Reading Textbooks Every Semester

[HigherEd7]

How many of you re-read your textbooks every semester? If so, is this a waste of time. I find myself reading all of my chapters each week for the courses I teach. Am I doing something wrong?

[Sun_Worshiper]

After I've taught the class and have the slides, I don't typically read the articles or book again, unless I need a refresher for some reason (or if I add something new to the syllabus).  I also tend to use articles that I've already read, so there is that.

[Caracal]

I try to at least skim through the readings. I tend to find I'm better at guiding discussions and discussing the reading if I'm not just relying on notes. However, in practice, I'm usually doing this the day of class and how much time I spend on it really depends on how slammed I am. If I'm all prepped for the day and I'm just sitting in my office before class, I sometimes end up re-reading a whole chapter. If I've got a lot of grading, lectures to finish, and student meetings, I may just do a very quick skim through.

[HigherEd7]

I normally read with my students and some of these chapters take hours to read and then I am trying to work on other school related tasks as well. Also, trying to produce more research. Sometimes, I feel I am wasting my time. 

[Vkw10]

For the core course that I teach every semester, I review every assigned reading before class, but I only re-read 20% a semester. For me, that's sufficient to catch material that needs replacing in a course that's required for majors. For electives and seminars that I teach less often, I try to re-read a third of assigned readings before class.

The first time I use a text, I mark it up. Highlight critical points, write in a few discussion questions at beginning of chapter, add post-its by illustrations and graphs with notes about why I want students to look at them. In future semesters, I use my mark up to quickly review the chapter before class. The initial mark-up is a pain, but I don't change texts often.

FYI, I'm in social sciences. A friend in engineering tells me she rarely re-reads, because her classes are either teaching fundamental concepts and skills that change slowly or are seminars where readings are constantly updated to reflect recent developments. Figuring out a system that works for you may depend partly on what you're teaching.

[Parasaurolophus]

For formal stuff, I don't even check my slides before class.

For articles I've assigned, I'll skim my notes the second time through, then never look at them again.

[polly_mer]

I didn't make a habit of rereading most textbooks for the reason that Vkw10 wrote.  Knowing exactly the wording the textbook used to explain basic concepts was not a good use of my time. 

A better use of my time was looking for additional examples for topics where I knew students struggled.

A better use of my time was looking for additional YouTube videos to illustrate specific concepts the work better as video than a static picture on a page.

Why do you have your students do these readings?  Is it for specific details in a story where you may need a refresher or is it big picture and you're probably fine without rereading everything every time?

[Wahoo Redux]

I suppose this is discipline specific, but I think the era of the textbook is over now that we have the Internet.  Textbooks are antiquated. 

[writingprof]

I suppose this is discipline specific, but I think the era of the textbook is over now that we have the Internet.  Textbooks are antiquated.

Great.  Now the OP is going to feel pressure to reread the Internet every semester.

[Wahoo Redux]

I suppose this is discipline specific, but I think the era of the textbook is over now that we have the Internet.  Textbooks are antiquated.

Great.  Now the OP is going to feel pressure to reread the Internet every semester.

Only Wikipedia.  All knowledge is contained there.

[sprout]

Science person here.  I don't re-read.  Even if there are updates to our understanding of a particular detail, it takes years before it shows up in a textbook anyways.  I rely on professional associations and various field-associated journal/news updates to let me know if there's something new I should mention or share with my students.  If a student contacts me and asks about something particular that's confusing in the textbook or that appears to disagree with my lecture, then I'll look closely at exactly what the textbook says. 

[kiana]

In math. I usually don't reread once I've written my teaching materials.

I work through the online homework as well because if there's anything weird about the way they phrase it or the way an answer is entered I do want to alert them; however, I again don't usually do this every single time.

[polly_mer]

I suppose this is discipline specific, but I think the era of the textbook is over now that we have the Internet.  Textbooks are antiquated.

Definitely discipline specific.  Having a coherent explanation that builds from basics to more advanced in a static format is still important.

[Ruralguy]

It really depends on how good the textbooks are for the topic and whether or not one of the good ones is open source. If not, better to go old fashioned  or essentially write your own book and put it online.

[the_geneticist]

I don't re-read the entire textbook.  I do look through it to see if there are any examples that are no longer relevant, look at my notes for what students typically need more practice/review/explanation on, and see if there are any sections to tell them explicitly to read carefully (or to ignore).  As Polly said, it's a better use of my time to find better examples or videos.