked and updated on an ongoing basis. Which would you rather teach from? Which is better for students?

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is disgraceful. Especially in subjects where absolutely none of the material has changed in the last 50 years - like introductory physics.

Unfortunately, the "solution" of open source textbooks still leaves to be desired because of quality. As an instructor, I do not have the time to carefully read several open source texts from different sources to make sure that the text has no errors and is pedagogically sound - I have to rely on some kind of quality control process done in the production of the book.

 

I am currently in the process of writing my own assignments for my entire course so that we no longer have to rely on problems from the book. This will allow my students to use any old edition of the textbook for the assigned reading, or possibly even choose between different texts. It is an incredible amount of work though - but I am so done with the publishers who btw are trying to convince me to use the new 14th edition of the book that is even heavier, has even more colorful distracting illustrations and costs more money. There is no reason an intro physics text needs to weigh 6 lbs and cost over $200.

  • Like 36
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, the "solution" of open source textbooks still leaves to be desired because of quality. As an instructor, I do not have the time to carefully read several open source texts from different sources to make sure that the text has no errors and is pedagogically sound - I have to rely on some kind of quality control process done in the production of the book.

 

Yes, I'd go bonkers if I had to do this on my own, even for the freshman-level courses I teach. I just started teaching an open source course in late September where the shell was prepared by a group of professors, and I'm just adding and customizing. So far I've been very, very pleased with the choices made. It's also designed so that 30-day trials of software will work for the various assignments, or they can buy a one-year student edition for $199 that will get them through this class and the next. So potentially no purchases required, or at least a reasonable purchase for two semesters.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So grateful for my son's university book rental program! For a flat fee of $145 per semester, he rents all of his books. He has to buy consumables and novels. This semester he spent $18.00 on books (novels). We won't talk about the cost of art supplies, though! That's crazy! 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But that only helps if students do not need the books for reference in later semesters.

 

At the point you find you need a book for reference, you go out and buy that particular book. I still think it'd end up cheaper unless you reuse a large percentage of your books for reference.

 

I have certainly bought a few books, over the years, more than once.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But that only helps if students do not need the books for reference in later semesters.

 

My university did this. What they did was every 2-3 editions, they'd change editions (for example, we went from Stewart Calculus 2nd edition to 5th edition) and then sell off the old editions for $1 to $5 a shot (calculus was $5, I remember that because it was one of the highest-priced and I bought it instead of lunch that day).

 

I consider this the best of both worlds and passionately wish that my university now had a similar program.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our college textbooks infuriate me.  We often have custom editions that are updated each year.  Or some online access code that rules out buying used.  I think the one that rankled me the most this year was my $135 text for my management class.  It is LOOSE LEAF, and so poorly edited that it is distracting.  But hey, they have cool graphics in text lingo to introduce a topic  :glare: .

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Unfortunately, the "solution" of open source textbooks still leaves to be desired because of quality. As an instructor, I do not have the time to carefully read several open source texts from different sources to make sure that the text has no errors and is pedagogically sound - I have to rely on some kind of quality control process done in the production of the book.

 

 

Do you think this is just because the Open Source textbooks are new, and in some years, after many eyes have looked them over, they will be OK?  Or is there something fundamental about textbooks that is different than, say, wikipedia.

 

Also, what about problem sets?  Even if an Open Source community could build a good, say, introductory Physics text, wouldn't someone need to come up with new problem sets periodically, otherwise, the answers would be all over the internet.  What percentage of a science text is writing and testing the problem sets?

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you think this is just because the Open Source textbooks are new, and in some years, after many eyes have looked them over, they will be OK?  Or is there something fundamental about textbooks that is different than, say, wikipedia.

 

After many eyes have looked at them, they may end up OK. For all I know, they can be OK now - I just don't have the time to read every little detail of several texts to find out whether it is. That's where an established textbook that has been used by thousands of other professors is reliable.

