Education Division Webinar: Zybooks Interactive Textbook for Material and Energy Balances

Interactive textbooks provide instant feedback to students as well as instructors. In this webinar, features of an interactive textbook from zyBooks (zybooks.com) for a material and energy balance course were detailed, including scaffolded question sets, animations, homework problems, and challenge activities. Challenge activities are a type of online homework integrated into sections of the book, which provide personalized and randomized questions for a completion grade and additional practice. Quantitative student usage is also covered. Recent findings showed student reading/participation averaged 87% over the entire book for an entire semester, which exceeds reading data presented in the literature. Final course grades correlated with average textbook reading scores. Additionally, statistically significant higher textbook reading scores were observed for students earning A and B final course grades compared to C, D, and F final grades as well as female students compared to male students.

Agenda:

1. Creating a 21^st century textbook combines technology, active learning, and strengths of a traditional paper text.
2. Interactive features are detailed including question sets, animations, and challenge activities.
3. Quantitative reading data are presented in context with archival data.

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Zybooks: Material and Energy Balances