The educational design of textbooks: a text for being interdisciplinary

Abstract

This paper provides insights into both the educational design of textbooks and interdisciplinary education. The author introduces two educational principles for textbook design – instructional alignment and balancing diversity and meaningful guidance for readers – and applies them to writing his own textbook chapter for being interdisciplinary. The two broad conclusions are: textbook design can be a new area of study in higher education, illuminated by curriculum design and reflective practice; and textbooks can provide a useful method of interdisciplinary education.

Keywords:

• constructive alignment
• interdisciplinary learning
• reflective practice
• textbook design
• thinking

Acknowledgements

This paper has been enhanced by the Reshaping Environments team, most especially Helena Bender, Ruth Beilin, Graham Moore, Blythe McLennan, Kathryn Williams and Dominique Hes. An earlier version of this paper was included in the proceedings of the 2010 Australian Association for Research in Education. Thanks to the anonymous referees who have influenced the shape of this paper since its earliest form.

Notes

1. There is some evidence that Reshaping Environments has been effective as a whole subject including the prototype textbook. Formal and informal evaluations indicate that students now understand, value and take an interdisciplinary approach.

2. This also led to a secondary problem when the textbook chapter was reviewed. The blind reviewers seemed to expect a typical introduction to interdisciplinary studies or research and so they saw the emphasis on interdisciplinary practice as a flaw in the chapter rather than appropriate instructional alignment. They thought the chapter should give a more precise and sophisticated account of the literature, which I argue would have unbalanced the needed alignment.

3. There is a wealth of research in this field – usefully surveyed in a collection about ‘personal epistemology’ edited by Hofer and Pintrich (2002).

4. In Golding (2009) I called the third ‘critical pluralism.’

5. Although I reject the unsophisticated absolutism and relativism that students tend to take, sophisticated versions of these positions such as constructivism or critical realism probably count as varieties of reasoned judgementism, and could potentially support an interdisciplinary approach.

6. Repko's alternative strategy for balancing fission and fusion is to ‘acknowledge this tension and other important controversies and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each position’ (2006, p. 128).

7. The principles underlying this approach are discussed further in Golding (2011).

8. Another way to scaffold interdisciplinary thinking is through case studies where the thinking involved is clearly articulated – for example, the other chapters of Bender (2012), and Repko, Newell, and Szostak (2012).

9. See Nikitina (2005) for an alternative model of interdisciplinary thinking also based on interviews with interdisciplinary researchers.