Textbooks are the primary materials for teaching in the Greater China Region, including the teaching of Chinese as a second language. This qualitative study examined how two teachers of first to fifth grade students in an international school in Macao selected, used, and adapted textbooks to teach Chinese to non-native Chinese speakers. It also…

High-quality K-12 instructional materials can meaningfully improve teaching practice and student achievement, especially when paired with professional learning support. Yet state policymakers have usually left ultimate authority for textbook selection to school district leaders. Consequently, the quality of materials across U.S. classrooms and…

Selecting course reading materials is not necessarily an easy process. This article discusses selection concerns such as cost, inclusivity and options ranging from traditional textbooks to course packs. A review of literature finds extensive information about adoption of OER materials. Additionally, articles referring to difficulties in course…

The vast majority of U.S. teachers supplement their officially adopted curriculum materials with unofficial materials. Despite this, the body of supplementation-relevant literature tends not to focus on supplementation specifically, so lacks cohesion, and sometimes fails to capture all aspects the phenomenon. I systematically review…

Finding culturally relevant informational books for a classroom library can be difficult. However, expanding the definition of informational text to include procedural forms, specifically cookbooks, can enhance the cultural relevance, range, and number of books available for students to read. Reasons for placing cookbooks in the classroom library…

There is increasing momentum behind the idea that curriculum materials, including textbooks, represent a powerful lever for education reform. As funders are lining up and state leaders are increasing their policy attention on curriculum materials, this report discusses the very real challenges of this effort. The report draws on my experience over…

Open educational resources (OER) can make educational resources widely available to all students and educators for free; however, OER are still untried in many academic programmes in higher education. This article reports a case of adoption of an open access textbook for an introductory information systems course and discusses the process and…

Australian Protestant schools have often been depicted as sites that restrict knowledge. This paper presents the findings of a 2010-2013 field study of 137 teachers, exploring the nature and extent of Protestant School English teacher self-censorship when excluding and selecting texts to teach. In both survey and interview data, I find that the…

Strong instructional materials are crucial to realizing the promise of the Common Core State Standards. Research suggests that the choice of instructional materials can have an impact as large as or larger than the impact of teacher quality. Unfortunately, many popular textbooks are not aligned to the new standards, leaving educators scrambling.…

Textbook evaluation means development of textbook that is based on rigorous research. In Pakistan text books are designed on communicative language teaching which focuses on communication. Morley (1991) has asserted that listening has a critical role in communication and in language acquisition because the better the students understand, the…

While much has been written about the use of instructional materials in the field of language education, very few studies have actually studied the impact of the context in the use of materials in teachers' practices. This work shows the findings of a study about the contextual factors that a group of experienced Mexican teachers believe shaped…

Technological innovation is driving fundamental changes in all aspects of our lives. This is especially true of digital content, as our use of e-books, downloadable music, streaming television and movies, and online social networks has exploded. However, the explosive growth in our use of digital content seems so far to have eluded many of the 50…

Mathematics curriculum has long been a topic of keen interest in mathematics education and remains a central issue in efforts to improve mathematics learning opportunities for students. This Yearbook continues in a long line of National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Yearbooks that have addressed various facets of the changing mathematics…

This article is a sort of a questionaire that was sent out to English and Social Studies chairman and Audio Visual directors. It generally shows that more things need to be done to improve the schools but with less money. (Editor/MR)