Jul 28 2009
Ditching the Textbooks
This summer, I have been working on several creative projects that I wrote proposals for this Spring. There is one additional project that I was assigned to do which has not been as exciting. In fact, I am having a hard time with it. It involves working on pacing guides to accompany textbooks in the core areas, for grades K-8. The pacing guides designate which chapters address state standards. The chapters are paced out for each week of the school year, with key questions from the state framework, along with accompanying assessments and answer keys. These pacing guides provide the lesson plans, allowing teachers to be on the same page without having to recreate the wheel.
The problem? The textbooks.
Earlier this year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested the idea of replacing California’s public school textbooks with open-source materials and digital curriculum. I love the basic idea, which allows the students to have access to current information, saves money, and provides a platform for teachers and students to collaborate on lessons. Of course, there are obvious obstacles that would have to be overcome, but the vision is exciting.
I like what Lucas Ames has to say in his blog, Entrepreneurial Teaching,
Innovative entrepreneurs create new value, but in the process destroy the value proposition of an existing business. A good way to look at this is through the lens of music. From records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, to mp3s new innovation destroyed older business models, but also provided tremendous benefits to the consumer and the music industry. In many ways I believe our education system is in need of more entrepreneurial teachers to ‘creatively destroy’ it.
I am interested in a new vision of education at our school. How can we creatively destroy the traditional model of textbooks updated every 6 years, tons of worksheets, and old school methods?
Ames also quotes Bill Gates, who had this to say:
Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It’s the wrong tool for the times.
Our high schools were designed fifty years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting–even ruining–the lives of millions of Americans every year.
What are your thoughts on this?
In an effort to pilot a new approach, I ditched textbooks last year in the areas of science and social studies. It required a lot of extra work in lesson planning. It was a challenge to creatively design projects that were inquiry-based, full of opportunities for writing and critical thinking, and still met state standards. It would have been great to have digital curriculum to access and opportunities to collaborate with other teachers on those lesson plans.
I don’t want to use those pacing guides I have to work on, traditional textbooks and worksheets with students. I want to use innovative teaching methods and integrated technology, to engage students in lifelong learning habits, while preparing them in 21st century skills. I would love to work collaboratively with others to create project learning and thoughtful assessments.
Do you share this passion? Are you designing online units, collaborative lessons, or inquiry-based projects? I would love to learn how you make it work at your school.
Have you fantasized about ditching textbooks altogether?
What’s one step that you plan to take this year to be innovative in how you teach students?
Creative Commons Photo Attribution: June 15, by Little Yiye
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Thanks for the shot out! One thing I should have mentioned in my article was about how much hard work being creatively destructive is. I remember how much I put into the book (ironically!) business that I created in grad school. I felt like I never stopped working – that whole sweat equity idea.
It takes a lot of courage (and hard work!) to attempt what you’re going after and I really admire you efforts and am excited to learn about the progress…
I am going to be a student teacher this coming year in a classroom that has ditched textbooks. It makes me a little nervous as a new teacher but also excited me in that I will be able to introduce new and creative ideas to the science profession.
You had mentioned that you ditched textbooks for the science courses and I was wondering if this was for the secondary courses or just elementary? Also, did you assign readings and if so how?
Definitely ditch the textbooks. One of the early skills we should be teaching is how to properly evaluate online resources, check references, etc. This is a skill every student (and teacher) should possess. Resources for just about any subject are available online, it’s just a matter of ferreting out the good ones / weeding out the bad ones. I took a javascript class a few years ago, and it was textbook-free. All of our reading was done with online resources. It worked very well.
We have some amazing tools at our disposal. Now we need next-generation “pacing guides” that will spark creativity in how to use these tools for education. I’ve seen a few examples of tools such as Google Earth, Wikipedia, or Wikipsaces being used in exciting ways. We need more, though.
