kbutton Posted April 10, 2019 Share Posted April 10, 2019 Does anyone know what's different about the older editions of the economics and government texts from Notgrass? They were revised in 2016, and supplemental materials are not compatible between editions. We might have a free copy of the older editions, and I am wondering how different they are from the new ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJPPKGFGSC Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 My older son was taking the Notgrass Government in Fall of 2016. The class officially used the first edition. Although the teacher, and most students (at least those who got their books over the summer) had the older edition. The consensus seemed to be that the texts were easily enough exchanged. There were sometimes questions in the new quizzes on details that were not in the older versions. However, the Notgrass quiz questions are a bit fussy, but that is not the question that you asked! In any case, although Notgrass indicated that they were not compatible, but most people thought that they were. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted April 15, 2019 Author Share Posted April 15, 2019 On 4/14/2019 at 2:53 AM, LJPPKGFGSC said: My older son was taking the Notgrass Government in Fall of 2016. The class officially used the first edition. Although the teacher, and most students (at least those who got their books over the summer) had the older edition. The consensus seemed to be that the texts were easily enough exchanged. There were sometimes questions in the new quizzes on details that were not in the older versions. However, the Notgrass quiz questions are a bit fussy, but that is not the question that you asked! In any case, although Notgrass indicated that they were not compatible, but most people thought that they were. Thank you! BTW, I am curious about the fussy questions on the quizzes. We have language issues going on here. 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJPPKGFGSC Posted April 16, 2019 Share Posted April 16, 2019 This is just my opinion from memory, since I did not like the book enough to keep it and use it again. The multiple choice questions were about minor details in the textbook. To me, some of them seemed intentionally misleading. Sometimes the wording was just awkward. For instance, I searched for the Notgrass sample pages and here is a question from the student review book …. Early representatives and senators who favored a strong central government took what name? It would be much more clear to ask … What was the name of the group of early representatives and senators who favored a strong central government? I cannot find a sample of the quiz questions, but here is what I remember. Many of the questions would give a stem, like this …. The early representative and senators who favored a strong central government were called - A. federalists and some other choices But giving a stem that is a incomplete sentence is harder for kids to answer. If there is a question, such as "What was the name of the group of early representatives and senators who favored a strong central government?", then your brain wants to answer that question. If you are given an incomplete sentence, your brain is confused. (Actually, educators and brain scientists know a lot about how to test people to accurately assess what they know.) I think that Notgrass would be a much better curriculum if it had better assignments. I still use Notgrass middle school books, so I am not against Notgrass, I just think that the high school texts leave much to be desired. I hope that helps! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelly in VA Posted April 16, 2019 Share Posted April 16, 2019 We used an older edition of the government text, and it was fine. We did add in some of the biographies that are included in the new edition of the course, because I really liked the idea of reading some presidential biographies, and they were simple enough to put into the schedule since they accompany specific units in the text. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted April 16, 2019 Author Share Posted April 16, 2019 17 hours ago, LJPPKGFGSC said: I think that Notgrass would be a much better curriculum if it had better assignments. I still use Notgrass middle school books, so I am not against Notgrass, I just think that the high school texts leave much to be desired. I am disheartened that the high school books are not as good as the middle school books. My son likes the middle school books a great deal. I am not sure we'll use all or some of the assignments or find alternate assignments as we go through them. I have a quirky learner to start with. 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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