But textbooks are fundamentally different from wikipedia: not only does the information have to be correct, the approach has to be good pedagogy. the precise sequence in which different concepts are introduced matters. It matters that each example problem and each figure illustrates precisely the concept that it is intended to teach, is stripped of extraneous information, does not anticipate concepts that have not yet been covered. Knowing the physics is one thing; knowing how to teach it is something completely different.

 

 

 

 

Also, what about problem sets?  Even if an Open Source community could build a good, say, introductory Physics text, wouldn't someone need to come up with new problem sets periodically, otherwise, the answers would be all over the internet.  What percentage of a science text is writing and testing the problem sets?

 

Depends. The answers will inevitably end up all over the internet. With any book. Which is why I will keep writing my own.

Because it is a stupid waste of my time to grade homework only to find that they, once again, copied the solutions from the internet.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But that only helps if students do not need the books for reference in later semesters.

 

The professor for the later semester class would put the book on the class book list and it would again be provided as part of the rental program. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The professor for the later semester class would put the book on the class book list and it would again be provided as part of the rental program. 

 

I don't understand that.

I am talking about referring to your calculus texts, diff eq texts, classical mechanics texts at some point when you're neck deep in quantum mechanics and need to look up things. No prof is going to assign the textbooks of all prior classes of the major on the book list.

I have all my undergrad textbooks and have consulted them numerous times throughout college and grad school and afterwards.

 

It is nice to have good rental programs, but it does not change the fundamental problem that textbooks are overpriced. Cheap rentals are a band aid, not a solution - because students may need to actually own books.

 

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't understand that.

I am talking about referring to your calculus texts, diff eq texts, classical mechanics texts at some point when you're neck deep in quantum mechanics and need to look up things. No prof is going to assign the textbooks of all prior classes of the major on the book list.

I have all my undergrad textbooks and have consulted them numerous times throughout college and grad school and afterwards.

 

It is nice to have good rental programs, but it does not change the fundamental problem that textbooks are overpriced. Cheap rentals are a band aid, not a solution - because students may need to actually own books.

 

Yes, I kept some of my math books, and even later on bought a later version of my calculus book because I was tutoring calculus and preferred its explanations. I used my calculus, differential equations, and statistics books periodically for many years.

 

But my computer science books?  I actually had very few undergraduate books because there just weren't many in the early 1980's. We mostly used copied handouts from UC Berkley and Stanford other than one algorithm book that I still own because it is a classic that I referred to a lot in graduate school and afterwards. I sold most of my computer science books in graduate school because the content was changing so fast that they just weren't worth keeping. The only ones I kept were several self-published ones on algorithms that my favorite professor wrote that were later picked up by a major publisher that are considered classics. That part of computer science hasn't changed a lot over the years.

 

My oldest is majoring in accounting, and he's already talking about keeping his accounting book. It was actually listed as optional because it's available online as part of their online course materials, but it's used for two semesters. He likes paper books anyway, so I found it for $50 on Amazon, which was significantly better than the bookstore's $160. It's actually a decent book, so I can see why he wants it.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't understand that.

I am talking about referring to your calculus texts, diff eq texts, classical mechanics texts at some point when you're neck deep in quantum mechanics and need to look up things. No prof is going to assign the textbooks of all prior classes of the major on the book list.

I have all my undergrad textbooks and have consulted them numerous times throughout college and grad school and afterwards.

 

It is nice to have good rental programs, but it does not change the fundamental problem that textbooks are overpriced. Cheap rentals are a band aid, not a solution - because students may need to actually own books.

 

He isn't a STEM major, he won't need all of that. His highest math will be college Algebra. He only has to take two science courses - he's leaning towards astronomy. 

 

The professors at his uni can put as many books on the list as are needed. They are discouraged from changing editions frequently. It is the professors who drive textbook purchases by the bookstore, not the textbook publishers. He has one class that has one non fiction book and two novels assigned (he had to purchase the novels), another class that has one textbook and a reference book (both rentals), one class that has no books but a boatload of consumable art supplies (all purchases) and another class that has no textbook because the university owns a site license to the needed software (Autodesk) and it's accompanying tutorial material. It isn't software that is purchased by individuals, but by universities and employers. He will have free (to him) access to it at the university for as long as he is a student. The university keeps all of the software updated. 

