That first day of school isn’t far away now, is it? My son starts 5th grade this Fall, which, due to a very crowded elementary school, is the first year of middle school in our town. While he’s pretty excited, I’m of course suffering from, “Ack, my baby’s going to middle school, where has the time gone?” syndrome.
All this talk about middle school got me looking in depth at Kendall Hunt Publishing’s middle school offerings this week. We talk a lot about high school science textbooks and elementary education books, but we don’t talk all that much about middle school. But have you checked out our new Math Innovations program? It’s amazing. It develops mathematical habits of mind, teaching students to think like mathematicians. It improves the reasoning and critical thinking skills that are crucial to success in the 21st century.
Math Innovations offers textbooks, but is also a robust online math curriculum with an array of technology options to enhance and supplement the text. Three grade levels and five units per grade allows for customized alignment to state and district standards. Check it out when you have a chance!!
I've read several articles this week about online and e-books for the K-12 market. The current Texas governor recently stated that he doesn't see any reason for Texas to have printed books in four years. That's a pretty big statement in support of online learning.
What do you think about taking elementary education books, secondary school textbooks and the like and putting them in the digital world? At Kendall Hunt Publishing, we're big fans of digital learning for PreK-12. Let's face it, many printed textbooks are dated the minute they come off the press. School textbook publishers face this issue all the time. But if your "books" are online, especially if they're in a learning portal that can be continually updated, students can learn about the latest discovery in science without waiting for the next printing of their high school science textbook. That's only one of the many benefits to digital learning.
Do your schools use all printed material? Or a combination of print and digital?
My son was recently invited to participate in an area Eco-Meet. They chose three fourth grade gifted students and two fifth grade students from each of the participating districts to make up that district’s team. This is quite the inquiry based science event, it seems! Each team member received a packet about an inch thick of materials they need to study to prepare. Additionally, they will be working with the gifted and talented teacher, who is the coach, each week leading up to the event in mid-May.
The Eco-Meet is a day long event held at a local park high above the Mississippi River. The park rangers and Army Corps of Engineers will involve the students in activities and presentations on different subjects, including Fish of the Mississippi. After each event, the teams will take a test. The tests will be graded and winners announced.
Wow, talk about accelerated learning resources! I can’t imagine how much these kids will learn by the time this is all done. And it doesn’t come straight out of an elementary school science textbook or gifted education books…they’re doing and learning. I’ll keep you posted on how it all goes. In the meantime, do your schools do anything like this? I’d love to hear about similar ideas that are happening out there!
I guess it’s not THAT big a sale, but we do have some special pricing on classroom combo packs for our BSCS Science Track and Insights, our elementary school science textbooks and programs. Most classroom packs include a teacher’s guide, some student books, sometimes a lab kit; it varies by program and module. You can find them here: http://www.kendallhunt.com/insights and here: http://www.kendallhunt.com/tracks. Check them out and save some money!
NSTA’s NCSE (National Science Teachers Association’s National Conference on Science Education is getting closer! NSTA events always offer great opportunities for those of us in science text book publishing to share our outstanding inquiry based science programs. The NCSE is no exception. Whether it’s a high school biology textbook, a high school physics textbook, teacher edition textbooks, or any other science resource, we’ll be there ready to share our best work. See you there!
I’m wondering about the differences in public school textbooks versus those used in private and parochial schools. Do most private schools use different elementary school textbooks, or high school science textbooks than the surrounding public schools?
This is something we’re talking about a lot here at Kendall Hunt as we’re expanding our offerings for private and parochial schools. It’s a good point, what’s the added value to paying for private school if the textbooks are the same? Of course I know there are other reasons people send their children to private school: religious considerations, class size, special classes, and many others; but wouldn’t it be an even greater incentive to tell parents, “Yes, we have a curriculum we designed ourselves, around the educational philosophy of our school.
KH has been publishing Pathways, a reading program used in Seventh Day Adventist schools, for several years now, and we will soon be publishing an elementary school science program to accompany it. We’re working on several other exciting projects too, so if you have a chance, take a look at our private & parochial school offerings!
Wow, you want to talk about inquiry based science? Then check out our new Astronomy program,
Starry Night. It's available for the elementary, middle and high school levels, and is completely interactive and inquiry based. Kendall Hunt has just partnered with Starry Night Education to provide schools with greater access to this program in volume license format.
