Well, I teach classes in international relations,
which means that things are changing all the time
and when I use a textbook,
I always find myself apologizing to students,
saying, "I know this has changed a lot,
"and this is what's in the textbook.
"And I've given you some additional articles."
So when you teach classes on international relations
and on politics more generally,
I think you have to have materials
that are really up to date.
And usually textbooks, maybe they're published
every other year, sometimes it's not for a few years,
so they're outdated pretty quickly
in international relations and in political science.
Yeah, well it wasn't so difficult
because as I suggested, I have always used articles
in addition to a textbook.
So what I did is I worked with a graduate student
who has been working with me
in my Introduction to International Relations class.
She actually took the class as an undergraduate student,
and as a graduate student she taught it at least three times
with different faculty members,
so she had already been involved
in identifying articles that supported
what we were doing in the class,
and so she and I talked about ways in which
and places where she could identify additional materials
to supplement the textbook
that we were deleting and getting rid of,
and then also trying to find other materials,
not just articles, but videos or even exercises,
and we also talked about ways
that she could create activities for students to do
instead of just having them read book chapters or articles.
So it was pretty easy.
Yeah, I received feedback about the class
before the class started, during the class and at the end.
And it was overwhelmingly positive.
What students said is, "Thank you
"for not having a boring textbook."
And it's not always the case
that textbooks are always boring,
and I really thought that I had identified a textbook
that wasn't boring.
But students still complained
that it wasn't so interesting, it was outdated.
So students from the beginning,
what they liked is that in the middle of the summer,
I could say, "Here's our tentative syllabus.
"You don't have to buy a textbook,
"and you can start doing the readings."
So students also, some of the students
who are on financial aid have to wait
'til they come to campus to buy a textbook
that's $100 or $150.
So this way they could start doing the readings
and looking at the syllabus over the summer,
and then when they came to campus, it was just,
you know and I said, "This is a draft, it'll change."
But they already had a sense
of what the class would look like,
so students said, "Hey, thank you for sending this.
"I actually already did some readings
"for the first few weeks."
And that was good for them, and it was really good for me
because then I knew that students were doing the reading.
Yeah, I wouldn't say that anything didn't work
in terms of online electronic resources.
What I would say is now I'm gonna continue
doing what I've done in the past,
which is updating the articles,
making sure that they're the most recent
when I'm changing different parts of lectures.
Again, this is a 200 student class,
so I have to be very organized,
and so I will continue to adjust,
modify and update the syllabus,
but now I don't have to do that
in addition to an expensive textbook for students.
The other thing that I'll add
is that there were several semesters
where I had students both buy a textbook
and then do exercises online
that were related to the textbook,
which was an additional fee,
and with online electronic resources,
my graduate student and I could create our own quizzes,
our own exercises, our own activities
that students could do.
So I'll continue to update and change those as needed.
I don't know why they wouldn't.
I mean it doesn't make sense.
And a lot of times, many faculty are really dissatisfied
with their textbook anyway, and they're supplementing.
It's just a matter of saying, "You know what,
"do I really need to do this?"
and then looking to see what online resources are available
to supplement or to do the whole class without a textbook.
And I was surprised, but I found
that there were plenty of things online
for students and for the class.
So I don't think, I mean maybe there are some classes
where it isn't possible to find online electronic resources,
but I'm not sure what discipline that would be.
And it's probably entirely possible
for most faculty to do away with their textbooks
and to change the way they've been organizing the class.
It's just a matter of kind of deciding
that's what you wanna do and getting rid of the textbook.
I don't think so.
I think it's been really nice for me
to have more control over the content
of what students are getting
and also making sure that they're not doing a lot
of additional reading, because that's part of the textbook,
so when you assign a textbook,
you know a chapter from a textbook,
they have to read the whole chapter,
and sometimes I don't feel like it's that relevant,
so I would say to students, "Well, read Chapter 14,
"but not parts one and part three,
"and really you don't have to read part six," or whatever,
so this way I have a lot more control
over what they're reading,
and it can be more targeted and more strategic.
And also I can highlight with online,
with the way we've done the class now,
I can highlight the concepts
and the things I really want them to focus on,
and do that in advance and tie that to learning outcomes.
So that's been also an advantage
to having online electronic resources.
No, I was gonna say that I think it does help
level the playing field a little for students
who come into a class with a background
in international relations and students who don't.
And again, this has to be faculty
who send out the syllabus and send out at least a draft
of what the class is gonna look like
so students can start doing that reading.