This posting hit a nerve and coincides with a grad class I am finishing up on Technology and School Change. An influential book I read was, “The Meaning of Educational Change” by Michael Fullan. Among the points that our class discussed are:
1. Textbooks interfere with curriculum based on Understanding by Design (UbD). UbD is backwards in that you start with the desired outcome and design the important questions and lessons to support the goal. Teachers can be too focused on textbooks (”input”) rather than outcomes (”output”).
2. McLaughlin & Talbert (2001) found that constructivist teachers all but abandoned texts and connected with students through lab-based group projects. Almost all of the successful and innovative schools I know about use textbooks in a very supplementary way.
3. Using a textbook too much leads to content rigorous “content coverage” rather than a more dynamic, student-led classroom.
4. Using textbooks too much is a form of outsourcing. Do schools really want to lose control of their curriculum? The textbook industry is causing a Wal-Mart-ization of our education.
5. Using textbooks too much tends to create barriers between teachers and saps their desire to discuss curricular and pedagogical ideas.
6. See my blog on the same topic at http://tinyurl.com/kj94je
JDF
Ditched the textbook long ago, probably 12 years ago. I teach in a middle school tech lab. The textbooks given to me were, (and are), basically typing books. Most were so out of date and did not involve student created products that I quickly left them behind.
I teach business concepts for office applications, business email, a career unit, beginning web page building, programming, and movie making. My students learn keyboarding in my class, but I don’t really teach them, they learn from some great keyboarding software, I just convince them that they can do it. Only about 10 of my students keyboarded at less than 25 wpm — that was my goal, the top student was 70wpm.
Most of my units are blended, we use our school’s Moodle server to manage my classes and the math teachers are going to be using it this year also. I can save the materials I create and revise for the next year, ever improving, when not blocked, I can include new Web 2.0 applications, thus keeping my instruction/coaching up to date.
Going bookless is great, just plan well and have a great online area like Moodle or Edublogs for your students.
I have used a textbook in the past and still will, but more as a resource. I teach advanced high school physics. This year, I plan to use the modeling method developed at Arizona State University. Using this method, students make observations of a physical phenomenon, identify variables, devise a plan to test relationships between independent and dependent variables, carry out the test, analyze collected data and derive a mathematical model for the physical phenomenon observed and tested. Results are written on whiteboards and subsequent class discussion revolves around information on the whiteboards. Students then write down a summary of what was learned, work some problems as homework, and then apply what they have learned to another investigation of the same phenomenon in a different situation.
I plan to have students blog the summaries individually, then collaboratively build a wiki. The wiki will serve as their “textbook” or body of knowledge for the model.
I do agree that textbooks need to go. However, I don’t agree with the recent idea to equip each student with and eBook reader for eTextbooks. I agree with Tony (above) that we should be teaching [research] skills to our students. There are plenty of quality resources available. The textbook is just one of them.
@Lucas
I really enjoyed your article. I love the concept of being “creatively destructive.” Thank you for your encouragement. I’ll post the progress on my blog and am glad to have found yours.
@Lorraine
Congratulations on your student teaching. I would love to keep in touch with you and hear how it’s going. What’s the name of the school? You asked about the grade level. I’ve tried it with elementary and junior high. The readings were literature-based, with online research. Let me know the model that is used in the school you’ll be at this year.
@Tony
I’m with you! Let’s go for it. You’ve seen my proposal on my ideas for this. You mentioned “Now we need next-generation “pacing guides” that will spark creativity in how to use these tools for education. I’d love to hear how you’d envision this.
@Carl
Good for you! I wasn’t in a position where I could ditch them like I wanted to. Now I’m in a place where I am wanting to move a whole school in this direction. I’m still trying to get a vision for how this would work best. Planning to do Edublogs and Moodle. I’d love to chat with you more on this sometime!
@Bill
Love your idea on having students “blog the summaries individually, then collaboratively build a wiki.” If you don’t mind sharing a link sometime, I’d love to see it. I’m on twitter: dobrien917 Thank you for your comments!
