How Good is Science Textbooks - Essay Example

How Good Are Your Science Text Books? What Criteria Are You Using To Answer the Question? Name: Course: University: Abstract: The study on this topic needs to be centred on the conclusion as to how good are our science text books and as to what criteria are being used to answer the questions. The conclusions need to be discussed and these need to be reasoned and analyzed. There should be a study made on the usefulness of the science text books in respect of their help given in answering the questions. The analysis done on the topic would help in improving the short comings found in the text books and improvise them taking into consideration their use in the answering of the questions. The analysis will also lead us to the effective use of the text books and to make us knowledgeable as to what should be studied and where to find what. Thus this study will further help in the study of the subject science itself. Introduction: Science is the basic requirement in our lives and to make it valuable one need to understand the facts that science wants to tell us. These facts can only be made clear enough to the people when the basic concept is made clear from the very beginning. This beginning is made from the very elementary stage (Garret: 2006) of the school life where the basic concepts regarding science are made conspicuous. If one gets the chance of getting a good science text book then one need not go astray from the real science. It is thus imperative for the students to get a good text book so that they are able to go deep inside the facts and try to understand every bit of it. A good science text books needs to have in it a better clarity about the facts written in it and also to provide better insight into every matter related with the topic. To understand how good science textbooks are, one must first understand reasons for need good science textbooks, hence we tackle first the question. Knowing the reasons for having said textbooks would be the same asking what are the benefits of having good textbooks. One of the undeniable benefits of having good text books is of course the strengthening of our foundation of knowledge. The text books should not give us the inappropriate or incomplete knowledge about the facts written in them. There should be proper clarity regarding the topics they deal with and the written statements or sentences should match the level or the standard of the students for which those books are made. They should not be too clustered with irrelevant topics which would in no way help the students in understanding the chapter. In fact they should be written in such a manner that it doe not become necessary for the student to take up another text book in order to research on the same topic. Criteria for a good text book Having good text books in the subject of science prove to be helpful to us in various ways. Hence, it would be difficult not to agree that we have the present stage of technology because of science which people learn via text books. But perhaps one way to find the benefits of good text books would be to know the consequences for the countries if texts books begin to deteriorate. This means that if the text books do not provide the proper knowledge and they do not make the fundamentals of the students very clear, then it would be useless for the country to provide such knowledge. It has been taken for granted that having very little but proper knowledge is better than having very vast but bad knowledge or improper knowledge. Knowing then the purpose of good books and by crediting the same, for the advances of technology, it is imperative for us to know what should be criteria in evaluating whether science text books are good. The criteria of evaluating whether the science textbooks are good or not, must be viewed in terms of their purpose and the usefulness that they provide. Generally these science textbooks (Briefing regarding the January 16, 2004 Draft Criteria for Evaluating K-8 Instructional Materials for California’s students) must attain their designed objectives, hence the following criteria: (1) The information contained therein is factual, hence free from errors, relevant photographs, and simple illustrations. This means that the facts should be relevant which are provided in the text books and that there should be minimum errors found. Whatever data is provided in the text books should not be haphazardly placed or untrue information given, rather they should be placed in the proper format and the data provided should be very accurate. Inaccurate data would create problems for the students who might use them in various occasions. There text books should be edited in the proper manner so as to find no error in the chapters. Text books being the guiding tools for the students should be perfect in everything as the students would wholly and solely rely on them. (2) They must make students science literate. The text books are the guiding stars for the students and therefore they should have the capability of guiding the students in the right direction. Science is something which needs to be understood and thus the text books should have the capability of making the students have knowledge about science. The texts written in them should be up to the standard of the students who need their help. (3) They must allow children to start early in life in appreciating science and its benefits. The text books should be so designed as to have total clarity about the topics written in them and also make it possible for the students to try to implement what they find in the text books. This means that they should guide the students in such a way that they are propelled to put the learning into action and try to understand every bit of science by practical knowledge. They must be encouraged by the books to start experimenting and have a good brain in analysing things. (4) The languages of the text book must be understandable enough to motivate children. The language of the text books would form the greatest pushing factor in the text books of science. It should be written in a very lucrative manner and should always prove to be helpful for the students. The writing of the book or the writer shows the quality of the book to be studied. If the texts contained in any book have very emphasised language used in it, then