Question for teachers

[RetireJapan]

I'm thinking of writing some textbooks for high school and university students, introducing personal finance in English (kill two birds with one stone, as it were). Two versions of the same content (intermediate for higher level high school and lower level university, and advanced for higher level university).

What would be the ideal structure in terms of number of units, etc? If you are currently teaching at university or high school, how many units would your ideal textbook have (and how many contact hours do you normally have with a class)?

[TJKansai]

I like the idea, and god knows kids need advice. I mix in some personal finance lessons for fun, and they are usually pretty attentive.

A university semester is normally 15 weeks of 90 minutes each.

Shave off 2-3 weeks for intros, presentations and tests, so we need about 12 weeks of material.

A "unit" is tough to measure. Some units last 4 weeks, others are 1 week.

FYI: I am pretty sure public high schools have to follow the prescribed curriculum. Private may have more flexibility. Private unis generally give a lot of freedom in textbook choice, but you need to have a teacher interested in the subject matter.

[RetireJapan]

FYI: I am pretty sure public high schools have to follow the prescribed curriculum. Private may have more flexibility. Private unis generally give a lot of freedom in textbook choice, but you need to have a teacher interested in the subject matter.

Thanks! Yeah, I think there is no chance this will be used in normal public high schools, but there might be some private ones or ones with specialised English courses that might be interested.

[Andy.]

Hi Ben,

Sounds like a great idea. At the university I teach at, we have the option of creating our own CLIL courses to teach to 3rd and 4th year students. This kind of thing would be perfect. Each semester is 15 weeks long, and the contact hours are 90 minutes, twice a week (so 30 lessons total). Depends on how much you are going to pack into each unit, but I'd say about 5 units would be good, spending between 2-3 weeks on each and leaving a bit of time at the end for some kind of final presentation.

Hope that helps,
Andy

[RetireJapan]

Hi Ben,

Sounds like a great idea. At the university I teach at, we have the option of creating our own CLIL courses to teach to 3rd and 4th year students. This kind of thing would be perfect. Each semester is 15 weeks long, and the contact hours are 90 minutes, twice a week (so 30 lessons total). Depends on how much you are going to pack into each unit, but I'd say about 5 units would be good, spending between 2-3 weeks on each and leaving a bit of time at the end for some kind of final presentation.

Hope that helps,
Andy

Thanks! The consensus so far (on other fora) is a preference for around 12 units, with enough supplementary material/activities to stretch it out. I'm also planning to make the units fairly standalone, so teachers can choose which ones to focus on (or maybe can have students choose as a class what they would like to cover).

Very much a dream at the moment, not even a work in progress. It will be largely based on my own 'personal finance in English' class at university for 2nd years (one semester, 15 sessions).

[TJKansai]

In the past there were a long of year-long courses (90min x 30 lessons), but most unis have made most classes semester length.
There are still schools like Andy's though, with a year's content into a semester.

A lot of the major publishers are now offering split editions of their popular titles since they designed to cover a year-long class.

[Kanto]

I wonder if a traditional textbook is the right format for this sort of material.

I would lean towards a teacher-facing subscription website.

Why?

A lot of instructors will be interested in investing-oriented activities. However, few will be able to devote an entire semester to it.

With a website, you could move towards a Freemium model or a Patreon model.

[RetireJapan]

I wonder if a traditional textbook is the right format for this sort of material.

I would lean towards a teacher-facing subscription website.

Why?

A lot of instructors will be interested in investing-oriented activities. However, few will be able to devote an entire semester to it.

With a website, you could move towards a Freemium model or a Patreon model.

Why not both?

Was actually planning to have a website with free downloads, links, advice, etc.

But from a teacher's/school's perspective, having a physical textbook to give students is pretty useful. Not particularly bothered about maximising profit from this one, so going with something similar to RetireJapan seems good to me: give away 90% on the website, have some paid products for people that want convenience/curation.

[Kanto]

I wonder if a traditional textbook is the right format for this sort of material.

I would lean towards a teacher-facing subscription website.

Why?

A lot of instructors will be interested in investing-oriented activities. However, few will be able to devote an entire semester to it.

With a website, you could move towards a Freemium model or a Patreon model.

Why not both?

Was actually planning to have a website with free downloads, links, advice, etc.

But from a teacher's/school's perspective, having a physical textbook to give students is pretty useful. Not particularly bothered about maximising profit from this one, so going with something similar to RetireJapan seems good to me: give away 90% on the website, have some paid products for people that want convenience/curation.

Why not both? Because students bear the cost of textbooks. I prefer to avoid them whenever possible.

Instead, for the same price, my students can get a yearly subscription to X-reading, or something with much more utility.

[RetireJapan]

Why not both? Because students bear the cost of textbooks. I prefer to avoid them whenever possible.

Instead, for the same price, my students can get a yearly subscription to X-reading, or something with much more utility.

I meant the project will include both textbooks and free resources for teachers that can't/won't adopt a textbook.