The End Has Come

Hello everyone!

The end of the semester has arrived and with it has come the end of my first classes taught textbook free.  While I'm still collecting all of the data that will need to be analyzed I can say that it appears as though the classes were a great success.  I've created a video for you that has some of my favorite things and some of my thoughts on the semester.

I'm looking forward to being 100% textbook free in the spring.  : )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5GzWQQmO6E

Off and Running

Hello again everyone!!

Well, the semester is in full swing now.  I don't know about you but I sure could use a break already.  ; )

So far the no textbook situation has been working out very well!!!!  The students have been responsive and most things have worked out as I have planned. 

I have been keeping notes for myself after each class as to what worked and does not need to be modified and what worked but could probably be better.  I am planning to spend some time over winter break to make some alterations before doing the course again in the spring.  This will also create a way for me to assess some things from one semester to another.

Week one was fairly typical, we did syllabus reviews and then had some discussion about what it would be like to be in a textbook free environment.  During week 2 we jumped in head first.  Although it has only been two class sessions I have only had 2 assignments that were not completed as required and that is out of 100.  If that successful completion rate continues throughout the semester I will be very happy and impressed. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing to me at this point is that I have not heard students complaining about the work load.  The discussions in class have been fruitful and the reviews of class have been nothing but positive.  I hope that this is an indicator of how things are going to go all semester long.

More updates to come as the semester progresses.  Hope all is going well for you!!  : )

Unfinished Business

Hello again everyone!


Well, we are just a few short days away from the first day of the semester.  I  can't believe it is almost time to start using all of the things I have been working on this summer. 

I am looking forward to finding out what works and what doesn't.  I think that one of the most important things I have realized throughout this process is that no amount of planning and prep work is going to make the course perfect the first time it runs.  There will be things that do not work out as I have them planned.  There will be things that the students do not respond well to.  Finding out those things that don't work will be as important as finding out the things that do.  I don't know about you, but I find that I am rather hard on myself when things don't go exactly as planned, so coming to these realizations was quite the process. 

The list of things that I already know I want to improve are:

-the layout of the course in Moodle, I can see that it could be better but I'm not sure how

-the audio lectures, I know I need to develop more but I spent too much time designing the pre-class and in-class assessments

-the group projects, they are structured the way I want them to be but may be too ambitious

 Some things I am already planning to assess, both formally and informally:

-completion of required pre-class assignments (this will be monitored each class period an assignment is due and also over the semester as a whole)

- student performance in different groups (each group project will have a different combination of students in each group)

-student perspectives of the new course format at the beginning of the semester and again at the end


I am looking for a way to share the in-class activities that I have planned for the semester.  I am not uploading those into the Moodle course because I do not want students to have access to them before we do them in class.  When I figure out a plan for that I'll let you know.  : )

As of this point I will say that I am happy that I chose to undertake this project.  While it has required a great deal of work and extra planning I fully believe that it has been worth it.  The value in terms of money saved by students alone makes the process worth it.  At this point I would say that the thing I have found to be the most valuable is the critical thinking skills students will have to build in order to be successful in the course.  These are skills that students will be able to use in other courses and in other areas of the personal and professional lives.

I will be periodically updating the blog throughout the semester to let you know how things are going and when the semester is over and I have had time to calculate some of the assessment results I will provide them to you here as well.


I am sure that many of you will have questions and I am happy to answer them anytime so feel free to email me, call me in my office or stop by anytime you like.  : )

Trial and Error

Hello again everyone!

Well, the process of going textbook free has certainly not been dull!  : )

These last few weeks have been busy prepping not just the textbook free course but all of my fall courses.   I have found that in order to get things accomplished I needed to divide and conquer.  I created a schedule and some deadlines so that I could focus my energies and move forward with all of the projects I needed to complete.  This has worked out really well for me.  I have also found that working on other things while working on the textbook free course was a really good idea.  Time away working on other things has allowed me to return with fresh eyes and see the things I needed to change and things I could improve on.

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to be creating audio lectures for the students.  This process has been very fun and I believe will ultimately be very helpful for the students.  I have limited my "mini lectures" to 15 minutes or less so that the students can quickly listen and then move on to other course related things. I used a simple Voice Recorder app on my iPad to do the recordings.  It records the files as MP4s which I converted to MP3s just to be on the safe side.  I then emailed them to myself and saved them on my work computer so I would have a back up if needed.  Finally I uploaded them into the Moodle course.  The whole process is very simple.  The app will also allow you to send them to yourself via Dropbox, which I know many people are using right now and will allow you to access the files on any device you have Dropbox attached to. The lectures themselves cover what I feel are important topics that we might not have time to cover more thoroughly in class.  I listened to some open access lectures and even watched some on YouTube to get a feel for what I liked and what I didn't.  Ultimately I decided that what students seem to respond to with me the way I break things down and use simple examples and humor to illustrate a point.  Given that I recorded the mini lectures in the same way I would have delivered them in a classroom.  This makes the lectures a little more informal than some people may be comfortable with, but for me it felt like the right way to go.  I will be collecting anonymous feedback from the students about all aspects of the course and one of the things I will be asking about is whether the audio lectures should be more formal.  When I finally have the course set up in Moodle I will give you access to it so that you can listen to the mini lectures and get a feel for what I did with them.

