This past week I distributed inspection copies of Economics for Canadians to English-language CEGEPs in Quebec while next week I will be visiting many of Ontario’s community colleges to do the same.
Meanwhile, I am pleased to have received a few orders for class sets of the book from Ontario high schools. I am surprised to have received these orders as it was almost the summer holidays by the time I was able to get inspection copies into some Ottawa-area schools and to some other interested teachers I had met during the OBEA spring conference. Anyway, I am happy that these teachers (and department heads) had some money in their budgets and will be able to use Economics for Canadians with their students right away!
One question that came up on my tour of Quebec this week was whether the book had been peer-reviewed. On reflection, I can say that the book has been professionally reviewed three times. First, I engaged the lead teaching assistant for first-year economics at Queen’s University as the book’s proofreader. He shared with me his opinion that students using the book would be well-prepared for university-level economics. Second, I paid for a formal evaluation by Curriculum Services Canada in hopes of getting the book placed on the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Trillium List of approved textbooks. While the book was not recommended for inclusion on the Trillium List, the evaluators stressed that “the textbook is of excellent quality, overall.” Lastly, this book grew out of my first book, Workbook for the New I.B. Economics, which has so far sold over 2500 copies to International Baccalaureate schools around the world. The feedback I received from the I.B. teachers using the book definitely had an impact on the form and content of Economics for Canadians. Overall, while of course I did proofread and edit Workbook for the New I.B. Economics, I have to admit that I now regard it as almost a first draft for Economics for Canadians, and cannot wait to improve it later this year when I anticipate having to reprint it.