 

Honestly, I can't remember ever referring to any of my college textbooks in later courses. I had a few that spanned two classes (two statistics courses in one book, for example). I saved four books from my senior year, but never opened them again. About five years ago I took them out of my parents attic and gave them to a used book store near our state university.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

He isn't a STEM major, he won't need all of that. His highest math will be college Algebra. He only has to take two science courses - he's leaning towards astronomy. 

 

The professors at his uni can put as many books on the list as are needed. They are discouraged from changing editions frequently. It is the professors who drive textbook purchases by the bookstore, not the textbook publishers. He has one class that has one non fiction book and two novels assigned (he had to purchase the novels), another class that has one textbook and a reference book (both rentals), one class that has no books but a boatload of consumable art supplies (all purchases) and another class that has no textbook because the university owns a site license to the needed software (Autodesk) and it's accompanying tutorial material. It isn't software that is purchased by individuals, but by universities and employers. He will have free (to him) access to it at the university for as long as he is a student. The university keeps all of the software updated. 

 

Honestly, I can't remember ever referring to any of my college textbooks in later courses. I had a few that spanned two classes (two statistics courses in one book, for example). I saved four books from my senior year, but never opened them again. About five years ago I took them out of my parents attic and gave them to a used book store near our state university.  

 

I can see where if you are not a STEM major than having previous books probably isn't a big deal.  But I kept probably close to half of my college books for later reference.  Of those probably 75% have been used again by myself, my husband or my eldest son.  A good Calculus book never goes out of style.  Neither do basic accounting principles, stats etc.  My husband has even found my old computer science books to be helpful because his computer classes didn't discuss fuzzy logic and recursion and found the algorithms useful for his work.  SO yeah I'm glad I kept so many of my books and thankful they weren't nearly as pricey as today's books.  I don't need color math problems, black and white does just fine for me.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Math books can be bought for a fraction of the price just a year later because the problem sets get old. Rent then buy used. So. Much. Cheaper. Even for math.

 

And for computer science, lol. We can't pay people to haul off cause textbooks from long ago.

 

In a hilarious turn of events, the textbooks that were cheapest to begin with--my classics and philosophy books--are now the highest price at any garage sale. VINDICATION!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting thread.  One of my former colleagues (years ago) got fed up working as an Engineer (the instability and the treatment)  and he went to work as an Instructor in a Community College. He had an M.S. in Math at that time. He and another guy wrote a textbook (about Calc?) and he had his students buy his textbook for his class. That should be illegal, IMHO, but I suspect that it is quite common. He later went on to get a Ph.D. in Education   For him, going from Industry to the Academic world was like going from Hell to Heaven, because of the benefits he received.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting thread.  One of my former colleagues (years ago) got fed up working as an Engineer (the instability and the treatment)  and he went to work as an Instructor in a Community College. He had an M.S. in Math at that time. He and another guy wrote a textbook (about Calc?) and he had his students buy his textbook for his class. That should be illegal, IMHO, but I suspect that it is quite common. He later went on to get a Ph.D. in Education   For him, going from Industry to the Academic world was like going from Hell to Heaven, because of the benefits he received.  

 

It is quite rare, actually, because most instructors do not have the huge amount of time it would take to write their own books.

 

I have one colleague who is in the process of writing his own textbook for his special topics class. He was very frustrated that no textbook exists that contains the material he is teaching - the students would have had to buy multiple books and use small portions of each. I do not know how the financial side will look; the students will save a lot of money once this book is available.

The college should definitely have safeguards in place to prevent an instructor from exploiting his position of power over the students, but it should also be possible to allow this so the instructor is compensated for the work (he is writing the book during his unpaid summers, so not on university time). Maybe it would be better if the school gave a grant for this kind of work, but then you also need to specify what happens to the rights to the work - very tricky (does the school own the rights? Can the author sell the book rights to a publisher?)