Let's talk structure.  I have set the course up in such a way that students will be required to complete assessments (homework) before coming to class.  These assessments will vary from class to class.  Sometimes it will be as simple as finding a news article that connects to the reading materials for the day.  Sometimes it will be more detailed, creating a power point of definitions to share with the class.  I am hoping that the variety of assignments will keep them engaged.  When they come to class they will submit the completed assessments.  If a student comes to class without their assessment for the day completed they will not be allowed to participate in the group activities for the day but they will be have to stay and complete the missed assessment in class and they will lose the points attached to that assessment.  Those who have completed the assessment should enter the room with a certain level of understanding of the days subject matter so we can get right into the good stuff.  There will also be 4 group presentations spread out over the 16 weeks.   There will be 5 groups of 5 for each presentation and the group members will shuffle with each new presentation.  As it is set up each student will ultimately work with 19 of the other 24 class members in a group by the end of the semester. The group presentations are designed to both engage the students more thoroughly with course topics and with each other.  Finally, there will be two exams, one at the midterm and one at the end of the semester. 

The work load for the course is substantial but is not too much different from the overall work load of the class before going textbook free.  What has changed significantly is what the student must do before coming to class.  Instead of requiring simple reading the assessments require the students to engage with the materials both inside and outside of class.  In theory this should lead to a deeper understanding and better classroom discussions.  But that is only a theory.  I am looking forward to testing all of these things out and then tweaking them in future semesters.  This also gets back to something I mentioned in my first blog which is that I expect to make significant changes to the course after running it this first time.

I'm hoping to blog again right before the semester begins so that I can tell you a little bit more about what is in my course.  Also I'll be opening the course up to you all so you can see what it actually looks like for the students.  : )

Hope your summer is still going well.  Only a few more weeks until the semester begins!!

In the beginning....

Hello everyone!  I hope that summer is treating everyone well and that you are all finding some time to relax.

The primary purpose of this blog is to document and detail the process of turning my American Government and Politics course into a textbook free course.  Hopefully we can create a trail of breadcrumbs that future dare devils who choose to try this path can use to save some time and learn some tricks early on to help in their journey.  I am not yet sure if I will be able to provide you with anything useful but here's hoping.  ; )

It is the beginning of July now and I have to be honest and say that I have had very little time to get prepped for the course.  I would say that I'm in the planning stages at this point.  I have been reading a bit on what other instructors have done in their classrooms when going textbook free and have been making notes about what I feel might work for me.  One thing that I keep reminding myself of is that not only do the information, activities and assessments need to be a good fit for me and my teaching style, they also need to be a good fit for our students here at Sandburg.  Things began to become more clear for me when I started working with that in mind.

In terms of researching how to construct the course I found it very helpful to use some of the resources that Linda Lee and the FTLC folks have been sending out, many of them are resources I'm not sure I would have found without them.  I have also been following a blog- http://www.changinghighereducation.com/ that I find both helpful and interesting. 

One thing I would caution people about is information overload.  I think that we are all passionate about our disciplines and therefore we want to create the best courses with the best materials possible for our students.  In pursuit of that goal we can easily get bogged down in searching for "the perfect" activity or film or resource.  As with any course I think we need to remember that there will be trial and error when going to a new method of delivery.  With this in mind I have been trying to focus on taking things that I already use in the classroom and adding to them when necessary and subtracting when it is clear that the material or activity is not something that will work with the new pedagogy. There is no need to totally reinvent the wheel.  : )

I am fortunate enough to teach in a discipline that has an endless variety of up to the minute information. I use a variety of different online tools for my students normally which makes getting rid of my textbook a bit easier.  Sites like Merlot also help a great deal by providing a place where you can quickly search for discipline and topic specific tools that can easily be incorporated.  I have also found that the professional organizations attached to my discipline areas have been helpful as well.  The American Political Science Association has a great deal of materials designed by professionals in the discipline that are geared toward helping with the creation of new and innovative teaching approaches.  My guess is that many of you would have the same experience with the professional organizations attached to your discipline area.

In addition to making sure I have the semester planned out in advance I am also creating what I am calling a resource book that will be available in the classroom for students to use anytime.  It will include various pieces of helpful information, including tip on how to research topics and where to find solid information.

One thing that I am extra excited about it the opportunity to teach students not just about my discipline areas but also about what good information is and how to find it.  I think that by going textbook free we have an exciting opportunity to foster critical thinking skills in newer and deeper ways. 

That's all for now.  The next blog will detail more of the specific steps I have taken to put things together and I am sure will also detail the troubles I've had along the way. 

Thanks for stopping in!

Lara