Edsurge

OCTOBER 22, 2021

A new startup wants to shake up the textbook market by making it easier for professors to adopt courseware created at colleges and universities rather than by commercial textbook publishers. It’s solution: Create a new marketplace where instructors can find them. A key premise of the Lexington, Mass.-based

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Textbooks Syllabus Instructors Peer Review 176

eSchool News

APRIL 18, 2025

This edition, which surveyed over 3,000 higher-ed students and instructors and over 1,000 K-12 teachers and administrators, found similarities among higher-ed instructors and K-12 teachers optimism for GenAI specifically. textbook readings) (30 percent) and visuals (e.g., test and quiz questions) (34 percent), animations (e.g.,

Textbooks 282

Textbooks Instructors Academic Integrity Coaching 282

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

It’s a question that some higher education instructors have asked before, and one that two Penn State University educators sought to answer on Wednesday at this year’s EDUCAUSE conference in Denver. An instructor can type in a concept or idea, such as “industrial design,” into the tool his team built, called Eureka!,

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Instructors Intelligence Quizzes Textbooks 157

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

When colleges sign deals with publishers to sell digital textbooks and homework systems directly to students, they’re required by federal regulations to offer those materials at discounted prices. Textbook publishers, meanwhile, reject that argument. “We Pearson has typically seen opt-out rates below 5 percent, according to Osborne.

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Textbooks Accessibility Confidentiality Instructors 166

Edsurge

OCTOBER 18, 2018

When professors shift to assigning Open Educational Resources instead of publisher-produced textbooks, the move typically saves students money (and it can be a significant amount). While it is popular to complain about the high sticker price of commercial textbooks, it does take time for professors to research and write or compile them.

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Textbooks Study Participation Assignments 160

Edsurge

MAY 26, 2020

Top Hat got its start in the “clicker” business, offering a web-based and mobile classroom response tool that lets instructors gauge whether students understood the lesson (or paid attention). The Toronto-based company once relied on textbook publishers to distribute its technology. The question is: ‘How well can Top Hat do it?’”

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Textbooks Multiple Choice Questions Quizzes Fairness 153

Edsurge

MAY 1, 2019

Arizona State University agreed this week to mount an independent investigation of a professor’s allegations that students were forced to pay for unneeded software so that they could turn in their homework in hopes of getting a grant from the textbook publisher. And it said no professor was asked to fail students.

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Textbooks Instructors Questions Learning Tools 139

Edsurge

MARCH 3, 2020

So says the new Educause Horizon report , which identifies technologies and trends that are changing higher education. OER was one of six “emerging technologies and practices” the panelists highlighted as most likely to significantly influence postsecondary teaching and learning in the future. “It In the U.S.,

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Textbooks Instructors Education English 210

Edsurge

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Perched in lime green desk chairs, dozens of employees of OpenStax work here to transform physics, calculus and psychology materials into digital textbooks that students can study at no cost. First, OpenStax came for textbooks. OpenStax textbooks are display in a room named for the author of one the nonprofit's economics books. /

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Textbooks Instructors History Syllabus 118

Edsurge

MARCH 28, 2018

But it wasn’t until her current gig, serving as an instructor for a course on water supply and demand in California, that she got her feet wet with open educational resources. Today, Anagnoson’s online course is embedded into a Water Systems Technology zero-cost textbook degree program, or Z-degree. Now it’s my job.”

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Textbooks Instructors Syllabus History 119

Edsurge

JUNE 18, 2020

After all, a free or inexpensive alternative to a pricey commercial textbook can make a big difference for students at institutions like Salt Lake Community College, who are “mostly not affluent,” Hardy says. The goal is to make it easy for instructors to make their courses better and better over time. “If

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Textbooks Instructors Laboratory Education 209

eSchool News

JANUARY 2, 2019

The fast pace of innovation makes it an ongoing challenge for teachers to stay on top of the latest developments, so they can include the newest topics in their curriculum, particularly in the areas of science, technology, and engineering. The lead instructor led us through several interesting activities during the two-day workshop.