A general policy seems to be that the instructor donates the portion of his author royalties that comes from his own students purchasing the textbook, but this applies only to authors who have their books published through a major publisher. A small self published author would need to be compensated at least for the printing cost.

It is definitely a tricky situation, but I don't think it should be illegal, because the faculty authored book may be a big advantage for the students.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't see why it would be illegal. If I write a text it's because I not only think that this is the best way to teach the class, but I think that the other textbooks out there are so far away from what I want to do that I cannot make them usable (it really is an immense undertaking).

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is definitely a tricky situation, but I don't think it should be illegal, because the faculty authored book may be a big advantage for the students.

 

My accounting teacher did this in college.  He didn't like what was available so wrote his own.  He printed it in soft cover to keep costs down.  His brand new books were like $30 whereas students with different teachers using different books were paying $100+ for used books.  These were some other books I kept and then eldest DS used here at home.  Keeping old college books has definitely been a good investment for me.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is quite rare, actually, because most instructors do not have the huge amount of time it would take to write their own books.

 

I have one colleague who is in the process of writing his own textbook for his special topics class. He was very frustrated that no textbook exists that contains the material he is teaching - the students would have had to buy multiple books and use small portions of each. I do not know how the financial side will look; the students will save a lot of money once this book is available.

The college should definitely have safeguards in place to prevent an instructor from exploiting his position of power over the students, but it should also be possible to allow this so the instructor is compensated for the work (he is writing the book during his unpaid summers, so not on university time). Maybe it would be better if the school gave a grant for this kind of work, but then you also need to specify what happens to the rights to the work - very tricky (does the school own the rights? Can the author sell the book rights to a publisher?)

A general policy seems to be that the instructor donates the portion of his author royalties that comes from his own students purchasing the textbook, but this applies only to authors who have their books published through a major publisher. A small self published author would need to be compensated at least for the printing cost.

It is definitely a tricky situation, but I don't think it should be illegal, because the faculty authored book may be a big advantage for the students.

How about corporate/individual sponsorship grants to the author especially if it becomes an open source work.  

 

The author gets name recognition in the field which is worth something.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How about corporate/individual sponsorship grants to the author especially if it becomes an open source work. 

Nice.. if you can get it

 

 

The author gets name recognition in the field which is worth something.

 

Only if it is a highly specialized upper level course. There is no glory in developing materials for intro level courses.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How about corporate/individual sponsorship grants to the author especially if it becomes an open source work.  

 

The author gets name recognition in the field which is worth something.

 

Writing textbooks is HARD, and most professors I know that have done it have said something to the effect that they probably made minimum wage or less doing it. Those who do often have motivations other than the money. My favorite professor in graduate school did it just before he retired because he wanted that as his final achievement of teaching, but it took him five years to do it and it went to print during his last semester there . He used it in his graduate seminars and had us proof it as part of those classes because he was getting paid so little for it and never figured that he'd make much from it. And certainly very, very few will do it for free. If you're looking at tenure and such at the 4-year schools, having published papers usually counts for far more than a textbook. There really isn't a lot of incentive for most to commit to that.

 

The open source texts I'm aware of are being paid for by state money and National Science Foundation grants. I'm not aware of any other organization that has show interest at all in this sort of thing.

 

Developing an online course that uses extensive web links instead of a textbook is of course much cheaper, and often builds on online or hybrid classes that were already developed.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's interesting to me is that I feel my dd has spent a fraction of what I spent on textbooks. With the ability to rent textbooks, buy used on the internet, competition between sites, etc. She spent less than $100 for her first semester books. When I was in school you either bought new, or from the used book store across the street from the college. Neither option was cheap.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 He and another guy wrote a textbook (about Calc?) and he had his students buy his textbook for his class. That should be illegal, IMHO,

 

Illegal seems a bit extreme.  

