Teaching Books

I just finished my first semester of French and we used this book for the course. The book was pretty well organized with a grammar and vocabulary summary at the end of each chapter. I found the grammar explanations pretty easy to understand and the exercises were helpful. The instructor for the course followed the book for the most part with some minor changes to ordering and some supplemental handouts. After learning the grammar and vocabulary in class it was pretty easy to use the book to locate specific areas for review.

Overall I found this book very good as a course textbook. But I'm not sure how good it is for self study.

It is a very good choice for those who want to learn French.

It is a very good choice for those who want to learn French.

I had to buy this book for class and I really, really don't like it. It is confusing in the way that it is organized. The professer for my 102 class hated it as well. He said that it left out a lot of critical information and confuses the reader. I agree. I find I learn a lot better with a couple vocabulary books and a grammar book.

I set out to learn some French on my own and I picked this book up because the publisher Heinle produces some fine language learning materials. This book,however, was not a good choice. The book strives to be innovative but ends up being a confusing mess. It starts out with French but no corresponding English translation. The reader must flip to the back of the chapter to get this information. I have seen some other French texts with this same approach. If I could start out reading French I would hardly need to take a course or buy a textbook in the first place. This book seems to be afraid of grammar. There are no grammar summaries that can be useful in studying the language.

I also don't like the modern viewpoint on langauge learning because "grammar" seems to be a dirty word. When a new text comes out in the preface it will almost surely say "the grammar has been streamlined in the new edition". If grammar gets anymore streamlined in some texts it will be nonexistent. Adult learners need grammar and a logically laid out text,and not this poor excuse for a text !! To get a solid foundation in any langauge you need to get as much grammar as you can get.

I used this book with my son last year in third grade. I liked the way the writing assignments were broken into manageable chunks. This helped my son to visualize how long a writing assignment might take. It makes the whole "write a story about..." assignment much less overwhelming. My only complaint is that the book is heavy (in my opinion) on writing stories, which is not the type of writing that my son enjoys doing, though he did turn out some pretty good yarns.

I agree with the earlier homeschooling moms , this is a fun easy to use program. My reluctant 12 year old just finished book 3 (it took 2 years as we spread it out to his pace)and now he has written his own mini adventure series. The wrkbk is geared toward the child, it encourages independance and works in very small steps (strands) toward a goal. This made it much easier for my son who will begin book 4 and my DD begins book 2 this fall.
Have fun learning!!

I am a home schooling mom and I am really enjoying using this
book. My son is in 4th grade this year and the best part is...
he can read it himself and do the assignments. The book is written to the student. It is serious and yet the author makes it very personnel to the student. I have not done a lot in it yet. My son seems to like it and is learning. THat's What I want. I recommend you buy Evaluating Writing to go with it. It's
like the teachers manual in evaluating your child's writing unless you already are good in English yourself.

Starting homeschooling this year, I was daunted by the choices of curriculum. Our son (3rd grade) has never enjoyed writing and didn't do much of it in traditional school.

We both like this curriculum. The author "speaks" directly to the student and is quite funny, so it makes writing fun. We're only a few months into homeschooling, but my son is quite proud of everything he's written so far.

I know the author discourages the use of exclamation points, but this book series deserves one. We only homeschooled for one year but I still bought all the books with the intent to use them to improve my own writing skills. They are that good. I highly recommend them for both homeschool and self-improvement.

First off i would like to say that that is nuts that their is a video option to leave a review. Technology has come far in such a short time. None-the-less, i ordered this book because i didn't feel like paying $140.00 US dollars for it at the college. Even that in actual value those $140.00 paper bills are only worth about $1.40 Us but its ok. the book is aight. It is like most other spanish books in which i have looked at. I think it's also well laidout and is very comprehendable for just about everyone. I would recomend it to anyone wanting to learn some espanol. Also if anyone would like to take it off my hands en la media de mayo (in may) email me. Adios amigos.

I deeply encourage you to learn about the multiple intelligences. Gardeners concepts are shared by teachers, educators, naturalists, facilitators and business owners worldwide and profoundly impactful. The implications of his work, and that of Project Zero deserve the highest honors.

Gardner is a witty author with strikingly brilliant mind and admirable reverence toward the human divinity. In his book, Gardner manifests the notion of intelligence, as a bio-psychological potential, a computational capacity and a mental chemistry set and subsequently sheds lights on the commonly misconceived concept of intelligence as a one-dimensional human potential, characterized by the g or IQ metrics.