This isn't just any elementary education book or high school physics textbook. In fact, it's not a book at all. It's actually astronomy simulation software that includes more than 25 lessons at each level, extensive teacher resources, hands-on activities, computer exercises, worksheets and assessments, and a DVD with dramatic and realistic astronomical phenomena.
It's a great way for children as young as kindergarten to begin to understand space science, is flexible enough to use as talented and gifted lesson plans, and works as a full astronomy course besides.
Our website has screen shots and sample lessons available, so check it out when you have a chance!
I'm going to be out for a couple weeks now, but others will be staying in touch, so happy holidays to all!
I just returned from the NABT Conference in Denver, Colorado. It is always so inspiring to see educators taking time out of their busy schedules to focus on their own professional development. We enjoyed talking with teachers from around the country at our exhibit booth, as well as in workshops for our
BSCS Biology: A Human Approach and
Forensic Science for High School programs.
It is also fun to cruise the exhibit hall, mingling with other school textbook publishers, and seeing who has merged with whom in this ever-changing world of school textbook publishers! It makes me appreciate working for a stable company like Kendall Hunt, which has been family-owned for more than 60 years, and is still going strong.
But the best part of the conference for me is getting the chance to sit down and talk with teachers who are interested in, or currently using, our secondary school textbooks. Among educational book companies, the word "inquiry" gets thrown around a lot. It is always rewarding to hear directly from teachers that Kendall Hunt truly has the material to back it up. As one teacher from Massachusetts put it, "I know that when you say 'inquiry' you MEAN inquiry!"
This week I get to pack up my elementary school science textbooks too, as I head out for the Colorado Science Conference. It is at the Denver Merchandise Mart November 19-20. Hope to see you there!
I may be showing my age here, but when I was a student in high school, no one thought to ask the question, "What is a textbook?". The definition was fairly straightforward, and all textbooks looked pretty much the same.
Times have changed. I recently attended a webinar hosted by the Texas Education Agency outlining processes and procedures for textbook adoption to school textbook publishers. We were reminded throughout the presentation that the definition of a textbook had been broadened to reach far beyond the traditional printed book. The term
textbook, whether it refers to textbooks for elementary school or secondary school textbooks, can include nearly anything that "conveys information to the student or otherwise contributes to the learning process" (retrieved from
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks).
This leaves the door open for all types of digital media and certainly some formats we haven't even though of yet! How does your school or district define the textbook?
In response to my post To e-Book or Not To e-Book, one of our readers, Marixi, posted a comment (check out the comment
here) wondering whether it's safe for students to be accessing primary school textbooks via the Internet. I explained that most e-books, whether elementary education books, middle school textbooks or other textbooks, are accessed via a secure portal which is often the only thing the child can login to on the school computer.
But I'm wondering, for those of you whose school districts use e-books, do they use them exclusively or is there, a printed version of, say, that high school chemistry textbook, and the e-book is just an option. And is it more common with high school textbooks, or primary school textbooks? And when they do use e-books, are they part of a learning portal? Is that portal proprietary to the school district, or do your school textbook publishers offer access to their portal upon adoption? Wow, lots of things I want to know!
I got to wondering this week, is creating lesson plans based on books for gifted students different than planning for a regular class? What brought this to mind was a discussion with my fourth grader about the work teachers must put into their jobs beyond the classroom. We talked about grading papers, creating parent newsletters, where tests based on, say, elementary school science textbooks come from, and lesson plans.
This then led to a discussion of what lesson plans are and how they come to be. I explained that many primary school textbooks offer guidance in this area, but he wondered how his gifted teacher (note to self: review sentence structure rules...while I feel all his teachers are gifted, I'm referring to the one who teaches the gifted classes) does it when they don't have gifted education books or a curriculum for high ability learners in his school. :-( I told him I was sure she probably uses the Internet for ideas and planning, but I thought I'd ask you all...those of you who do it without a "program" - how do you create your lesson plans for gifted and talented classes? I'd love to know!
Okay, so that’s pretty bad paraphrasing of The Bard, but my point is, what do you think of e-books anyway? Certainly the electronic book reader a certain online book vendor has taken off, but that’s more in the trade book market. I like the idea of going on vacation and taking one little rectangular, electronic thing instead of a stack of books. But what about when it comes to textbooks for elementary school, or high school science textbooks?