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STEM Teaching Methods Textbooks Instructors 276

eSchool News

APRIL 4, 2025

As a career and technical education (CTE) instructor, I see firsthand how career-focused education provides students with the tools to transition smoothly from high school to college and careers. In surgical technology, mastering workforce skills such as sterile techniques, infection control, and medical equipment handling is crucial.

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Gamification Quizzes Knowledge Textbooks 282

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

Students who took multiple community college courses that used only free or low-cost OER materials earned more credits over time than their peers who took classes that used traditional course materials such as textbooks, according to a new study. I had a very good student come to me and say, ‘I can’t afford this textbook.’

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Textbooks Instructors Education Participation 196

Edsurge

MARCH 9, 2017

But Paul Low is not most instructors. As with any relatively new technology, the path for early adopters of virtual reality in academia is unclear. So how do you get educational materials from textbook to virtual world? Instead, the instructor handles the interactive components on the spot. First, you need 3D content.

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Instructors Assignments Textbooks STEM 128

eSchool News

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Chalkboards, heavy textbooks, and other analog tools of the past have no place in today’s schools. Over the last few decades, applied technology in the classroom has grown by leaps and bounds. Of course, there’s more to education technology than allowing computers in the classroom.

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Learning Styles Participation Attention Hybrid Learning 311

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 24, 2022

This year’s spending on textbooks and other course materials represents a 26 percent fall from the previous year, when students spent $456, or $53 per course. Instructors are assigning more content that’s free or at least “not paid for directly” by the student, says Richard Hershman, vice president of government relations at NCAS.

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Textbooks Students Assignments Instructors 217

Edsurge

MARCH 7, 2018

Agarwal moderated a conversation between Mark Cousino, director of learning design and technology at Boeing, and TC Haldi, senior director of MITxPro , which develops professional learning programs. Yet technology may be changing that at some schools (or “disrupting” it in Christensen parlance). Are Libraries Ready to Code?

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Textbooks Questions Instructors Reading 114

Edsurge

JANUARY 30, 2017

When Jenny Billings piloted a digital textbook class and saw an immediate increase in engagement and retention after just one semester, she thought it must be a fluke. Here are three colleges that have found a way to use technology to create a more cost-effective, customized, and engaging learning experience.

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Textbooks Lecturing English Internet 111

Edsurge

AUGUST 1, 2024

As more instructors experiment with using generative AI to make teaching materials, an important question bubbles up. In open-ended answers, some educators said they see it as a tool akin to a calculator, or like using content from a textbook. Should they disclose that to students?

Teaching 217

Teaching Education Ethics Instructors 217

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

But since the COVID-19 pandemic forced instructors around the world to try online education, something unexpected has happened: Professors have found that there are some online teaching methods that work better than what can be done in the limits of a physical classroom. It’s a message I’ve been arguing for a while.

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Teaching Lecturing Blended Courses Instructors 218

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 4, 2021

But it could prove just as disruptive in the world of education publishing, where technology startups have been steadily taking market share from traditional incumbents. It acquired the higher-ed business of Nelson, one of Canada’s biggest textbook publishers, along with two smaller U.S.-based But Top Hat is not that far behind others.

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Textbooks Instructors Active Learning Activities 179

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 13, 2017

Imagine opening your chemistry textbook and being able to use an interactive periodic table to create complex chlorofluorocarbon compounds. As students’ digital literacy grows, schools must match or surpass the level of technology students use outside of the classroom. EPUB 3 interactive e-textbooks, absolutely not.

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Textbooks Instructors Students Quizzes 137

Edsurge

DECEMBER 28, 2017

Until recently, the use of OER—digital educational materials that are both more easily adaptable by instructors and more affordable than traditional textbooks—was being led by early-adopter professors driven by a desire to improve teaching and an interest in new technology. OER needs to be easier to find and adopt.

