Re: alternatives to Halliday?

[Larry Smith <Larry.Smith@SNOW.EDU>]

At 6:56 AM -0500 2/15/00, John Gastineau wrote:

> You might look at Serway, which is now Serway and Beichner. This is sort of a
> stealth-reform book, as it is a mainstream book that has been edited by a
> member of the PER community, Bob Beichner of North Carolina State University
> (disclaimer--I used to teach with him there).
>
> This new edition has suggestions for quick activities, references to relevant
> PER literature in the instructor's edition, additional in-class quizzes, and
> it also discusses common misconceptions in the instructor's version.

I'm willing to endorse Serway and Beichner.  John's summary is quite
accurate.  We used Serway 4e last year and switched to 5e (with the
addition of Beichner) this year.  I have only two complaints about it: 1)
not everything was ready in time (but that will be solved if you adopt for
next fall), and 2) the spreadsheet problems disappeared from the 4e (I
really want them back, or the templates and text of the problems posted on
the web site, but Bob has heard me complain about that before).

Besides those two complaints, I have lots of good to say about it.  As was
mentioned, it already was a mainstream text (and well-accepted), and Bob
has injected a lot of PER and a fresh pedagogical approach in the 5e.  I
like the Quick Quizzes, for example.  If you are looking for evolution to
PER-based stuff, rather than revolution, take a good look at Serway and
Beichner.

Larry

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