Ever hear of Schaum's Outlines?
Have they gone the way of the dodo? Why did Barron's replace them--were they bought out, or is it name recognition?
I made it through college because of Schaum's Outlines. They just had problem after problem after problem, plus all solutions, so you could just do the problems over and over and over until you got it.
Friends of mine from S. Korea and India say all of their math and science college courses were taught with Schaum's as the textbooks.
If I'm remembering correctly, Allison went to Cal Tech. (Is that right?)
update: wrong
Allison attended MIT.
I'm becoming a loyal customer of Schaum's today.
Schaum's Outline series are great, but they are mainly for college students or higher level classes. You might want to consider going to the higher education division online for any major publisher and looking at their offerings for developmental or basic math classes. Fundamentals of mathematics for K-8, Elementary Algebra or Fundamentals of Algebra for Algebra 1, Intermediate Algebra for Algebra 2. Some even offer a combination of the two. Don't worry about the publication year. Math is math; algebra is algebra. You can usually get the books cheaper on Amazon or any of the used textbook sites, including teacher editions, for earlier years. If you need recommendations, I would be happy to email you with recommendations based on what I have used.
ReplyDeletetheir offerings for developmental or basic math classes
ReplyDeleteright - I'd been planning to get around to writing a post about this
homeschoolers seem to like Margaret Liall's (sp) books & I think Anne D said her community college uses Bittinger's
Speaking of Bittinger's, the publisher has zillions of worksheets w/answers posted free online
will get around to posting those URLs, too
Yes!
ReplyDeletePlease!
email me: cijohn @ verizon.net
THANKS!
I was an undergrad at MIT, not Caltech.
ReplyDeleteThere *were* mostly college level, and they were mostly engineering and science for a time, but they had high school level math texts, science texts, and I even found history and literature ones on occasion, really narrow ones in philosophy too, etc. An odd assortment, but almost all were really up to high standards for clarity and worked examples.
You're absolutely right, Allison. Once I started searching I did find some really good high school level ones. I used the Schaum Outlines as a student also. THey were lifesavers. --Thanks for the tip.
ReplyDeleteHave you checked out this link?
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
There's a newer high school section:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm
It's mostly AP for now, but it will be growing.
Allison - I corrected the school (sorry!)
ReplyDelete(I'm trying to think how I came up with Cal Tech. Didn't you once mention Cal Tech in some context?)
Hypatia - thanks for the reminder. Now I'm wondering whether I've posted links to the MIT AP section...
I've bookmarked your comment, so it's on the list.
Absolutely, Schaum's has high school-level books.
I'm very grateful to get your recommendation.
Of course I've been cruising the Schaum's books forever, but I've had no way to assess their value.
Not sure why I've come to the conclusion that the Barron's books are good....but they do seem to be. Barron's seems to have especially useful books for NY Regents courses. (At least judging by their two for Earth Science.)
I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts, however.
The last time I looked, most of the hs opencourseware that MIT offers is just random "summer" courses that MIT folks teach at various summer programs to encourage students, usually minorities, to come to MIT, and to help fill in the gaps they've got in their education. they aren't really vetted. The material is still useful, but it's not as if it's been used in a real classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe AP course materials may be different. Of course, that's ironic, since MIT isn't big on AP courses. They offer almost no college credits to those who take AP courses in math or physics. They may count the bio one against the recent bio requirement, but they don't count the others. Generally, APs only counted for some humanities/liberal arts requirements, and even then, few.
I've been a long-time reader and very very occasional poster on KTM. In the last month, I decided to go back to graduate school in engineering, 18 years after graduating from law school and 22 years after my last math or science class.
ReplyDeleteThe head of the math department at the university I'll be attending suggested that I start my prep work with Schaum's College Algebra. So, I can tell you that these books are well regarded, at least in some circles.
wow!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for letting us know.
If you have time, keep us posted on your experience in grad school. I've been contemplating taking math courses once I get through the h.s. curriculum, so I'd love to hear how you fare - and get any advice you have to offer.
Does anyone have an opinion of Schaum's "Easy Outline" series?
ReplyDeleteoh, wait
ReplyDeletelooks like these are the same books with different covers