Assignments...

[ajnabieh]

How much do you think it's reasonable to have undergrads spend on books for a class? As a student and/or as a professor?

For faculty, what are the factors you use to determine how much to assign? Need for a comprehensive textbook? Availability of books used/in library/in digital formats? Level of the class/% of majors in the class? Classicness of the books?

I'm starting to think about my syllabus, and looking at two possible edited books. One is a decade old, easily available used, and much cheaper. One isn't published until halfway through August, and twice as expensive (and brand new, so no used copies). It'll help once I get my inspection copy of the new one to see if it's worth the extra money, but still. And then, there's the single-author classics in the field--what if I want to assign two or three chapters? Where do I cut it off?

(For reference, of the three courses I've taught previously, one had no purchased reading (all scans, sucks to be me), one had "buy or borrow or find on Project Gutenberg any version of these classic texts," and one had two books totaling less than US$30.)

Comments

[vlion]

If the student doesn't use the book, they shouldn't pass. They are in college, they can suck it up and buy the book.

[ajnabieh]

Well, but it's not buy book vs. don't use book; it's buy book vs get book from library/read it on reserve/share with a friend vs don't bother, right? I definitely spent a lot of both undergrad and grad school in that middle category.

[tea]

I think this would depend on the course and field. If it's English Lit and they didn't read it, uh, yeah, if it's Statistical Mechanics and the course notes and better than the book, that sure as heck isn't true!

[holyschist]

My exhibit design class in grad school required buying this hideous coffee-table book on industrial design which we a) never cracked for class and b) was full of hideous stuff that I would never in a billion years try to apply if I became a professional exhibit designer.

I'm still trying to get rid of the stupid thing.

Still kind of bitter about the $400 of textbooks for my undergrad vert zoo class, too. If I had known better I would totally have found someone to share dissection manuals with. I was just lucky I didn't have to choose between food and textbooks.