A textbook is a book used for the study of a subject. People use a textbook to learn facts and methods about a certain subject. … Sometimes, especially at university, students have to buy the textbooks they need themselves or borrow them from a library. Most textbooks are only published in printed format.
Nowadays, a range of learning resources are used to support students in their learning process, among which textbooks are the most notable. Textbooks play an important role in almost any school system in the world, representing a useful resource for both teachers as course designers and students acquiring knowledge.
5 Characteristics of a Good Textbook
- Free space. Young students don’t read; they browse. …
- Visuals. No matter what the age of the target audience is, a modern textbook must have visuals. …
- Age-appropriate material. Take a look at the people in the photos in the book. …
- Well-balanced textbook design. …
- Textbook storyline.
Textbooks which are organized in a systematically progressive fashion: these are educational texts which propose a structure, an order and a progression in the teaching-learning process:
– instruction is structured, organized in chapters and in units;
– the content of learning (information, explanations, comments, practical exercises, summaries, evaluation) is presented in an order;
– there is systematic progression of learning towards the acquisition of new knowledge and learning new concepts, based on known items of knowledge.
These textbooks are real working tools for the teacher and the pupil. Whilst teacher’s guides do enter into this category, they are intended only for the teacher and their structure, organization and content differs from textbooks for pupils.
Books for Reference or Consultation. These are texts containing a body of information in a certain field for the purposes of reference or consultation as and when needed. Neither their organisation, nor structure is specifically applicable to the learning process.
The roles of textbooks
From the instructional standpoint, the textbook has three main roles:
An information role, implying:
– presentation of a selection of items of knowledge about a specific subject and on a specific theme, taking into account that the acquisition of knowledge should be progressive and sequenced according to succeeding years of scholarity and bearing in mind that curricula must not be overloaded;
– filtering of items of information in order to synthesize them, sometimes simplify them and render them accessible and clear for pupils at the level concerned.
The textbook offers information and knowledge, but often within a certain ideological perspective: the relative importance of science and technology; a conception of history; established linguistic norms. The way it is conceived can determine what information is contained in a textbook and make it seem unsuitable in certain historical situations or for certain socio-economic or cultural objectives defined by development policy.
A role of structuring and organizing learning
The textbook suggests a progression in the learning process organized in successive blocks of teaching units. It offers several possibilities for the organization of learning:
- from practical experience to theory;
- from theory to practical exercises with assessment of what has been learned;
- from practical exercises to theoretical elaboration;
- from statements to examples and illustration;
- from examples and illustrations to observation and analysis.
A role of guiding learning
To guide the pupil in his perception and comprehension of the outside world, in putting together knowledge acquired from sources other than the curriculum, in mastering what he has learned. There are two alternatives, either of which can be used to guide the learning process:
– repetition, memorisation, copying models;
– more open and creative activities where the pupil can make use of his own experiences and observations.
According to the subject, progress can be:
– more constraining for subjects like mathematics, science, reading, foreign languages:
– less constraining for literary texts, geography, history (chronological order).
According to its pedagogical conception, and depending upon the learning objectives, the textbook can comply with:
– a more “interventionist” instruction for the transmission of knowledge; this highlights the constraining influence of the textbook on teaching and learning;
– a more open instruction, facilitating the pupil’s development of aptitudes for observation, reflection and a certain autonomy in his learning activities. For this type of instruction the teacher will need good professional training.
Through NPOWER, the Federal Government had paid for the production of Textbooks for Primary One to Six. They are included in this site for free.
