Monday, November 21, 2011

Ah yes... the textbook.

I'm not one that thinks the textbook is an evil shackle purchased by districts to make sure teachers follow the curriculum in lockstep. In fact, quite the contrary. I have always felt the textbook can complement the high school social studies curriculum in many ways. In addition to exposing students to narratives from experts and images/graphs that illustrate what is being learned, textbooks often do an excellent job of infusing higher order questioning (upper levels of Bloom) assessing reading comprehension. Like any strategy or information source, the textbook is one of many tools a teacher can use to differentiate instruction (let's face it, some kids just learn better by reading it) and support learning.

Where I have struggled in the past is how to use the textbook in terms of time and assessment. In the past, I have always been one of those teachers that says: "Read chapter 2, section 1 tonight, define the vocabulary, and answer the three questions at the end of the section." I would then "check in" the homework the next day by walking around the room and either glancing at it to see if it was done or finding one question to see if they answered correctly. Then an arbitrary number of points would go into my grade book.

Okay... feel free to roll your eyes. I deserve it.

My journey towards pedagogical best practice has introduced me to many other ways to encouraging students to study the text, without the simplistic and somewhat punitive approach of assessing these assignments in a summative format.

While I am still attempting to workshop ideas with my colleagues, my goal for next semester is to allow more class time to read the text and then form discussion circles where students can bounce main ideas off of each other in the safety of a small group. Assessment will be based on me working from group to group and listening/joining in on the conversation. In addition, I could pose questions on "Exit Slips" to see if students genuinely understand what was read and discussed. These assessments will be purely formative in nature and will allow me the opportunity to truly gauge what the students gleaned from the text. This will require some intrinsic motivation. I think a great deal of this will come from the way it is introduced and infused into the class. It is my theory that a greater number of students will have a more in-depth understanding of the material at the end of each day and grades will reflect much of the student's knowledge versus their ability to find time to read and answer questions.

So - any thoughts? How do you handle the textbook in your class? If you treat the assessment of the textbook learning as formative on a daily basis, how do you do it? Please share. I'm genuinely interested.


2 comments:

  1. Textbooks are a broken model of knowledge distribution however we have been beholden to textbook companies for so long we don't know any better. We are used to paying through the nose for textbooks because we had no choice. Today we have many choices and need to break free from the stranglehood on us. Just my 2 cents.

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  2. Thanks for the comment Daniel. I certainly agree with you that the prices are outrageous and that there are other delivery formats worthy of merit. However, I'm not sure I personally could ever classify any book as a "broken model of knowledge distribution." I think in the end it's about diversifying the tools we use in the classroom. Great conversation.

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