Flying Without a Text

Textbooks? We don't need no stinkin' textbooks!

Some of my colleagues still think this is radical, but I'm becoming a proponent of "no textbook" teaching. I have only used a text for one course in the past two years. This is a scary proposition for many instructors who rely on publishers to provide curriculum, exam questions, materials and even learning objectives. They say it takes too much time to prepare materials. They say it also makes it more difficult for a course to be "repeatable" by multiple instructors, and assures consistency in the material covered.

Although I understand these arguments, I have to say that I feel a tremendous sense of freedom in not being tied to a textbook. I don't have to worry about meeting the pesky college bookstore's ordering deadlines. I also feel very good about not requiring that students fork out hundreds of precious dollars for books that they may or may not use. But the most important benefit is that I think it has actually improved student learning in my classes!

First, by not relying on a textbook, students discover that there is a gold mine of course content and information freely available on the web. Thanks to the Open Courseware and Creative Commons movements this is growing exponentially every day. Students can be exposed to many different ideas and perspectives rather than getting just the perspective of a single textbook's author(s) and the instructor. They can also continue to learn and research areas of interest after the class is over, contributing to lifelong learning. And, of course, there are no heavy books to carry around.

Second, rather than spending my time on reviewing textbooks and finding course materials, I have more time to work with students one-on-one as a mentor and adviser. How am I able to get away with this? I make them do the work. I provide them with the framework or "scaffolding" of questions and problems to solve. They go looking for the answers and build their own library of resources along the way. It's amazing how much you can learn while looking for something else. :)

Why Should Teachers Have All the Learning?

One day as I was prepping for classes, I realized that I was spending hours looking through textbooks and "filtering" materials to assign for students to read. This was contributing significantly to my own mastery of the subject matter, but did the students really benefit from all my effort? Most of the time when I asked students to "own up" about whether they had actually done the reading assignments, the answer was lots of eye lowering and mumbling. Some "not really" and some excuses. So why was I spending so much time culling through these materials that students didn't take the time to read anyway? Like many instructors, at first I was disappointed, hardened my stance on completing the reading assignments and tried motivations like pop quizzes. This is what teachers do, right? I started to wonder if this was really the most effective approach.

Research on how people learn has shown that deep learning is achieved through inquiry, discovery, and problem solving. Metacognitive skills are developed when we reflect on our own learning, as teachers do when we have to organize and present concepts to students. We are required to think critically, defend arguments and validate sources. So who is doing the active learning here?

Rather than "teach" material and assign readings from a text, I tried reversing the roles. Students do the research, culling through materials, and then present their findings in multiple ways. They must post information they have found centrally online for others to review, question and critique. They also present it orally during in-class presentations. I've begun to run my classes more like "brown bag" seminars, where everyone has a responsibility for teaching and learning. In this way, students are creating their own "body of knowledge" around a subject domain as a class, and it is dynamic, current and ever-changing from quarter to quarter. Just like real life.

Exam questions? Test pools? Students build 'em. They are required to submit questions to the pool as part of their knowledge discovery process. They feel ownership for the material, and for the questions. A quick lesson in creating effective exam questions goes a long way (and also helps to reduce text anxiety). The answers are in the body of knowledge they have created as a class and made available for study. It reduces cheating too, as the exams change every quarter.;)

How do I know that student learning has improved? It's not difficult to observe. You can read their interactions online and watch their progression of understanding as their "codified" body of knowledge grows. You can see the enthusiasm and responsibility they take for their learning as they share knowledge with each other in class. What I've experienced with this approach is the pure joy of learning. I look forward to seeing what the students will find and present each week. My role is one of organizer, facilitator, evaluator, mentor and expert learner. We are learning together.

What? No More "Hitting the Books?"

Each quarter as I move further and further away from traditional textbooks, I'm discovering new ways of learning and continuing to hone these "radical" teaching methods. Of course, this process of knowledge discovery is nothing new. Graduate students and researchers at universities have been learning for centuries through questioning, independent study and peer review. So why should feeding students canned information from a textbook and then asking them to regurgitate it be the standard for education?

I've received varying reactions from students over the past two years when they find out there are not textbooks required. Many are pleasantly surprised that they don't have to purchase books, but others are skeptical. Some have complained that they don't have a physical book to hold on to and write in. Some want the familiar structure of a course built around a textbook. A few have even dropped my class before it started.

Perhaps it's because we grew up this way, but there is comfort in the familiarity of textbooks. We have fond memories of carrying around book bags, doodling in the margins and highlighting passages of text. We have stories about late nights studying, "hitting the books," and cramming for exams. To most of us, this represents school. But I would contend that it doesn't represent learning.