My son’s fourth grade math book is available online. They sent home the access instructions this week. Kind of a cool idea, especially with a fourth grader who forgets to close the freezer, feed the dog, and take his shoes upstairs (and that’s just the first five minutes after dinner!). He can forget his book at school, but still get his homework done.
I can see where having your high school chemistry textbook online would be a great option to lugging it home. Is there a certain level for which it works best? Maybe education textbook publishers should be making all elementary education books available in e-book format. Or perhaps it’s more appropriate for high school science textbooks, and middle school math. I don’t know. What do you think?
As many of you know, the review of High School Science Textbooks can be very overwhelming and emotional undertaking. Have you ever considered first looking at the comments from impartial reviewers to narrow down your search?
Washington state is considered one of the leading states in science reform. In May of 2009, 69 reviewers reviewed 85 individual products from 20 educational book companies. The books levels included:
-Elementary school science textbooks
-Middle school science textbooks
-High school science textbooks
Below is a link to the summary:
http://www.sbe.wa.gov/documents/Science%20IMR%20Preliminary%20Report%20with%20Initial%20Recommendations%206-30-09.pdfIt's exciting to see how well many of the Kendall Hunt high school programs did (see Part 2 for a complete listing). Surprisingly, none of the elementary programs submitted met the composite score threshold so none were on the recommended list. Note that Kendall Hunt did not submit our elementary programs.
So as you begin your review, it may be worth your while to check out the WA review.
School started today for my 4th grader. Last night we went to "Back to School Night" so he could meet the teacher, take his supplies and start to get settled in. First thing I went for, being in the science textbook publishing business, was the elementary school science textbook sitting on his desk. Felt like a brand new one too. Love those new books!
Then we stopped by the GATE room where the teacher showed me some of the new accelerated learning resources that she was able to purchase with some stimulus funds, including a few Kendall Hunt items from our
Project M3 program, a math curriculum for high ability learners. She also found some new lesson plans for gifted and talented classes that she's going to try out this year.
Project M3 has some great modules, like "At the Mall with Algebra" that let students use real life experience to learn math. They're not just gifted education books, they're gifted education adventures.
With the new school year approaching more quickly that we think, our PreK-12 group is getting ready for an intensive week of product training next week. Wayne, Jeff, Don and Jodi have had their noses literally “in the books” preparing for the training, so if you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from them for a few days, that’s why.
What they’re learning is all about the new inquiry based science programs we’ll be bringing you this year. And it’s not just elementary school science textbooks or high school science textbooks. In fact it’s not even just inquiry based science products. There’s math, health, fitness and physical education, and a dose of new digital learning products for good measure. Watch this space as we detail some of these exciting new programs in the next few weeks!
In the meantime, if you haven’t had a chance yet, Marla has written an excellent post about inquiry based science. Check it out!
Well, school registration is complete. One week from today, my son will be safely ensconced in his fourth grade classroom surrounded by elementary school textbooks of every subject: reading, math, science, social studies. He’s looking forward to what his gifted teacher has in store this year. The school was able to get a few new books for gifted students along with other accelerated learning resources.
Here at Kendall Hunt, our brand new Distribution Center (it’s huge, and I love it when I have to go down there…it’s the coolest place!) is shipping out books like crazy…by the palletful, actually, just like every other educational publishing company, I suppose.
Soon students around the country will be cracking open a new high school physics textbook, or opening a well-used primary school textbook. Whatever the case, this time of year always feels new, it’s a time of fresh starts, friends to be made, lots to teach and much to learn. To all the teachers out there who are responsible for our children learning, thank you for all you do. To all the students out there, learn everything you can, and have fun while you’re at it!
When looking for talented and gifted resources, it is important to meet the needs of all of your TAG math students. The following article by
M. Katherine Gavin, Ph.D. from Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, Univeristy of CT,
really embraces the issues to consider regarding books for gifted learners. http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/projectm3/meeting%20the%20needs.html
I love what I do.
I love working at an educational publishing company.
I love that we make things that help teachers teach and children learn.
And I love that we still make physical books with covers and pages.
Don’t get me wrong, the digital learning tools, kits and online resources we put out are amazing, and I think they add such an important dimension to our elementary school textbooks, secondary school textbooks and everything in between.
