Creating and Testing Textbooks for Secondary Schools

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to present our approach for writing textbooks that are self-contained and available for individual learning. These texts are written in the language of the corresponding pupils and are not restricted by any length limitations. This allows us to write as clearly and thoroughly as possible. Minimizing the time for mastering the subject instead of minimizing the presentation length is the main goal. The detailed lecture notes provide a safety net for the teacher and the pupils alike. They do not restrict teachers in their interaction with the class or in the freedom of choosing alternative ways in approaching the subject. On the contrary, the freedom of designing the content of the lesson increases because pupils have the certainty to be able to learn from the lecture notes if something was not fully understood.

Here some general rules for writing learning aids are presented and then applied for an introductory course about programming in LOGO. Finally, we summarize our teaching experience in different classes with the produced learning aids.