Reviews of SD teaching texts

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Joel Rahn
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

Reviews of SD teaching texts

Post by Joel Rahn »

This announcement is addressed to all who are using one or more
published texts to teach System Dynamics.
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The field of System Dynamics has seen the publication recently of new
texts joining a handful of classics for use in teaching SD to students
at different levels of age and experience. It is appropriate for the
System Dynamics Review to present evaluations of these works to aid
teachers in their choice of text, and to encourage the revision,
improvement and creation of teaching texts in SD.

As Announcements & Reviews editor of the SD Review, I am seeking
contributions to a series of book reviews of such teaching texts.

Given the nature of teaching texts that often include a very wide range
of theory, practice, exercises and examples, some ground rules for these
special book reviews will be useful. I suggest the following
considerations when preparing such a review.

-a review should deal with a text that is currently in print in English.
I encourage national chapters to develop reviews of teaching materials
for their national audiences.

-the review should be based on your experience with using the text to
support teaching activities in a classroom, over the internet, by
correspondence course, etc.

-the review should present a balanced appraisal of the contribution the
text made to the teaching activities, both strengths and weaknesses.
Examples of student reactions and receptiveness to different parts of
the text would be useful.

-a review need not deal with every topic, subject or chapter in the text
if the unused material was outside the scope of the course or of the
interest of the teacher or students. It is expected that in some cases a
number of reviews will be combined to present a more complete
evalutation of a text. Credit will be given to the original contributors
to such a comprehensive review.

-a review may be prepared by a group of teachers who are using the text.
All reviewers should submit a brief c.v. indicating their experience in
teaching in general and in teaching SD and, where appropriate, their
experience in teaching or research in a subject area relevant to the use
of the SD text, e.g., management, biology, economics, physical science,
engineering, public policy, etc.

In general, these reviews should strive to be useful to teachers who are
potential adopters of the text.

Since this process is just getting under way with this announcement, I
look forward to reactions from members of the SD community. If there are
additions or modifications to the above principles, please reply to this
list or see me at the Conference in Palermo.

R. Joel Rahn
joel.rahn@fsa.ulaval.ca
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