The Accidental Textbook

I never intended to write a book for my communications class. Scratch that… there must have been an intention somewhere… I just don’t recall the exact process…

All I know is that is that when I began reviewing texts for my interpersonal communication class, I was somewhat surprised to discover a number of theories from social psychology, psychology and sociology presented in the texts. And well, they were kinda sorta accurate in their overviews … but there was so much more context to reveal and discuss.

And since many of my communication students were “cross-sells” from my sociology and psychology courses, I initially sought to make the transition seamless, to build on what we had already covered in earlier social science courses.

So my “project” started as “supplemental” material. And then I just kept writing. Telling my stories, recounting the many communication mistakes I had made in love, life, work (eesh!); what I had learned (and was still learning). There was much to tell… and interestingly enough, my “project” was supercharged by insights gained through a year-long, 500-hour intensive yoga teacher training program that I went through in 2008.

As I neared the completion of my writing project, a publisher cold-called late one afternoon during my office hours. They were asking for a book, and by Joe, I almost had one to send along. By that point, I was staying one step ahead of my students, making copies of each book chapter just prior to class. (Yes, I was that 11^th hour student, too ;-)

Suddenly, I had a book contract… and I vividly remember reviewing my final galleys in Heathrow, on my way to India that year…

Fast-forward more than three years and I’ve fulfilled the initial terms of my contract. My students have given me great feedback, but most importantly, my self-disclosures and communication mistakes seemed to have taught them something ;-)

There have been more developments over the last few years. (1) I’ve realized it’s high time for a rewrite (there’s more to share ;-) and (2) I’ve become increasingly sensitive to the high price of books -- even mine -- as I wrote about last week.

Last summer, I decided I’d dragged my feet long enough. I ended up giving my students my book, chapter by chapter, with embedded prompts highlighted in red, asking them create Wiki pages with specific examples of say, how they had been erroneously stereotyped, or how their perceptions differ from someone close to them, or how they tried a new strategy to navigate through that difficult conflict.

The next part of the assignment was an experiment, I have to admit. I had them review each others’ Wiki pages, post the requisite substantive peer feedback on three… and then I asked them to rank the top 10 Wikis (for more points, of course). The top vote-getter would earn 10 extra credit points, the second would earn 9 extra points, 8 for the third most-voted-on, you get the drift.

And you know, it worked -- just that little incentive prompted them to create amazing Wiki pages… but I digress. The major leap forward for me was the possibility of collaboration on course materials (even a text!) as a class… Has anyone else tried this?