With his eloquent style, Gardner articulates the social, educational and psychological impacts of the multiple-intelligence theory rendering speculation on how intelligence shows its multifaceted attributes in various forms such as Mathematical-Logical, Kinesthetic, Musical, IntEr-personal, IntrA-personal, Linguistic, Spatial, Naturalistic and Existentialist abilities.

Upon reading the book, I found some interesting answers to my life-long inquiries regarding to the intelligence such as;

1. Why individuals with strong abilities in certain areas of mathematics, such as algebra or probability theory do not necessarily indicate strengths in other areas of mathematical sciences such as geometry or topology?

2. How the society can take advantage of the MI theory to bridge between the ethical values and individuals' capacities.

3. How a creative educator can achieve the "understanding" by exercising various avenues, such as foundational, quantitative, aesthetic, logical and existential methods to stir and incite the human intellect.

Gardner makes no effort to back up his hypothesis through psychometric experiments and I believe he has done this deliberately. More specifically, he believes any effort to benchmark the performances of individuals against these metrics would create a new version of human labeling, a concept that he certainly refrains to delve and investigate. Instead of putting effort in benchmarking these abilities in human minds, he believes efforts need to be made to identify, enhance and exercise the abilities that help the individuals to thrive in the areas that they have been blessed with, irrespective of society norms.


Chapter 1 of the book contains the highlights of his theory and covers various forms of intelligence. The introduction of the existential intelligence as a form of computational capacity is rather unpersuasive, knowing the fact that it is defined as an attribute (intelligence of big questions) and not as a mental ability. Favorite quote of this chapter;
"Having strong intelligence does not mean that one necessarily acts intelligently".

Chapter 2 of the book covers the semantics of the intelligence. An interesting topic in this chapter is the profile of the intelligence in which Gardner discusses how the intensity, diversity and locality of these potentials in an individual can result in spot-light or laser characteristics.

Chapter 3 provides a chronologic view of intelligence. Gardner tries to provide a simplified and standardized conception of the intelligence development across the life span of a human being. He also discusses the framework for the analysis and examination of the human intellect. This chapter is quite dry and lacks ardor. In my opinion, putting framework around something that has no boundary is rather counterintuitive.

Chapter 4 is the prelude of the educational impact of the intelligence. The very interesting topic in this section is the subject of "Multiple Representation of the Key Concepts". Resorting to the notion of multiple-intelligences, Gardner believes that there are numerous ways that an educator can approach a topic in pursuit of understanding. This methodology also helps students to think about a problem in a variety of ways, triggering the thought process in the most diverse form.

Chapter 5 is a pool of questions that individuals have asked Gardner regarding to his theories. Of special interest in this section is the topic of memory and its different faculties such as procedural memory, propositional memory, semantic memory, short and long-term memories. I believe this topic deserved more elaboration, or at minimum more references.
Favorite quote from this chapter:
"I often encounter the greatest resistance to this perspective when I speak to mathematicians or logicians. To these individuals, thinking is critical thinking, wherever you encounter it; if one knows how to be logical, one should be able to apply logic everywhere (And if you don't, life is hopeless !)".

Chapters 6 to 10 have heavy weights toward education. Of special interest is the chapter 8 and the topic on multiple entry point toward disciplinary understanding.
Gardner discusses how an informed educator can use various entry points, such as narrational, logical, quantitative, foundational, aesthetic, experimental and collaborative methods in approaching the topic. The examples given in this section are extremely valuable for all educators.

As you progress toward the end chapters, the modality of manuscript transitions toward ethics. To some extent, the progression of the thought process in this book is analogous to Gardner's perspective toward the subject; in his early life his motivation toward intelligence was mainly driven and influenced by cognitive sciences and psychometric studies, whereas his recent research and interest have roots in social impacts, ethics and humanity.

In summary, this book is an instant classic on the topic of multiple-intelligences, a must have book for the fireside at home.

Howard Gardner summarizes his mulitple intelligences theory first introduced in his 1983 book Frames of Mind. Gardner introduces a provisional acceptance of a ninth intelligence (Existential Intelligence--pondering deep, life questions) to add to the eight intelligences already established. Gardner updates his theory's relevance to education and to other arenas in society.

It was in 1983 that Howard Gardner first decided to challenge the established view of a monolithic intelligence with the book Frames of Mind. In that book, Gardner posited that there are (at least) seven relatively seperate and autonomous intelligences. And 25 years later, this theory is still setting the education world ablaze.

The discipline of psychology, however, has been a bit less enthusiastic. They, much more than educators, demand hard evidence in order for a theory claiming to be scientific is accepted as such. Is Garnder's theory testable? If so, has it undergone such testing? Can these intelligences (including 'musical' and 'naturalistic') be measured by objective standards? If not, is it an adequate substitute to the reigning model of 'general intelligence' which, with all its flaws, IS measurable in such a way?