 

A well-known Yale Law professor assigns his own textbook, and refunds to his students the royalties on the book, as he feels that's the ethical way to resolve a conflict of interest.  (link). For a $150 case law book, this comes to about $10 a book, so it is hard to get rich this way, especially if you consider the thousands of hours that go into a writing book.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is quite rare, actually, because most instructors do not have the huge amount of time it would take to write their own books.

 

I have one colleague who is in the process of writing his own textbook for his special topics class. He was very frustrated that no textbook exists that contains the material he is teaching - the students would have had to buy multiple books and use small portions of each. I do not know how the financial side will look; the students will save a lot of money once this book is available.

The college should definitely have safeguards in place to prevent an instructor from exploiting his position of power over the students, but it should also be possible to allow this so the instructor is compensated for the work (he is writing the book during his unpaid summers, so not on university time). Maybe it would be better if the school gave a grant for this kind of work, but then you also need to specify what happens to the rights to the work - very tricky (does the school own the rights? Can the author sell the book rights to a publisher?)

A general policy seems to be that the instructor donates the portion of his author royalties that comes from his own students purchasing the textbook, but this applies only to authors who have their books published through a major publisher. A small self published author would need to be compensated at least for the printing cost.

It is definitely a tricky situation, but I don't think it should be illegal, because the faculty authored book may be a big advantage for the students.

 

 

regentdude all of your comments were very interesting!    It sounds like the textbook your colleague is writing will be very helpful to his students, fill a void and save them money. In the case of my friend, I believe it was a textbook about Calculus, and there were probably many existing textbooks he could have used for the course.  I did feel that he was exploiting his students, by requiring them to purchase his textbook, for his course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is disgraceful. Especially in subjects where absolutely none of the material has changed in the last 50 years - like introductory physics.

Unfortunately, the "solution" of open source textbooks still leaves to be desired because of quality. As an instructor, I do not have the time to carefully read several open source texts from different sources to make sure that the text has no errors and is pedagogically sound - I have to rely on some kind of quality control process done in the production of the book.

 

I am currently in the process of writing my own assignments for my entire course so that we no longer have to rely on problems from the book. This will allow my students to use any old edition of the textbook for the assigned reading, or possibly even choose between different texts. It is an incredible amount of work though - but I am so done with the publishers who btw are trying to convince me to use the new 14th edition of the book that is even heavier, has even more colorful distracting illustrations and costs more money. There is no reason an intro physics text needs to weigh 6 lbs and cost over $200.

 

 

regentrude:   DD has textbooks that weigh almost 6 pounds, for 9th grade. Their list prices are usually in the $90 to 100 range.  This school year was probably the best I have done or will be able to do in the future, with regard to costs. The textbooks and study guides she needed for 9th grade had a total cost about $45, plus shipping to Miami and then the shipping to Colombia.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My kids (all in STEM-related majors) would buy their textbooks used if possible and sell them at the end of the year. Then they would turn around and buy an older edition of the same textbook for their permanent bookshelf. The money saving involved is huge.

 

I went to a top engineering school, and one of the odd perks was actually getting to use textbooks the profs were writing before they were in textbook form -- I would just have to pay the cost of the Xeroxed bundle. The prof would occasionally even discuss additions and changes to the text. It was always rather strange later to see the textbook that I thought of as a bunch of sheets of paper in solid form with gorgeous color pictures! This happened twice, and it was rather fun to be remotely involved in the formation of a textbook!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a related note, I just saw this research from BYU, where a large study of students shows that open source textbooks seems to be as effective, if not more so, than traditional ones.

 

I bet that in the near future, many colleges will switch to open source textbooks, especially for introductory classes, where there is a pretty good consensus about what material should be taught when.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Honestly, I can't remember ever referring to any of my college textbooks in later courses. I had a few that spanned two classes (two statistics courses in one book, for example). I saved four books from my senior year, but never opened them again. About five years ago I took them out of my parents attic and gave them to a used book store near our state university.  