But for me, what I found is students were saying,
"Hey, thanks for this, 'cause I was able to do this reading.
"I didn't have to wait for the textbook."
And they came to class feeling a little more comfortable
than I think in the past they have,
'cause for some students a class on international relations
is totally new for them.
And for other students it's not,
so there seemed to be this kind of big gap
between students who knew things
about international relations and students who didn't.
This semester I felt like from the beginning,
students were more or less on the same page.
And then also with the way we did it this year
is we provided a lot of extra additional readings.
If you're interested in this, look here.
If you're interested in this, look there.
And so it provided us with, I guess, a chance
to be more reflective and thoughtful
about what we wanted students to have
and what we wanted them to gain from the class.
Yeah, I don't know how much they changed.
I know that this semester was problem-free,
meaning in the past, I had students who had a textbook
and then they were using online materials.
And what I found, particularly one year,
is students couldn't get on to their online materials.
They had problems interfacing with the online resources
that were available.
This year students, we didn't have a single problem,
a single complaint.
Students knew where to look for the materials.
We also, I made sure that all of the online materials,
all of the links worked so we didn't have a situation
where students couldn't get access to the textbook
or couldn't get access to the online quiz.
Everything was in our control,
and we had it available in Canvas.
So this year I just have to say
that it's the first time that I've taught
this monster international relations class
where I haven't had any problems big or small with students,
so that's quite an accomplishment, yeah.
None, I think that the most important challenge or issue
with moving to online resources
is just making the time and making sure
that you have some control
over the quality of the resources,
and making sure it matches
what you're doing in the classroom
so there were some articles that I, again I'll change
based on student feedback because they were either too long
or too difficult, or didn't really match up
with what I ended up talking about in class in my lecture.
But that's, I mean it wasn't a significant challenge.
It's just something that we have to constantly do in classes
to update the materials that we're providing for students
and what we want them to do.
Yeah, again, I don't know if it was having everything online
and having the class more or less prepared much earlier
and having more intentionally thought-about
interactive exercises and learning outcomes.
But students seem to participate a lot more
in a 200-person class.
In the past, I'd have maybe,
I don't know, a tenth of the students
who said something or talked in class.
I would say on a regular basis, meaning weekly,
I'd have at least I don't know, a fifth or sixth
of the class say something,
that it was much more interactive,
and I felt like I was lecturing less.
And again, I don't know if it's just
because I kind of started to transition the class
and felt like those are great resources,
those are great articles,
I don't need to do that much more lecturing.
In the past it was providing that basic framework.
So this semester and having everything online,
I've said, "I know what you're reading.
"It's really good, so tell me what you've read."
So I feel like it was much more interactive
and much more participatory
than this class has been in the past.
Yeah, I think in general I've just made the class
much more participatory,
much more on a flipped classroom model,
again, 'cause I, you know I also was able to find articles
that are super interesting,
some of them that are incredibly provocative,
and to include things that I knew
that students would be more likely to read.
And so I felt like that kept students more engaged.
So I do think that it changed my style,
and it changed my expectations for students
because I was like, "You didn't read
"just an introductory chapter on topic X.
"You read a really great article in the New York Times.
"You read an article from the Washington Post
"or Foreign Affairs."
So I was sure that those were articles and resources
that were written in a more interesting way,
so I had higher expectations for students.
And for the most part I would say that I was right,
that students engaged with the materials more.
That was the other thing that I did this semester,
but only this semester could I look at how much,
or did I realize I could look
at how much students were engaging in the materials.
And in the past when I looked
at students' engagement in the materials,
it seemed like they engaged
right at the end of the semester.
This semester, anecdotally it seemed
like students were engaging with the material
from the beginning through the end,
you know, not just right before a quiz
or right before a test.
It seemed like they were engaging with the material
throughout the semester.
So I wish I had a way to compare if in fact that's true,
and maybe there is a way to go back
and look at that on Canvas
and see if students were engaging as much
with the material throughout the semester,
but that was my sense.
No, I will say it takes time
to think about if you're gonna get rid of a textbook,
what are you gonna put in its place?
It also provides you with a great opportunity,
with a real opportunity
to say what do you want students to get out of this class,
you know, in a big way,
and also specifically in terms of your learning outcomes,
what do you want students to get?
So you can tailor those materials
around those learning outcomes and the goals,
so it's not just about the content,
but also about the process that you want students to have
when they're taking this class.