In this book, Gardner sets out to expand upon his 25 year old theory and, in so doing, answer some of the preceeding questions. Some will be disappointed and some will be encouraged by his answers.

The first section of the book devotes itself largely to questions of MI Theory's methodological standing.

Several chapters - particularly towards the beginning of the book - seek to answer objections to MI theory. As to the question of whether the theory can be called scientific, Gardner reluctantly answers a "no." He writes MI theory "intermediary status" between a philosophy and a predictive science. He suggests, though, that it can be put in a similar category with plate tectonics and evolution, in the sense that neither theory is a predictive sceince in a falsifiable sense (which is mistaken, as both are tested by retrodictions and, in evolution's case, also by predictions). Further, Gardner admits that designing assessments for these intelligences has proved to be more than challenging and that he has given up the search for ways to assess them.

There is, though, a chapter devoted to detailing a promising new study put together by Project Spectrum, to test elementary schoolers on these seperate intelligences. They were tested (a) to see if the intelligences are interrelated or autonomous by investigating whether high scores in any one area correlate with high scores in any other. The reports are that the intelligences are, by in large, seperate - as Gardner predicted they would be. They also tested to see whether the student's strengths on the tests were echoed by parent and teacher reports gotten independently. (There was correlation, but not so much as to be conclusive).

The section that will be most useful to my fellow educators, however, will be the second section. For roughly 80 pages, Gardner expounds on his theory and its possible uses in the field of education.

Gardner is quite famous for his 'value free' stance here. He suggests that there are many, many uses for MI theory in education. He tries both in this book and elsewuere to refrain from too much prescription, acknowledging that educators probably know better than he how to apply the work of a cognitive psychologist to schools.

However, he is passionate about two things educationally in this book. First, he is very displeased at the 'high stakes testing' mentality that has been developed of late. Like the concept of 'general intelligence,' Gardner sees this as being a very 'one-size-fits-all' way of assessing, and probably mis-assessing, knowledge.

Gardner is also very passionate about making sure that we see the 'ends' of schooling as pluralistic. Consistent with the idea of Multiple Intelligences, we must strike a balance between making sure that everyone recieve a common education and making sure that everyone is able to pursue their own strengths, interests, and proclivities to the extent possible.

It is hard to disagree with much that Gardner says, particularly in this and the next section (where he takes a look at MI theory's applicability betyond education). Even as one who is a bit skeptical of whether MI theory can ever be a scientific one (and whether there might be bettter models of Intelligence, like that of Robert Sternberg), it is difficult not to come away with much admiration for Gardner. He obviously cares about education and comes to his conclusions out of balanced and rigorous thought.

This should be read by educators and those interested in the psychology of intelligence alike.

This book is critical to students who study social scientific methods, especially experimental methods.

not totally worth the cost of the book,but useful i guess.

The books is good for whom has some knowledge in experimental design. The book not have examples is very theorical.

A very concise book that gives an elegant treatment of experimental research. The text is from the 1960s, but the principles are timeless. The experiments might be in a wide range of fields; including anything in the social sciences.

The amount of statistics needed to follow the authors is minimal. Though in practise, with your actual experiments, you might need more statistical analysis. The book concentrates not on the mathematical details, but more on the overarching philosophy behind what you are trying to find or test. The intent is to design an experiment that is as simple as possible, and which can prove or disprove a focused hypothesis.

Puts to rest the notion that simple case studies really "prove" anything, and helps students confront differences between trying to undermine one's cherished hypotheses and simply marshaling evidence on behalf of a point of view. This book is elegantly written, though a bit pricey. Still, I've yet to find a better quick overview -- though other authors have certainly tried. A classic.

In Search of Understanding is the most logical, and effective paradigm in education. It helped me clarify and understand my own thinking and also changed how I see the education process for my students. If you need iron-grip control of your classroom at all times, this book is not for you. If you are ready open your mind, your classroom, and your students to new possibilities, this is a step in the right direction.

I first read the 1993 edition in 1993, and I was sold on it. There is no more clear nor concise book on constructivist instructional design in the business. The book is practical and can be read quickly. It doesn't get bogged down in too much jargon or theory. I object to one critic who claims the book is "ivory tower" and leans to much on science and math examples. The book is just the opposite from "ivory tower" and as for math and science examples, as a science teacher who spent years reading theory pitched toward humanities teachers that I had to adapt to my realm, I found this book refreshing. I would counter that creative,constructivist, dedicated teachers of English, World Languages, and Social Sciences would be able to adapt the Brookses's examples to their fields with ease.

