In 2008, the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation began the social studies textbook adoption process. Concurrently, the Indiana State Board of Education wrote a memo encouraging schools to look at digital resources; BCSC did not hesitate. This article describes why BCSC chose to move to a digital format at the secondary level, the process…

Mathematics textbooks are critical tools for student learning in American classrooms. Teachers use them daily to plan and deliver lessons, and students use them in class to explore and learn mathematics. Given textbooks' potential to support student learning, it is important to understand how they are developed. While pressure is growing on…

In the fall of 1984, the Education Commission of the States (ECS) was awarded a grant from the U.S. Secretary of Education's Discretionary Fund to identify alternative state roles for improving instructional materials in mathematics. To help state leaders define an appropriate and effective role in upgrading these materials, ECS proposed first to…

A recent survey of some 3,000 administrators across the United States revealed a wide range of textbook selection procedures. (WD)

Reports on a study trip by 13 U.S. social studies educators and publishers to Japan. Compares development, marketing, and selection of textbooks in the United States and Japan. Concludes that both nations should improve textbooks and textbook selection processes. (CFR)

Students don't hang on to textbooks anymore, and the prevalence of second-hand merchandise obliges publishers to recoup their costs the first semester after a new release. Thus, those publishers are loath to experiment with novel approaches and are hypersensitive about reviewer criticism. Steven I. Dutch, who spent a decade preparing an…

Publishers are compelled by public policies and practices to produce textbooks that confuse students with non sequiturs, mislead them with misinformation, and bore them with pointlessly arid writing. Recommendations for textbook policy are proposed. (BJV)

Learner Verification and Revision (LVR) has been part of Florida's instructional materials adoption process since 1974, when state statutes required textbook publishers to provide written proof that their materials were revised based on student feedback before publication. Publishers were also required to collect student data and make revisions…

Many feel that textbooks dominate what students learn. They set the curriculum and often the facts learned in most subjects. For many students, textbooks are their first and sometimes only early exposure to books and to reading. The public regards textbooks as authoritative, accurate and necessary and many teachers rely on them to organize lessons…

The production of science textbooks and the processes whereby both producers and consumers can work to improve them are described. Included are discussions of selection at the state level and a publishers perspective, and six textbook experiments at different levels from different publishers. (CW)

This article examines the history textbooks available in 1998 for adoption in the United States at both the high school and elementary levels. New books have appeared on the scene since the last textbook adoption series. California begins its textbook considerations in August. The California adoption will rekindle national interest in the content…

Presents research findings about textbook construction and how they should influence the development of chemistry texts. Discusses learning as a constructive process, the importance of interpreting symbolic representations, and the creation of structure by the learner. Advocates publisher responsibility for incorporating results of research when…

A British publisher conducted a readability study of its English language content area texts being used in foreign countries to determine how the texts could be made more readable. A cloze procedure assessment of a secondary school Hong Kong social studies series indicated that the English texts were too difficult for 91% of the pupils tested.…

The results of an APEID (Asia and the Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development) workshop on producing textbooks and other teaching and learning materials, especially in reading, for the first level of education are provided in this book. An initial overview presents the objectives and the organization of the workshop. The second…