it becomes possible for the students to gain interest in it and they would like to read it. But on the other hand if the book provides only a flat language the students would not gain interest in reading it and moreover, the disinterested reading would create poor knowledge about the subject. Thus the language of the text books should be very perfectly phrased and should be understandable by the students (5) They must be comprehensive while allowing teachers to go deeper into the topics. The text books of science should be very comprehensive in nature so as to allow the teachers, who are to make the students understand about the facts mentioned in the text books, to get a clear picture themselves and not just skim the surface for variety of topics and are updated and based on latest research. (6) They must allow guided learning by the teacher that would lead students to discovery of more knowledge by experiments or otherwise. The science text books if has the ability to have a good impact on the teachers will surely prove to be useful for the students as the teachers are the medium through whom the students would be made to understand all that is written in the text books. The text books are known to be the back bone (BBC Online Network: 1999) of the process of having classroom classes and thus their being very accurate and foolproof needs to be mandatory. It becomes far more significant for the text books to be better in quality regarding the standard of their material facts and their reliability so as to provide better knowledge to the students when the future of the students is in their hands. When there is one error made in a single text books, (Chandler: 1999) it gives an opportunity to the other writers to do the same mistakes as there might be various writers who might take the help of the wrongly mentioned facts, thinking it to be the perfect ones. In the recent years there has been seen the impact (Ninnes: 2000) of the science text books spreading ethnocentrisms and cultural imperialism along with racism. Thus there has been a need arise to diversify the subjects of the science text books and add in them varied types of knowledge. Thus there has been an attempt taken to provide for an indigenous knowledge to the students through the text books. It is a well formed fact that the nature of science is abstract and complex (Science Myths” In K-6 Text Books and Popular culture.) and the various myths present in the various cultures make it even more difficult to understand science. These myths when talked about in the science text books make it really more confusing for the students to understand what science is exactly. Thus the text books should not deal with the facts that go against science and this would create a mental block in the minds of the students who would never try to understand what science had tried them to understand. The knowledge of science is becoming more and more important (Science Made Simple) for every child and every person to deal with the day-to-day activities of the life. This knowledge can be provided by the science text books and also made clear by the help of the teachers. But there are certain text books which fall prey of the mistakes that are found commonly in most of them. The text books sometimes consist of vast topics to be covered which makes the student feel pressurised and sometimes feel blank. And many a times these text books have the facts written in them very superficially which proves to be helpful in no way as the in-depth study would make the fundamentals of the subject clear, which is very essential in a subject like science. But here it can be argued that the text books that provide only the superficial knowledge can prove to be helpful for the parents and the teachers who can make their children understand the topic with practical experimentation. By providing superficial knowledge, the book may be covering a vast area of topics which are needed for the study. In the recent years there have been many publishers (Text Book Publisher-Higher Education. Yahoo) who are making an effort to bring out good science text books with the meeting of the criteria of having the basic requirements for a good science text book. They have been trying to provide the best possible by taking care of the various problems hat have been coming up in the past regarding the text books and the facts mentioned in them. Conclusion: Text books are used as primary source of knowledge especially for the young minds who will become the scientists for tomorrow. But before they could become so, their mind must be motivated at an early age and for which reason textbooks must be free from error, supported by evidence, either empirical or natural. Said science textbooks must not only be comprehensive but they must also allow teachers and students to go deeper the topics and not just skim the surface for variety of topics. They must allow also guided learning to the students to meet quality standards and be updated and based on latest research. The photographs used in the text must be relevant to the topic, illustrations must be simple and that the experiments should lead students to discovery of more knowledge. The diagrams and drawing should represent also possible situations. Finally they should not be authored by committees, but should have the clear cut name of author or authors who must also assume responsibility for correction as a general rule. Hence, good textbooks will play a major role in the future. References: 1. Garrett, Kristi (2006) Bad Science, Are Science Skills Being Displaced by a Focus on Reading and Math?. 2. Briefing Regarding the January 16, 2004 Draft Criteria for Evaluating K-8 Instructional Materials for California’s students. October 28, 2006. 3. (1999). Science Textbooks Not Good Enough. BBC Online Network. October 28, 2006. 4. Chandler, L. David. (1999). Text Books Flunk Out. Globe Newspaper Company. October 28, 2006. 5. Ninnes,P. (2000) Representations of indigenous knowledge in secondary school science textbooks in Australia and Canada.  International journal of science education. Vol-22.  October 28, 2006. 6. Science Myths” In K-6 Text Books and Popular culture. 7. Science Curriculum & Education Science Textbooks Need Improvement. Science Made Simple. October 28, 2006. 8. Text Book Publisher-Higher Education. Yahoo. October 28, 2006. Read More