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Textbooks Teaching Instructors Testing 157

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

To help adult learners, edtech tools should be designed for their needs and goals, support them in virtually communicating with instructors and classmates and offer them a smooth mobile experience, according to a new report published on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education.

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Instructors Textbooks Math Communication 164

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

He and his students happily use open educational resources for textbooks. When you look at the courses we teach on repeat, with the same expensive book, it's difficult to believe that every instructor, en masse, somehow agreed to use the same text from the one large publisher year after year. Is that really what’s best for students?

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STEM Textbooks Instructors Science 176

Edsurge

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

This story also appeared in USA Today Falling off that path can lock students out of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers. This idea is what drew instructors to sweaty Cambridge in July. In an early morning class, bleary-eyed and still vibrating from coffee, the instructors met with high school-aged students.

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Math Instructors Science STEM 218

Edsurge

APRIL 24, 2019

For Devlin Daley’s next act, he’s employed a strategy that worked for his previous education business: visit college campuses to see what technologies made students’ and instructors’ lives harder. On Derivita, students work through math lessons and test questions that instructors can pull from a bank or create from scratch.

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Textbooks Instructors Math Feedback 131

Edsurge

JUNE 10, 2021

The journalism instructor at the University of Minnesota keeps the process simple, with brief questions similar to these: What should keep happening in this class? Between weeks five and eight—and after students have received results from a major assessment—instructors ask students to weigh in on how their learning is progressing.

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Feedback Instructors Students Syllabus 195

Edsurge

MARCH 17, 2020

Hardy is an adjunct instructor who teaches at two institutions in the greater Boston area, which means she’s had to follow two sets of instructions for dealing with the coronavirus, adhere to two timelines for preparing for distance teaching and hastily learn two separate technology systems for delivering lectures virtually. “As

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Instructors Lecturing Course Evaluations Evaluation 171

Edsurge

DECEMBER 18, 2023

In a world where technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace, education stands on the cusp of transformation. Imagine classrooms where teachers are empowered by cutting-edge technology and where students don't just learn from textbooks but co-create their educational journey. But are teachers provided the support to do so?

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Intelligence Education Instructors Confidentiality 215

Edsurge

JUNE 16, 2020

Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, plans to start offering professional development services for faculty that can be bundled with its titles. In other words, some of its textbooks are now sold with coaching on how to teach with OER more effectively.

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Coaching Textbooks Instructors Faculty Development 134

Edsurge

APRIL 27, 2023

He points to research that shows that some students learn better from male instructors, while others learn better from female ones. He says initial results show that students responded more positively to computer-generated instructors that read as female.

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Lecturing Instructors English Textbooks 189

Edsurge

OCTOBER 15, 2018

The rising cost of printed textbooks—as well as tuition and university life—have made them unaffordable for many students. As the financial viability of printed textbooks declines little by little, the demand for alternatives like online learning content continues to grow. Those days are coming to an end.

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Textbooks eLearning Learning Blended Learning 151

Edsurge

MARCH 17, 2021

And the system uses a metaphor that students sit at “tables,” meaning that instructors can easily organize students into groups that can have their own breakout discussions. One instructor [trying it] is working in one of the larger University of California [campuses]. The system is aimed at colleges. universities running pilots.

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Instructors Textbooks Internet Questions 178

Edsurge

MAY 30, 2019

After an Arizona State University professor’s email went viral last month , accusing the institution of adopting online textbooks in exchange for grants from their publisher, officials agreed to the student government’s call for an independent investigation. That report, prepared by Ruth V.

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Textbooks Ethics Assignments Instructors 82

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

I think we [launched] at this particular moment [because] it is exactly right for the work that we're doing, When you describe the role of the instructor on the website, you share that your instructors “understand the Black experience” and “how race permeates every aspect of American society.” And there just are not enough providers.

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Culture Instructors History Education 208