But for book junkies like me, there’s nothing like a book hot off the press, as it were. Opening a new book for the first time is a sensory experience. The first crackles of the adhesive in the spine as I flip open the cover. The feel of the crisp, new pages as I rifle through them, and the smell. Oh, that printing press smell. You’d laugh at us here because we all do it. We get in a new high school science textbook, for example, and the first thing we do is stick our noses in it to get a whiff of the fresh ink on the new paper. And I’d hazard a guess that you’d find employees at any other educational textbook publisher doing the same thing.
This has been a lifelong thing for me. As a child, my mom always wanted me to get books from the library. Okay, fine, I did, and I love the library, but I wanted to own the book, to keep the book, to watch my books line up on my bookshelves like a literary growth chart, showing me where I’d been and where I might be going. My son has inherited this from me. He told me once when I was ranting about the mess in his room, that I could, “get rid of everything but my football, my baseball glove, and my books.” I almost took him up on it. It’s no wonder I ended up at a school textbook publisher, my love of books brought me here. I wonder where his love of books will lead him.
Kendall Hunt Publishing Company (KH) is an educational publishing company with three divisions: Pre-K-12, higher education and Kendall Hunt Professional.
I work in the Pre-K-12 Division. We produce programs for pre-kindergarten as well as textbooks for elementary school, middle school and high school. We work in various disciplines, but concentrate mainly on mathematics, science, gifted education books and custom publishing. We also develop various ancillary materials to go with our textbooks to create solution-based programs.
For this series of discussions, I'll concentrate specifically on the development of a high school science textbook.
Acquisition and Publishing Plan
The initial step for the education textbook publisher is the acquisition of a new product. This would include discussions between the author or curriculum developer and the publishing acquisition editor to determine whether or not it is feasible to go forward with new product. This would include discussions on the physical specifications of the book (size, number of colors, number of pages, etc.) and number of ancillary components (teacher edition textbook, test generator, website, and so on). At KH, the acquisitions editor would work with a project manager to determine a budget. We would also work with marketing and sales personnel to develop a publishing plan. The publishing plan may include review stages and/or field testing. The project manager would also create a schedule for the program.
Step 1a: Development of the Manuscript and Art Package
Once a contract is signed for a project, we begin with manuscript development. The project manager works with the author to ensure the manuscript and art package is being prepared properly. We may have the author work within a template in Word or just directly in Word or a similar word processing program. The art package needs to be kept separate from the Word document. One mistake new authors sometimes make is that they try to make their manuscript "pretty." That's our job! We want our authors to concentrate on the writing and we'll concentrate on the publishing.
The high school science textbook is usually submitted by batches of chapters. The chapters are then run through a safety check to be sure the experiments are safe and to add any cautions or warnings that may be needed. They would also develop a materials list for the kit component of the program.
We would also have the manuscript copy-edited. A copy-editor reads the manuscript and checks grammar, spelling and sentence structure. They may also cross reference the student and teacher editions and any other ancillary components to be sure everything makes sense. They will also watch for consistency in the writing style and may be asked to adjust the sentence structures to lower a a certain reading level, if needed. The terms within the content will also play a role in the reading levels. We would have authors review and approve the copy-edits.
At the same time the manuscript is being developed, we work with designers to create the cover and interior designs. I'll discuss that more in my next submission.
I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, there was no such thing as talented and gifted resources, gifted education books, or, for that matter, talented and gifted education. We had accelerated courses, but those were more about working a grade level ahead, using a high school biology book in 8th grade, or using middle school books in 5th grade, rather than the textbooks for elementary school.
What type of accelerated learning resources is your school using? Do you have a budget for books for gifted students? At my son’s school, the gifted teacher does a wonderful job of creating projects for the children using ideas of her own because she doesn’t have a budget. But I think about how much easier her job would be and how much more robust the program could be if she had a budget to purchase a curriculum for high ability learners.
Have you checked out our gifted and accelerated learning resources lately? Whether it's elementary education books for gifted students or high school science textbooks for accelerated learners, we have something that will meet your needs. One of our partners is the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William & Mary with whom we publish a curriculum for high ability learners that spans the subjects of Language Arts, Science and Social Studies and grades 1-11. Additionally, the program offers teacher resources and lesson plans for gifted and talented. You can find the program 
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