Music majors. You do not want to be without your music theory and comp books later on, not to mention that you may have a very real need to keep all of the assigned music in your repertoire even if you hate it and think you will never play or sing it again. Sorry, someday, some time, someone wants you to do it for money or requires it for an audition or on the job, and since you memorized it three years ago and haven't performed it since, you'll need to brush up and probably will wish that all of the instructor notes your professor wrote in the margins was there instead of buying a new copy.

 

So there are times when people need them for future, long term use. It isn't always just STEM majors.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Music majors. You do not want to be without your music theory and comp books later on, not to mention that you may have a very real need to keep all of the assigned music in your repertoire even if you hate it and think you will never play or sing it again. Sorry, someday, some time, someone wants you to do it for money or requires it for an audition or on the job, and since you memorized it three years ago and haven't performed it since, you'll need to brush up and probably will wish that all of the instructor notes your professor wrote in the margins was there instead of buying a new copy.

 

So there are times when people need them for future, long term use. It isn't always just STEM majors.

 

 

Thanks for this! This applies to one of my dc.

 

Also, I used some texts from college when I taught high school. I still have those books on my shelf all these years later. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

there are several salient (i love using words I barely understand, but i think that means relevant) features to this discussion.  the key one is regentrude's point that zillions of excellent books are available for a pittance at sites like abebooks. 

 

here are a few excellent calculus books from an MIT professor, some for under $10:

 

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=george+b+thomas&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&recentlyadded=all&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=calculus+and+analytic+geometry&yrh=1968&yrl=1950

 

but many points are up for grabs:  does your student want to learn the material, get a good grade from a particular professor, or something  else?  and (presumably not so big an issue on this site), does he/she know how to read?

 

I.e. although the subject matter has not changed in decades, the ability of the average student to read a text has, and mostly for the worse.  Also the standards of textbook writing in terms of user friendliness have gone up accordingly, so sometimes there is an excuse for using a newer book that contains the same content, but explains it more clearly.  but i digress for those of you dedicated to teaching discerning reading.

 

i am a big advocate of using good well written scholarly books from past years that cost a fraction of what new books cost.  I will go on abebooks and find cheap books and tell my classes to get them.  then i will write up problem sets for them.  i also write notes for my classes which are a substitute for at least mediocre books, and i give them away.  (few students have ever expressed appreciation for this effort.  i guess the parents are paying their tab.)

 

still this is a challenge.  i have had students complain that i am not savvy enough to use the most currently beautiful fonts in my notes and complain that makes them hard to read.  come on...

 

bottom line.. there is no reason to spend more than a small am ount to obtain outstanding books to learn any science and math topics.  but you need to wise up your somewhat clueless teacher as to what you are being charged for the book he/she is requiring. it's like a doctor who gets some drug for free and suggests it to you and then it costs your insurance $1000 a tube.  just talk to them.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel it's become quite horrible. The community college I received my AA degree from required editions solely for that school and they were loose leaf so could not be resold. I loved, and kept, my micro and macro economics texts but the rest were a waste and expensive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I.e. although the subject matter has not changed in decades, the ability of the average student to read a text has, and mostly for the worse.  Also the standards of textbook writing in terms of user friendliness have gone up accordingly, so sometimes there is an excuse for using a newer book that contains the same content, but explains it more clearly.  but i digress for those of you dedicated to teaching discerning reading.

 

My DS and his good friends are not particularly good math text book readers (but good in math) and this scares me for college.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Basic advice used to be to read math books actively, i.e. with pencil and paper in hand, working out examples, trying different hypotheses, basically doing rather than just listening.  basically one must read them far more slowly than other books.  a single sentence in a math book, such as the statement of a significant theorem, can contain challenging and important content worthy of an entire session of study.  As a concrete guide, the best teacher i had in grad school in math said one should write 3-5 pages for every page read.  In fact he went further and said essentially no one ever learns anything just by reading a math book passively.  He said the only exception to this rule he had known in his life was the famous Fields medalist Paul Cohen, and my teacher was himself a brilliant mathematician and famous researcher (Maurice Auslander).

