Outdated text material
How do you handle outdated text material if that is the text assigned by your corporate organization?
Provide resources that are current but do not stray from them ompany's references. they may be outdated but just need to be looked over for any recent updates. I have an instructor who states that references should be withing the last five years.
Hi Seth,
I am convinced that this is the only way you can teach IT due to the pace of change that it experiences. You are doing a great job of keeping current with the field and sharing it with your students through the supplementary materials. This helps to make it real for your students.
Gary
I teach IT, which changes so quickly textbooks are obsolete as soon as they are printed. I use the textbook to help explain general concepts and background, but often use online resources and other supplementary materials when we get into current concepts and new developments.
Hi Patricia,
How do you convey the new information to your students? Do you develop handouts, refer them to websites or include the information in your lectures?
Gary
Outdated material is a very common problem in nursing/medical texts. These often reflect personal preference and not standard of care. I look for the latest information via the internet if I come across a topic that I am not sure is still the standard.
I agree with Gary, John. You added some perspective to why out of date material can be useful. In healthcare, changes are occuring everyday that students should know about. Issues about insurance, codes and new practice skills are updated reqularly in journals but, not so quickly in the texts. Thanks for these tips about how to make the out of date material useful in the classroom.
Hi John-Howard,
Thank you for this insight on text relevancy. You are right about the challenge of keeping textbooks filled with current material. Having authored 6 college text books I can tell you each time one came out I was relieved that it was in print and that I was though with it. On the other hand I would look at a copy and think of things that already had been outdated. This always frustrated me as an author because I was afraid the readers would think I hadn't kept up to date in my writing. When it fact it was the publication lag that created the problem and that can't be changed.
Your approach to using texts helps to overcome this problem and bring validity to the content as well as analytical skill development in identifying the content and its' current application.
Gary
There is an assumption, certainly borne out by this thread, that outdated text material is in some sense absolutely bad. I certainly appreciate the fact that students don't want to pay money for something which is not useful, but I think outdated material can be made part of the learning experiences in those areas where there is a rapid change in content due to technological development.
The position I take is this -- any text contains a certain amount of outdated material simply because it takes 12 - 18 months between concept and execution for most texts. So I challenge the students to read texts skeptically, note what is useful within them, and then supplement them with additional information that they acquire on their own hook.
The idea that our students can walk out with a degree and never have to investigate any formal learning material again died sometime around the 1970s, which may account for the fact that some parts of the educational establishment are still wrapping their heads around this concept. So I think in the short run, educating our students in the methodologies of becoming a critical self-learner is a major defense AND learning opportunity here.
In the long run, I think the notion of "text" in a lot of areas is going to be superceded by the concept of managed information flows, aggregated in specific time points using various intellectual and physical connecting technologies. But that dream requires revising nor only the current way of doing things, but the current copyright regieme as well, so it may be a long time, if ever, before it can be realized.
Because the field of criminal justice is an ever changing environment I normally do not use a textbook in my classes. I teach from personal experience and keep myself up on the latest techniques. We also have many adjunct instructors that are current police officers and detectives and I get materials from them based on seminars they have attended and materials they obtained from them. I also attend as many workshops and seminars as I can to keep up on the CJ field. I also include many in-classroom and out of classroom activities and field trips in my classes.
Out of textbooks have been an ever present problem in my profession. I have managed to over come text by using present day demonstration and updated techniques. After reading the forums I will definately incorporate the learning packets and limit text.
This is a tricky one. I ran into it with a poor and incomplete text that the school insisted on using, even though I offered to rewrite it, even giving them an entire outline for a new book.
What I did was assign appropriate readings, added online material that was current, and then lectured as needed on what was really happening in the field. So the school was happy I used the book and the students were happy I didn't over depend on it. Unfortunately they also had to pay for something of limited use. When they pointed that out I suggested they demand a better book...after the course was over!
It is unfortunate when out of date textbooks are required, the only way overcome this problem is to make up learning packets and use only the sections of the textbook that is not too out of date. The ethics of usinging an out of date text bother me because of the price of books.
Hi Dennis,
I know it is some work but I develop resource packets to share with my students that are filled with the most current content. Since they are packets I can update them as needed and still stay with the corporate textbook that is required, even though I only use it as a resource.
Gary
