Research On Practical Textbook Evaluation

Present study focuses on textbook examples, which is one of the most vital ingredients of a mathematic textbook. The study provides suggestions on how to help teachers better understanding the pedagogical ideas of textbooks. And those suggestions are concluded based on the review of past studies, the collection and analysis of teachers’views who use the textbook on a daily base, the comparisons between those views and the results of text analysis on the examples, as well as the interpretations of teaching standards, and about understandings of textbook examples’roles and functions.Chapter One of the paper elaborates the meaning of textbook evaluation and the necessity of practice-based textbook evaluation. During textbook revision, it is required that current textbook is well analyzed and evaluated, advantages and problems of it are found, and the whole plan of revision is thus made. Moreover, the dynamic data collected during the use of textbook is of the same importance. The data collection is based on interests towards teaching learning promotion, and is also originated from practice. So are the collection of problems when using the textbook, and the induction of those problems’reasons, and the collection of the strategies used to solve those problems.On the basis of Chapter One, Chapter Two reviews the studies on textbook evaluation and textbook examples. After comparing the domestic and abroad studies, it is concluded that current textbook evaluation is mostly static and barely in the view of users. As to the studies on textbook examples, it is found that text analysis as a research method is widely used, and examples originated from teachers are often off the radar.Therefore, Chapter Three has a systematic analysis on the views of teachers dynamically collected during the process of using textbook. To summarize teachers’views and opinions on textbook examples, the study undergoes a process including tool designing, teacher sampling, responses collecting, and results analyzing. And it is concluded that teachers have certain expectations for increasing the number of textbook examples. In addition, it is found that teachers expect to enhance the effect of demonstration of textbook examples.In a standard-based view, Chapter Four uses text analysis on textbook examples and make comparisons to detect the differences between analysis results with teachers’expectations. As a whole, teachers hold kinds of expectations. They expect textbook examples cover all learning content; they want examples with more depth; and they ask for a simple-to-complex system of textbook examples. Secondly, it is found that supplementary examples from teachers often exceed requirements, especially in the over-expansion of content and in the above-standard difficulty. Thirdly, the results also show that examples are mainly used to meet the cognitive goals of textbook, specifically speaking, to meet goals for understanding and operation. Finally, the textbook, at the same time, depends more on sections like observation, thinking, doing, and side columns to meet the goals for experiences.Pointing at the differences detected, there is a systematic discussion in Chapter Five. It is reasonable that textbook examples are designed to be demonstrative. And thus, it is suggested that this intent, along with advices for practice, should be passed to teachers both immediately and effectively. And it is better in ways like editing teaching references, constructing textbook websites, and training teachers, etc.Chapter Six includes the two limitations of present study. On the one hand, it needs further consideration about how to get better reflection and guidance for students’dynamic learning with static demonstration of textbook. On the other hand, the generalization of present study is limited since only one volume of textbook is analyzed due to the huge amount of work that text analysis brings. Further studies shall have more thorough and deeper explorations on this topic.