@John
Love your blogpost. I’m taking it that you liked the book. I’m going to look for it on Amazon. Thank you so much for the comments you shared. I agree with you!! Looking forward to keeping up with your blog!
Thank you, Kelly, for your wonderful follow-up blogpost:
http://keepingkidsfirst.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/if-no-textbooks-then-what/
Have I fantasized about ditching the textbook? Heck, ya! Who hasn’t?
And I get excited when I hear terms like “creative destruction” (as Lucas mentioned), UbD (as Michael mentioned), and constructivist learning in a paperless classroom. It’s alluring. It’s sexy.
But, then the skeptic that resides in that far, gray corner of my brain starts planting doubt. The rookie teacher voice asks if this even allowed. The administrator voice starts chiming in with random buzzwords, er…comments related to the “pacing guide” and “prescribed curriculum.” The parent voice starts asking if I would want my son’s teacher ditching the texts.
Like many teachers, I enthusiastically believe in an Open Source Learning model. The ed-geek in me cannot wait to introduce software and apps that challenge the students (and other teachers) to collaborate and think in new ways.
But, with “common assessments” used to gauge short-term teacher efficacy and standardized testing (coupled with high school exit exams) used to gauge long-term efficiencies in education, I worry that education is not quite ready to “ditch” the traditional textbook.
I’m with you, Donelle. But, I’m not sure that I’m ready to put a lot of stock in something mentioned as part of the governor’s latest PR stunt.
Oh Shea, you always make me have to think deeper.
Thanks for that!
I put together a model for project learning, online content, and collaborative units way before the governor’s comments. No one can know his true intentions, but I think that the fact that he threw the challenge out there allows the discussion to take place for those who may not have thought about it before. And for those of us who have, we realize that there can be a better way to engage students, using relevant and updated content. I am open and ready to find a better model.
@Shea,
I think you raise some great questions to the idea of ditching the textbooks, and I’d like to offer you a bit of my own experience. The idea of textbooks that is unappealing to me (and frankly dangerous for kids, in my opinion) is when textbooks are used as the primary method of instruction and planning.
The parent element is a great point. Many parents don’t understand the idea of teaching without a textbook. It isn’t how they learned. I hand out my textbooks. I just don’t necessarily use them regularly to drive instruction. Instead we (and parents) have them as a reference source. Sometimes I will even use the tests that come from the textbooks to assess the learning that my students have done without them. I have found that they do better on the tests using my broader approach than other classes who are using the traditional textbook method.
I also follow the local system’s pacing guide for objectives and goals. It allows my students the ability to stay on pace with others and the common assessments. It’s also a great “self-checking” system to make sure you are covering everything you are mandated to cover.
I guess I look at ditching the textbooks as keeping the blueprints but building with a different material.
Thanks Donelle for engaging in this conversation!
[...] of creating content for our students. Donelle O’Brien shared her enthusiasm for the idea in a recent blog post but posed some great questions about what and how this works in a traditional classroom setting. I [...]
[...] Ditching the Textbooks | Lifelong Learning 2.0 [...]
Donelle,
Don’t know if you’ve seen EdWeek’s article Take Out the Textbook, Please, but it’s a nice complement to your post.
Gail
[...] Ditching the Textbooks [...]
I read the other day that CA’s new budget is going to cut the purchase of new textbooks til 2016. At first, I was totally knocked out by this figure, but reading these posts makes me see the silver lining here.
Great post.
betty
I am excited about this discussion. The last two years, I have taught a senior elective and have not used a required textbook for my students. My course is a high school elective on human diseases; I could not find a book at the right reading and content level, so I decided to use web resources. This year, I decided to create a website with links and other references. The fact is that textbooks are static and expensive. On several occasions, I pointed out to my students that their textbook has incorrect or outdated information–which occurs a lot in science. The one obstacle I have is comfortably taking notes from online resources. I like writing in margins and highlighting. I just stumbled upon diigo and hope that I will enjoy highlighting and inserting notes on the web.