The author's case for constructivism is predicated on unrealistic notions not only concerning the realities of education, but also the fundamentals of social diversity. The book seems to take the view that the more radical a notion is the more bookworthy it becomes. This concept is promoted by outlandish recommendations that clearly could not be practically implemented ... or even reasonable to consider. The author does not provide empirical evidence to support his opinion. The author seems to rely on a self-aggrandizing style to entrap other educators who may embrace his liberal ideas more as a defense against being labeled the traditionalist villian in this fictional work. Any educator who embraces this book has a parallax view of the classroom ... one that is upside down and inside out. In that case, the problem is not the classroom, but the teacher.

The authors in this text present a clear and organized overview of constructivist learning that is accessible to the beginner interested in the topic. The text is geared toward primary education, but I have been able to implement modified constructivist techniques presented in the text in my college courses. Constructivism is valuable for any learner.

I am disturbed at the negative comments regarding this book. I would not suggest that the book is above critisim, but the current retoric outlined in other reviews is without intellectual substance and is demeaning to many learners. As a student in primary and secondary education I struggled in with traditional educational methods. (I also see the same traditional methods being inflicted on my children.... education is slow if not impossible to change!) Not until I reached college and entered design and architectural education did I realize that different methods of instruction could be used effectively. For those who look down on constructivist methodology they are also disregarding the excellent educational practices in disciplines such as architecture, music, theater, design, art, and other forms of learning that require students to make judgments and create tangible proposals that impact the quality of society. Many would like you to think that constructivism is a radical and "new" educational method. But actually it has been part of our learning process in many disciplines long before the educational community formally recognized the theory.

Without dedicated professors that mostly unknowingly implemented constructivist methods in undergraduate and graduate education I would have never made my way though architectural school and become a design professor. I use this book in my design studio when I have my students create architectural proposals for schools of the future. It is interesting to hear the rhetoric of protecting traditional educational methods that I have had to un-teach on the college level. The most common comment I receive from my college students when they read this book is "Why did I not get learn this way?"

The authors are to be commended on creating a text that is accessible and usable to diverse disciplines.

Do you teach in a classroom in which there are no behavior problems. Where students sit at there desks with arms folded and smiles on their faces, eager to jump at the challenge you are about to put before them? No? This book assumes you do. Not only is this book an excersize in Utopia, it is very liberal by design. Several times, known communists are quoted and their ideas taken as gospel. Do you want our children being taught by a teacher following a socialist agenda? Do you want to teach your classroom in this manner? Then do not follow this book. The book is peppered with a few good ideas, but I have a problem with the message delivered. Comments such as "truth is often a matter of interpetation", and "grades are used to communicate that some students are smarter than others" are liberal ideas communicated throughout this book. If you want to improve your teaching by using research based instructional strategies, there are many pieces available that address this without being so radical.

There are 19 different social skills lessons with blackline masters. The skills are taught in a variety of formats including direct teaching, discussion, hands-on activities, role-play, puppet play, games, poems and stories, visual aids, and songs. I love to use literature when I can, and this book referenced many picture books for each social skill! It's a fabulous find-I only wish I'd had it sooner!

I thought this was a good tool for use with ALL kids grades K-1, and the activities seemed fun. I was disappointed that it wasn't more clear that it was for such young classes. This isn't going to solve major problems, but it would certainly work to prevent some!

This is a good resource. I had to modify many of the activies due to the nature of my urban setting. It sparked ideas for other activities that were more suited to my setting.

This book offers direct lessons with worksheets, group activities, games, and book suggestions all to match each skill being taught in the lesson. It is a great component to any social skills class/group. I am using it for 2nd graders, so the preschool focus may be true for general education students, but for students with social needs, this is appropriate for older kids. Enjoy.

This book has worked well with a small group of 8 CC children. If you need to do pre and post tests for acountability, there is a GREAT face scale that can easily be colored for pre-writers. Activities are well laid out and most are kept to a page, so you don't have to flip back and forth. I am very glad to found this book, I can tell already that it is going to get a lot of use. The pre post test alone is worth the cost of the book!

This book has a unique way of presenting the information full of informative tables and figures. I really liked it because it gives a new dimension for the ID. Although, it is my second book I have read about this filed, I am feeling confident of my understanding of it.

This is my college textbook and I hate it. I find that I have to take notes to make sense of the text. Sometimes I find that I have to back track in my notes & add content that seems misplaced in order.

I have other books I like better.