Edited by mathwonk
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

advice used to be to read math books actively, i.e. with pencil and paper in hand, working out examples, trying different hypotheses, basically doing rather than just listening.  basically one must read them far more slkowly than other books.  a single sentence in a math book, such as the statyement of a significant theorem, can contain challenging and important content worthy of an entire session of study.  As a concrete guide, the best teacher i had in grad school in math said one should write 3-5 pages for every page read.

 

This.

My students expect to be able to read the physics textbook like a light YA novel. Nope. You have to take a pencil in hand and take notes, understand how they get from one line of equations to the next, and work actively every.single.worked out example that is in the text.

That's how you red a physics text. Skimming and memorizing the definitions of the bolded words may be what passes for "science" in high school, but it is utterly pointless.

 

The sad truth: my students self reported in an anonymous survey that only 25% of them actually complete the assigned reading before coming to lecture. In my online section it is a mere 10%. And then they complain that the lecture, which is designed to be watched after completing the assigned preparatory reading, does not make sense.

 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This.

My students expect to be able to read the physics textbook like a light YA novel. Nope. You have to take a pencil in hand and take notes, understand how they get from one line of equations to the next, and work actively every.single.worked out example that is in the text.

That's how you red a physics text. Skimming and memorizing the definitions of the bolded words may be what passes for "science" in high school, but it is utterly pointless.

 

The sad truth: my students self reported in an anonymous survey that only 25% of them actually complete the assigned reading before coming to lecture. In my online section it is a mere 10%. And then they complain that the lecture, which is designed to be watched after completing the assigned preparatory reading, does not make sense.

 

 

I agree with you on how texts ought to be used.  Even in humanities courses, the readings ought to be done ahead of class.

 

I'm less than happy with the Composition teacher who required the standard Comp I text, a loose leaf university edition, but who hasn't used it in the class.  

 

This isn't new.  I remember one vivid evening in college when my own roommate was totally fed up over her World Lit class.  The professor only had them reading British literature.  But there was an entire booklist, presumable selected by that prof, of which they only used one book.  (My booklist with another prof in a different semester was completely different, and we used all of the books.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our college textbooks infuriate me. We often have custom editions that are updated each year. Or some online access code that rules out buying used. I think the one that rankled me the most this year was my $135 text for my management class. It is LOOSE LEAF, and so poorly edited that it is distracting. But hey, they have cool graphics in text lingo to introduce a topic :glare: .

4

 

My Biology class this year has a similar model, looseleaf. The professor, however, takes all of her quizzes and exams from online PowerPoint presentations and videos. I've opened the book maybe three times? $150+

 

My Social Psychology book this year has surpassed anything we've yet seen. New it was $184 and I couldn't find a used version for less than $135ish at the beginning of the semester. I ended up renting but that feels like such a waste too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My son is taking Chemistry at the cc. I got his required text new at the book store for $180, but then saw it for rent on Amazon for $70. He took back the new one and I was feeling smug until a couple of weeks into the class he mentioned that the trail online code for homework access was about to run out and he needed the online codeĂ°Å¸Ëœâ€“

 

I had never even heard of such things. Of course the rental didn't include that, so I had to buy it from the publisher for $120. Just so he could do his homework. Grrrr. I ended up spending $10 more than I would have if I had kept the new one, and we have nothing to sell back at the end. Live and learn. Now we know to find out as early as possible if there is a required online code needed for class.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, for those wise been there done that families, what are the best ways to find deals?

 

THE best cost saving measure would be to ask the instructor whether the text will actually be used, whether an access code for online resources will be required, and whether an old edition of the textbook would be acceptable.

One email can easily save your student $100.

 

PSA: please note that the textbook adoption process may not have involved the instructor who will actually end up teaching the class. The bookstore may require official textbook listings in March for the fall semester, at which point the departments may not have decided the teaching assignments. So, it is not always the instructor's fault if a listed book is not used.

 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

well its raining here so i'm trolling old threads with comments.  this one interests me both as a former professor and student. i have already posted my professor comment so here is my ex student one.  i feel like a dodo in the sense of having extinct reactions, but i have a remark about objections to books that are not "used" by the professor.  in my day the idea was for the student to use the book by reading it, not for the professor to "use it" by assigning homework from it.

