M G Students solve crisis, Design their own BSc Textbooks
GU introduced semester and choice-based credit system for undergraduate courses this year. However, with no prescribed textbooks, students are a confused lot. So, three students from M G Science have taken it upon themselves to prepare textbooks
Yogesh Avasthi
Posted On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 (http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011090620110906031557721320c58d0/M-G-Students-solve-crisis-Design-their-own-BSc-Textbooks.html)
It was an ideal Teachers’ Day gift from three college students to their department head — a textbook designed by them after painstakingly collecting and compiling information from the internet and reference books over a period of a month.
Unavailability of textbooks for BSc course is what prompted Jay Patel, Maulik Vala and Nupur Sanghvi, first year students of M G Institute of Science, to design a zoology textbook.
Before implementing the semester and choice-based credit system for undergraduate courses this year, Gujarat University had given colleges a long list of reference books. But that didn’t quite help; instead it added to the confusion of students and teachers.
So Jay, Maulik and Nupur decided to come up with the college’s own textbook — ‘Easy to Learn’ — for the benefit of their batchmates and teachers.
Jay said, “There are a dozen reference books available on every subject. We were confused about which book to refer to for a given topic. Also, these are priced between Rs 500 and Rs 5,000. Not every student can afford such costly books.”
Nupur said, “The library would not have more than three-four copies of the same reference book. So, what do the students do? As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. We had no choice but to have our own textbooks.”
The three classmates joined hands for a never-before-thought-of project – compiling textbooks.
“We wanted to make learning simpler for our classmates. So, based on the syllabus, we started gathering information. Our teachers edited the same. We even included diagrams and figures. After a month-long process of collecting, modifying and rejecting material, we compiled a zoology textbook,” said Maulik Vala, who studied in Devashish School till Class XII.
Jay is a resident of Mumbai while Nupur hails from Jodhpur. What makes the book different from other textbooks is the fact that it also incorporates Gujarati words for English jargon for the benefit of students from Gujarati medium.
“This is our first attempt. More students have joined us and we will now be coming up with Microbiology, Chemistry and Botany textbooks. Students can either buy the reasonably priced books from us or xerox the same,” said Nupur.
Later, they also plan to put up the textbooks on a new website so that students from other colleges can download the material.
Pratibha Joshi, head of the zoology department, said, “This is a huge surprise. I did help them in editing and filtering the content for the textbook. But I never thought they will come up with a book so soon. It is indeed the best Teacher’s Day gift I have received.”
“Since there is no textbook in the market that covers all the topics in the syllabus, this book is going to help students a lot,” she said.
Principal B K Jain, too, is all praises for the three students. “The work done by them is very impressive. Even teachers do not take such commendable initiatives. These students spent money out of their pockets to design a textbook.”
Jay, Maulik and Nupur also plan to design textbooks every semester. “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, isn’t it? Though the three of us took the initiative, we are glad to have more students willing to participate in the endeavour. We’ll design textbooks even for the next semester.” says Jay.
Yogesh Avasthi
Posted On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 (http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011090620110906031557721320c58d0/M-G-Students-solve-crisis-Design-their-own-BSc-Textbooks.html)
It was an ideal Teachers’ Day gift from three college students to their department head — a textbook designed by them after painstakingly collecting and compiling information from the internet and reference books over a period of a month.
Unavailability of textbooks for BSc course is what prompted Jay Patel, Maulik Vala and Nupur Sanghvi, first year students of M G Institute of Science, to design a zoology textbook.
Before implementing the semester and choice-based credit system for undergraduate courses this year, Gujarat University had given colleges a long list of reference books. But that didn’t quite help; instead it added to the confusion of students and teachers.
So Jay, Maulik and Nupur decided to come up with the college’s own textbook — ‘Easy to Learn’ — for the benefit of their batchmates and teachers.
Jay said, “There are a dozen reference books available on every subject. We were confused about which book to refer to for a given topic. Also, these are priced between Rs 500 and Rs 5,000. Not every student can afford such costly books.”
Nupur said, “The library would not have more than three-four copies of the same reference book. So, what do the students do? As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. We had no choice but to have our own textbooks.”
The three classmates joined hands for a never-before-thought-of project – compiling textbooks.
“We wanted to make learning simpler for our classmates. So, based on the syllabus, we started gathering information. Our teachers edited the same. We even included diagrams and figures. After a month-long process of collecting, modifying and rejecting material, we compiled a zoology textbook,” said Maulik Vala, who studied in Devashish School till Class XII.
Jay is a resident of Mumbai while Nupur hails from Jodhpur. What makes the book different from other textbooks is the fact that it also incorporates Gujarati words for English jargon for the benefit of students from Gujarati medium.
“This is our first attempt. More students have joined us and we will now be coming up with Microbiology, Chemistry and Botany textbooks. Students can either buy the reasonably priced books from us or xerox the same,” said Nupur.
Later, they also plan to put up the textbooks on a new website so that students from other colleges can download the material.
Pratibha Joshi, head of the zoology department, said, “This is a huge surprise. I did help them in editing and filtering the content for the textbook. But I never thought they will come up with a book so soon. It is indeed the best Teacher’s Day gift I have received.”
“Since there is no textbook in the market that covers all the topics in the syllabus, this book is going to help students a lot,” she said.
Principal B K Jain, too, is all praises for the three students. “The work done by them is very impressive. Even teachers do not take such commendable initiatives. These students spent money out of their pockets to design a textbook.”
Jay, Maulik and Nupur also plan to design textbooks every semester. “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, isn’t it? Though the three of us took the initiative, we are glad to have more students willing to participate in the endeavour. We’ll design textbooks even for the next semester.” says Jay.