Carol P., Doctoral Student

This book was the text for a graduate-level instructional design course at my university. It was written in a "chatty" way for people who had never done instructional design before, explaining things ad nauseum. Unfortunately, most of us had at least some design experience, forcing us to wade through a lot of non-value-adding reading.

Interestingly, Amazon has wisely paired this book with "A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment" in its recommendations. The authors were particulary weak on Needs Assessment. Our class was lost on this topic, and most of us turned to outside sources. Actually, most of the outside sources (all available on the Internet for free) were more useful than the book.

Also, the authors wrote something to the effect of, "We're not particularly into the concept of 'learning styles,' so we're not going to address it." I thought that was pretty arrogant.

There is some good information in the book, but you have dig to find it and do some thinking to apply it. I also had to condense my reading into something like a "Spark Chart" to I could retrieve important information quickly without wading through all the text.

Meanwhile, I've been reading reviews in Amazon to try to find a "real" instructional design book to buy...

I have used this text in several editions, both as a reference in my work as an Instructional Developer and as a one of several suggested ID texts I've used in teaching this subject.

It is one of the most comprehensive basic texts for the entire ID process, providing information not available in other more simplified texts. For this reason, you do not tend to read it as you would a novel. You read it in sections, to learn and apply, and you return to it later to validate your work and learn more.

One of its biggest benefits is that it presents situations and examples that can easily be applied to training in the "real world" of work, that is, in on-the-job training. It is not solely oriented toward K-12 and above educators, although it does have applicable examples for this area too.

As an ID practitioner and instructor for many, many years, I recommend this book as a basic and reference text for anyone truly interested in learning and using Instructional Design.

I have had to read this text for a doctoral level curriculum class. Frankly, it is a very dry, uninteresting presentation of curriculum theory and models. This is a serious flaw, considering this is a textbook designed to instruct learners how to design effective and stimulating curriculum. In addition, the authors do not seem to understand their audience. They appear to be directing their instruction toward business, industry and technology. However, there is an occasional reference toward educators, hardly recognizing that curriculum instruction is directly related to context of area concentration. The shifting back and forth between learning theories and characteristics in list format is distracting. A good text should act as a tool for guidance. This one totally misses the mark.

Mastering all the contents of this book would guarantee you a 5, but is not always an easy thing to do. I bought this book 2 weeks before the test and found it extremely difficult to cram all of its contents (I have 100 in AP Chem)in such a short period of time. It was even more upsetting when the AP came out to be not even half as difficult.
If you have a solid background of AP Chemistry and just need a review book that is concise with a lot of good practices, I would recommend Princeton Review. ( Trust me, Princeton Review is more than enough to get you a 5. Don't get yourself panic by buying this overly-complicated book)

Overall, this review book is undoubtedly the best out there, for it is much more in depth than Princeton Review. Like every review book, however, it does contain its occasional errors such as stating 25 degrees Celsius is 300 Kelvin. As long as you're somewhat knowledgeable about chemistry topics, these errors can be overlooked. Regarding the practice tests, they seem to be much more difficult than the actual AP exam; it's probably best to just use past exams provided to you by your teacher. Nonetheless, if you're in need of a review before a test or a cram session before the AP exam, this book is certainly recommended.

I like the Barron's Chemistry because it is extremely thorough, almost like a textbook in its approach. The multiple choice questions are a lot harder than those that you will find in some other reviews, and hard is good. I actually taught review classes from this book, and found that it was remarkably complete.
Caveat, there are a few errors here and there, but if you know what you are doing, you will catch them immediately. I have not seen a book that did not have a wrong answer or typo somewhere in it.
My suggestion is to use Barron's through the year, then pair it with a quicker thinner review book at the end, because this book is not a "quick brush up" kind of a book. And yes, do questions from old exams, free response questions, and lots of them.
The Chemistry AP is very hard. You simply cannot be "overprepared."

there are so many mistakes
that it's not even funny.
i spent more time figuring out what's wrong in my calculation
(and found out that the book is wrong)
than actually studying for AP chem exam.
The review is too much into details that it looks like a chem text book,
not AP exam guide book.

The review in this book is pretty good. That's why I like it. But the practice tests have to be taken with a grain of salt. Many of the questions on there are just ridiculous. 2-dimensional diagrams of pi bonds: probably not on the test (especially the rather crudely drawn ones presented here). And the math is not representative of the AP Chemistry test. On the real test, you are not expected to do complex logarithms and square roots in your head. And, as mentioned earlier, the answer key is riddled with mistakes. These include answers to the wrong question, thinking the question was the opposite of what was asked, and answers that just don't match up with calculations. Also, their explanations are short at best.