 

i.e. the textbook list in a course, at least at harvard in the 1960's, was a valuable resource where one could learn what were the absolute best books on a given subject.  You bought the book and were supposed to read it and benefit from it even though the professor often never mentioned it at all and never referred to it, and did everything in a completely independent way in class.  Having two different presentations of the same material was considered a plus.  I still own and treasure the great calculus book by Richard Courant that my professor (John Tate) recommended for us in 1960, even though he never assigned a single problem or reading from it, but created the whole course from scratch for us on the board from his vast expertise.

 

Indeed it was not unusual for students not enrolled in a class to show up on day one just to get a copy of the reading list, since that was considered one of the most valuable benefits of the class, just to find out what that famous scholar thought you should read to learn the subject.  ahhh,... those were the days, but perhaps this still rings a bell somewhere with someone.  ... of course books probably did not cost quite as much then.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

well its raining here so i'm trolling old threads with comments.  this one interests me both as a former professor and student. i have already posted my professor comment so here is my ex student one.  i feel like a dodo in the sense of having extinct reactions, but i have a remark about objections to books that are not "used" by the professor.  in my day the idea was for the student to use the book by reading it, not for the professor to "use it" by assigning homework from it.

 

i.e. the textbook list in a course, at least at harvard in the 1960's, was a valuable resource where one could learn what were the absolute best books on a given subject.  You bought the book and were supposed to read it and benefit from it even though the professor often never mentioned it at all and never referred to it, and did everything in a completely independent way in class.  Having two different presentations of the same material was considered a plus.  I still own and treasure the great calculus book by Richard Courant that my professor (John Tate) recommended for us in 1960, even though he never assigned a single problem or reading from it, but created the whole course from scratch for us on the board from his vast expertise.

 

Indeed it was not unusual for students not enrolled in a class to show up on day one just to get a copy of the reading list, since that was considered one of the most valuable benefits of the class, just to find out what that famous scholar thought you should read to learn the subject.  ahhh,... those were the days, but perhaps this still rings a bell somewhere with someone.  ... of course books probably did not cost quite as much then.

 

That is how we used books when I was a student. The profs never followed a book - they just gave a suggestion of useful books at the beginning of the semester, and you had to figure out which book presented which topic in a particularly good way. Lots of studying in the library, as most texts could not be bought. Homework was not taken from the textbook.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is why it took me a while to understand student comments about my "not following the book" were meant apparently as criticism, when I was trying my best to construct the course in the most useful way possible for that individual class.  I had never taken a single class in college where the prof followed a book.  Indeed if the prof needed a book to follow, he/she would probably not be teaching the class.   Ok, I can think of one class where the math prof followed a book.  That was probably the worst math class I ever took in college, but the book was excellent, and has been considered the classic text for many years.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is why it took me a while to understand student comments about my "not following the book" were meant apparently as criticism, when I was trying my best to construct the course in the most useful way possible for that individual class.  I had never taken a single class in college where the prof followed a book.

 

But students today are expecting this to be like school.

Why they insist one follows a particular book is not clear to me, since only 25% of the students in my in-seat lectures and a measly 10% of the student in my online lecture self-report that they do the assigned reading.

 

They want the homework from the book, so they can consult cheating websites  like Chegg or solution manuals.

This year, I wrote an entire set of non-book homework assignments to get them to actually work the problems themselves.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a sad comment but has a ring of truth.  As I probably have recalled before, after I learned to try to accomodate my classes by using a book for homework, I had a student upbraid me for correcting a problem they had presented erroneously, on the grounds that the student had taken the answer straight from an online answer book, so it must be correct.  I consulted this answer book, written by a grad student at Princeton, located his error and explained it to the student.  I was gobsmacked that a student would not only take work from a cheat sheet, but use that fact as an argument against having it found incorrect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

Ă—
Ă—
  • Create New...