GOING BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK

GOING BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK

Why Use a Textbook

1. The textbook gives a sense of direction to both the teacher and the student
2. It gives parents an idea about what content students learn and are exposed to
3. It is rather difficult for teachers to prepare materials for all the classes they teach
4. It saves the teacher time and money as well
5. It protects students from unskillful or untrained teachers’ deficiencies
6. It guarantees equity between students throughout the nation
7. It reflects education standards set forth by the ministry and policy makers
8. It standardizes the teaching practices regardless of the teachers’ training backgrounds
9. It constitutes a helpful aid when designing tests
10.  It can serve as a tool for professional development and as data for small-scale research projects

 Negative Effects of Heavy Reliance on the Textbook

1. Ritual and mechanical teaching
2. Fossilized and static knowledge
3. Teacher parrots textbook instructions
4. Inability to develop professionally
5. Teacher loses confidence in his/her teaching capacities
6. Teacher becomes irresponsible

How to Go Beyond the Textbook Using Open Educational Resources

   The textbooks are useful tools for teaching and learning, but if they show inadequate materials, procedures, activities or tasks, teachers need to adapt them. Teachers are, thus, called upon to create alternative educational resources for students, which can be time-consuming and potentially expensive. Open Educational Resources (OER) are free resources that can supplement teaching and learning needs.

   Once you have found a potential open educational resource for your course, evaluate it carefully before sharing it with students. First, be sure that it aligns with learning objectives and, then, determine if the copyright / license allows the resource to be modified or shared. When in doubt, ask colleagues for their opinion of the resource.

  Here are some tips for introducing active learning activities to your students by using Open Educational Resources (OER) in your courses.

1. Keep your course objectives in mind
2. Identify activities and resources you currently use to create key learning moments
3. Look for activities or resources that will enhance the learning experience
4. Provide clear guidelines for students on assigned resources and activities
5. Help students realize why resources and assigned activities are not just “busy work”
6. Whenever possible select resources and activities that all of your students can access
7. If multiple resources or activities are available, let students choose the option that fits them best
8. Consider incorporating student-generated content for future classes

How to Go Beyond the Textbook

1. SIMPLIFY: Make material more accessible     1.1. Select chunks rather than do every page and every word on every page     1.2. Shorten compositions/dialogues or break them into processes to work on in a  number of stages     1.3. Separate activities embedded into ne another     1.4. Demonstrate and give examples instead of complex instructions  2. REPLACE AND REORGANIZE: Substitute task/exercise with another to promote       integration of skills and  smooth progression of skill development     2.1. Substitute “straight” texts with a “Jigsaw”     2.2. Replace individual composition topic writing by guided process writing with definable stages     2.3. Change drills into open-ended interactive tasks, role-play, problem- solving, information gap…     2.4. Integrate new ideas, moving from controlled to creative activities 3. SUPPLEMENT: Add material from other sources or of your own     3.1. Include games and fun activities to stimulate social competence in English     3.2. Design pre-reading warm-ups and other preparatory activities     3.3. Use realia and visuals to furnish content background     3.4. Provide and add activities that target a problem ignored in the text 4. EXTEND/ Enrich the exercise/task by exploring students’ background and resources and by          exploiting content related to their realities     4.1. Focus on content before going into the linguistic aspects of a dialogue/reading/listening  passage     4.2. Use culture specific information as a springboard for considering native country custom     4.3. Present some grammar points inductively before turning to explanations 5. OMIT: Quit the exercise in question when it lacks relevance or is otherwise inappropriate      5.1. Quit exercises with little relevance to the skill   being practiced      5.2. Omit exercises which      can be completed mechanically

Evaluating Open Education Resources

The following rubrics represent an evaluation system for objects found within Open Education Resources.  An object could include images, applets, lessons, units, assessments and more. For the purpose of this evaluation, any component that can exist as a stand-alone qualifies as an object.

TASK

Score each rubric using the following five scores that describe levels of potential quality, usefulness, or alignment to the syllabus:

3: Superior

2: Strong

1: Limited

0: Very Weak/None

N/A: Rubric Not Applicable

RUBRIC	3	2	1	0	N/A
Degree of Alignment to Syllabus
Quality of Explanation of  the Subject Matter
Utility of Materials Designed to Support Teaching
Quality of Assessment
Quality of Technological Interactivity
Quality of Instructional and Practice Exercises
Opportunities for Deeper Learning

Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resource (OER) Objects

http://www.achieve.org/files/AchieveOERRubrics.pdf

Open Educational Resources

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/