Who uses our books
In the last 3 years, more than 800 universities, colleges, community colleges, technical institutes, proprietary schools, and high schools have adopted our books. Here are a few:
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This is our site for college instructors. To buy Murach books, please visit our retail site.
This is our site for college instructors. Please use it to review our books and courseware for possible adoption.
Our students always give feedback on their end-of-course evaluations that Murach textbooks are so well organized and easy to follow, with plenty of code examples, figures, and instructions. They all love Murach’s.”
In the last 3 years, more than 800 universities, colleges, community colleges, technical institutes, proprietary schools, and high schools have adopted our books. Here are a few:
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About 15 years ago, we realized that there was something patently wrong with all textbooks, including ours. The problem was that students had to dig out the skill-building information that they needed from pages heavy with text. Then, to review or use that information, they had to dig it out again. That’s when we developed a new presentation method that we now call paired pages.
With this presentation method, all of the subject matter is broken down into manageable chunks, or topics, that can be presented in a two-page spread. In each spread, the right page is a figure that contains the critical syntax, examples, and bulleted guidelines; the left page is text that gives perspective and extra explanation.
One benefit of this format is that it lets students learn faster because they don’t have to read as much. To test that, just compare a topic in one of our books with the same topic in a competing book. You may be surprised at how efficient our treatment is.
The beauty of this format is that it makes it easier for your students to review what they’ve learned; all the details are right there, on the righthand page. That helps them prepare for tests, of course. But it also helps them do the exercises and projects more efficiently because they can easily refresh their memories. And that really helps them learn faster.
One instructor put it this way: “My students really love the format of your books. They like learning about a new skill set on the left-hand page and then immediately being able to put it into action on the right-hand side of the page They feel this type of learning helps them really reinforce the new concepts immediately.”
Another benefit of our “paired pages” is that they are the ideal reference format. That helps students work faster and better in lab because they can quickly review how to do something by going to the right-hand page that presents it.
Contrast that with the traditional textbook in which the critical skills are buried in the text. Or, worse, the needed information is buried in a tedious, step-by-step procedure that presents new information that isn’t in the text!
The exercises for our books give students a chance to get valuable, hands-on experience without wasting any time. That’s because we provide the starting code. That way, the students don’t have to enter the routine code that they already know (that is, the code that any professional is going to copy from an existing application or template).
In the early chapters, our exercises guide the students through the application of what they’ve just learned. Later, they challenge the students to apply what they’ve learned in new ways. But always, our exercises force the students to practice the skills that they need to build real-world applications. As we see it, that’s the only activity that helps students achieve the most important objectives of a course.
Beyond that, our exercises never introduce skills that weren’t already presented in the chapter. As a result, students don’t get confused by trying to apply skills they haven’t yet been taught. And they won’t have to search through the exercises later on, to find where the information they need is buried.
All of the books that we sell are not only used for college courses but also by corporate trainers and by IT professionals who use our books for self-instruction. That’s testimony to the fact that our books actually teach the skills that are needed on the job.
That in turn keeps a course interesting and helps motivate students. As one student described it:
“Murach books are great. I began programming in college using other books; however, I didn’t learn much except to finish work and pass exams. When I started using Murach books, my desire to become a real software engineer went up.”
That means that more students buy the print editions of our books so they get the maximum benefit from our books. Instructors also tell us that many of their students keep our books after the course is over because they know our books will be valuable references on the job.
We frequently get emails from instructors like these:
“My students are learning more than they did with the previous book.”
“Several students have asked that we use Murach books for all our courses.”
“My students and I just ‘love’ your books.”
“I was concerned about changing texts initially, but the student feedback on your texts has been amazing. I have had students buy these textbooks who had previously not bought a textbook since first year.”
If you’ve read “Why students learn more from Murach books,” you’ve seen some of the reasons for reactions like these. But briefly, our books present their subjects in a way that gets students doing productive work right away, delivers real-world skills, and gives them confidence that they know what they’re doing.
When you review the instructor’s materials for one of our books, you’ll see that they provide everything you need for a turnkey course. That includes:
In short, our instructor’s materials make it easy to switch from the book you’re using to our book. You just select the instructional components that you want to use, and you’re on your way.
The end-of-chapter activities in our books include exercises that force the students to apply what they’ve learned in different contexts. The student download for the book includes the partial applications that the exercises start from. It also includes the solutions to the exercises. That way, the students won’t be frustrated and delayed by the trivial mistakes that are common to novices.
In contrast, the instructor’s materials include extra exercises and projects, and only the instructor gets their solutions. These extra exercises are similar to those in the book, but they provide less guidance and some are more challenging.
As a result, our extra exercises and projects can be used to give the students more practice. But they can also be used to test whether the students have mastered the critical skills of a course. And that, of course, is the only true test of a student’s competence.
Unfortunately, many programming textbooks today are so “dumbed down” that they don’t present the skills that are needed on the job. The other extreme is books that are concept heavy, but application light...often with toy applications used for examples.
In contrast, the content for each of our books is selected based on an analysis of the skills needed on the job. To that we add the concepts and theories that underlie those skills. Then, we illustrate the concepts, theories, and skills with complete, real-world applications.
The obvious benefit of this approach is that your students learn useful skills. The less obvious benefit is that it motivates your students because they always see the relationships between the concepts and the real-world applications.
In contrast to other books, ours are designed and developed by a small group of writers and editors. As a result, we can and do coordinate the structure and contents of our books so they work together in a curriculum.
This means that you won’t get unnecessary duplication in two or more of our books. This also means that you can be sure that one of our beginning books really does provide all of the prerequisites for one of our advanced books. For instance:
This is our site for college instructors. To buy Murach books, please visit our retail site.