What does it take to write your own textbook—and make it freely available for others to use and build on? This month’s faculty spotlight features Dr. Caitie Finlayson from the Department of Geography, who used a Center for Teaching Small Teaching Grant to redesign her online Human Geography course around a new open educational resource (OER) textbook she authored. In this Q&A, Dr. Finlayson shares her goals for the project, advice for faculty interested in creating their own OERs, and some reflections on what keeps teaching fresh and fun.
Over the summer, you had a CfT small teaching grant. Can you tell us a little about the goal of that project?
The small teaching grant was actually for a redesign of my summer online Human Geography course to better align with my new OER textbook. I’d previously written a brief Human Geography textbook but for a sabbatical project, had written a new version that was more comprehensive and was better aligned with AP Human Geography. My goal for the project was to comprehensively redesign my online course so I could use the new textbook, and to share the online course through Canvas Commons so other instructors could use it to build their own courses.
How have or do you anticipate student responses to this text?
I haven’t used it in my own course yet, since it’s a summer course and I just revised it, but the response from instructors has been positive and the online textbook gets over 800 visitors per month, so momentum seems to be building for it. Since I’m publishing it on my own and don’t have the resources of a major publisher, I find it takes a bit of time for instructors to start switching over to an OER textbook.
Do you have any tips for faculty considering preparing their own OER text for their courses?
I would just suggest that they go for it! Writing a textbook seems like an overwhelming task, but when you think about how many lecture notes and examples you have for your courses, especially if you’ve been teaching a while, it’s easier than you’d think. It’s also quite fun (I think) to write without a publisher pushing certain expectations or norms on you. So I was able to write all of my OER textbooks in a very conversational, engaging style and just approach it the way I wanted — not in the same, cookie-cutter way that every other textbook approached geography. And especially for my World Regional Geography textbook, it seems like it’s the kind of book other instructors wanted as well.
Is there anything that stands out to you that has prepared you or continues to prepare you most for effective teaching?
I attended a Teaching Professor conference with a Teaching Center grant early in my career and that was really inspiring. In particular, there was a session on “blue sky” thinking applied to teaching, and the idea of stripping away everything from your course and considering how you’d approach it if you had a totally blank slate. But I also took a lot of inspiration from Jim Lang’s “small teaching” workshop and the idea that sure, you could make radical changes to your teaching, but you could also make relatively minor tweaks that increases engagement and interaction.
Who was your favorite teacher?
Dr. Peter Judge, who was my undergraduate advisor, was an outstanding teacher. I was a Philosophy and Religious Studies major and he was a former priest who became a professor (which is quite a cool trajectory). I’m the first in my family to attend college, and he was so encouraging, particularly of me conducting my own research and presenting at conferences, and he absolutely set me up for future academic success. He was also just quite fun and playful and clearly loved teaching, and that made his classes really engaging.
8:00 a.m. class or 4:00 p.m. class?
Oh, 8:00 a.m. for sure. I’m definitely more of a morning person.
What is your dream class to teach?
My dream class that I actually teach is Sacred Spaces. It’s cross-listed with Religious Studies and has a great mix of students and viewpoints and every time I teach it, I learn something new. My dream class that I wish I could teach would be on Pop Culture Geographies. I give a special lecture in my World Regional Geography class on Disney movie landscapes, and it would be so fun to teach a whole class where we explore pop culture from a geographic perspective.
What is one piece of advice you’d give a brand-new faculty member?
It takes time to be a great teacher. And there isn’t a great substitute for time. It takes trying things, finding your voice, seeing what works and what doesn’t. The Center for Teaching is a great resource and there are great books on teaching, but I do think it just takes a lot of practice, just like anything else.
What podcast, book, or show would you currently recommend?
Good Hang with Amy Poehler.
If you could take any class in the UMW catalog, what would it be?
I did take classes! I took several Spanish classes and would love to continue with them.
What were you like as a student in college?
I only went to college because I received a scholarship, so I was a really hard-working student because I felt like I’d been given this gift. I also had to work quite a lot outside of the classroom (I was the student manager of our campus dining hall) so I had to manage my time well. But I think that work ethic, and the undergraduate research experience I got in my major, really carried with me through graduate school.