Choosing a Textbook for Your Course--Part 2
This is the second part of a series of posts on how to choose a textbook for a course, from an article I wrote last spring: EVALUATING COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS FOR COURSE ADOPTION© Mary Ellen Lepionka, March 30, 2006. All rights reserved.
Matching You to the Textbook
The first question to ask when choosing a textbook is, what are you intending to do with it? And how does it fit with the way you teach? I used to tell state college students in Introduction to World History that their 2,400page twovolume textbook was just another perspective to compare with mine or to augment what I had to say in my lectures! Furthermore, exams would not draw directly from the text. The textbook was there primarily to keep me (and them) honest. I was appealing to their inherent need for perspective balance in any true intellectual inquiry. Hard to own such folly! But, okay, admit ityou’ve done this too. (And as they become more dependent on you and less inquiring, students start sharing or skipping the textbook.)
This model of instruction, by the way—“sage on the stage” lecturing to a largely passive audience—is passé with today’s enlightened instructional methods, which have finally filtered down (or up?) to higher education classrooms. Nevertheless, many instructors still choose slightly divergent textbooks that will allow students to question their learning or fill in the gaps, should they be motivated (miraculously) to do so. If this really is your goal in using a textbook, you probably should not teach introductory courses, because most beginners do not yet have the requisite attitudes and skills to use a textbook in this way. If you do teacher firsttier courses, reconsider your raison d’etre for textbook selection.
An alternative to choosing a textbook as an alter ego is to choose one for no other reason than that it covers course content far more comprehensively than you can or will in your classes. This textbook has it all, so that your digressions, rants, pet topics, areas of ignorance, and other inefficiencies or lapses do not necessarily compromise educational outcomes. Plus, you can use it to generate test items. I call this “covering” (as in “covering one’s ass”). Students, skipping classes, come to rely on this textbook (or its study guide) by default to acquire basic content, primarily in preparation for exams. If this is your intention, note that you cannot count on the college store to order the study guide without your say so; i.e., it would be inhumane to overlook it in the adoption process.
If you want complete control over student learning, are not concerned about “covering,” and write exams only from lectures, consider using a shadow text. This is a comprehensive outline of course content—à la Cliff Notes. Through instruction, you fill in the outline yourself for student consumption, and students study from their notes, referring to the outline only for the chronology of details. Note, however, that you need highly independent learners with good attendance to do this.
Using the textbook to teach is another matter. A textbook that teaches divides selected content into comparatively small and manageable chunks, has apparatus and pedagogy that guide readers through a learning process, and provides opportunities for selfassessment. This textbook is a tool for the student and is studentcentered. It places their learning above both you and the subject. As the textbook teaches, your role reverses somewhat, freeing you up to interact, elaborate, illustrate, facilitate, demonstrate, enchant—all the things that make the learning matter. This is harder, of course, so this choice is only for the good and the brave; but I believe it should be a mainstay of quality undergraduate education.
You may have other reasons for using (or not using) a textbook (even a good one) in your course. What are they?
Labels: choosing a textbook, college textbooks, course adoptions, evaluating textbooks
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