In Teaching Science, Let The Textbook Support The Classwork, Not Vice Versa

I was troubled by Ricki Lewis's recent article on textbook selection (The Scientist, March 30, 1992, page 20), in which she describes the somewhat arbitrary and even whimsical approach that scientist-instructors often take in choosing textbooks for the courses they teach. I was troubled not because I take issue with what Lewis wrote--but because the practices she described are all too familiar. Indeed, as a professor and, for eight years, chairman of a medical school biochemistry department, I have experienced discomfort and uncertainty in selecting textbooks. And I have sensed the same in my colleagues. Although we are scientists and should know better, our actual decisions are predominantly capricious. Couldn't we do better? The key to improvement in this matter, it seems to me, is that--long before selecting a textbook--we must identify and analyze our teaching goals, rather than allow a particular text to determine the substance and pattern of our teaching. Too many instructors, I fear, equate teaching with the dispensation of information for memorization. This practice is so common that our students tend to function as stenographers, intent on note-taking but making very little effort at comprehension or thoughtful appreciation of what they are being told. They may laugh at our jokes, but experience very little interest, excitement, or awe about the subject matter. Their minds tend to become numb and so devoid of curiosity that they ask no questions and are offended if a teacher asks one of them to draw a conclusion from what has been discussed or to have an original thought about its significance. No textbook, no matter how expertly it is put together, can remedy these tendencies. The remedy can be found only in the instructor's creative approach to infusing inspiration into the students. Many inspired teachers, in fact, prefer to work almost exclusively from lecture outlines. For these people, a textbook is really unnecessary, unless they use it as an auxiliary resource for students who want more depth of information. (On the other hand, some faculty write their lectures to correspond directly to an assigned textbook so that they can defend their statements by reference to chapter and verse. I believe such a practice takes away from the freshness and the currency of a lecture, since even the newest book is likely to be already suffering some obsolescence.) Probably the healthiest attitude is for teachers--once they have their objectives for a course clearly in mind--to select a textbook as one would choose a partner in a collaborative effort. With healthy teacher-text synergy, the students get the benefit of the best efforts of both teacher and textbook author. Moreover, it is apt to be enriching for students to have material presented from more than one point of view. In choosing a textbook, therefore, instructors might do very well to search for the author who can most effectively share the load. Above all, a textbook should serve to buttress classroom and lab activities that stimulate active thought, consideration, and discussion of data, and the development of logical and deductive reasoning. The textbook should be a tool in furthering such other desirable goals of teaching as the combating of passivity and shyness in our students, the encouragement of their resourcefulness and independent pursuit of information, the nurturing of their ability to marshal information in order to reach new conclusions, and the fostering of an open-mindedness that will serve them as scientists in observing and learning from the real world. These highly desirable attitudes and skills are of lasting value; and they transcend the scientific discipline within which they are acquired. Wells E. Farnsworth is an adjunct professor of urology at the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. He formerly was chairman of biochemistry at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine.

In Teaching Science, Let The Textbook Support The Classwork, Not Vice Versa

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