{"id":12191,"date":"2024-07-18T17:52:13","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T21:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/?page_id=12191"},"modified":"2025-03-28T14:40:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T18:40:22","slug":"choosing-course-materials","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/ofe-teaching-principles\/clear-course-design\/choosing-course-materials\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Course Materials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Choose relevant and meaningful material that reflects your discipline or subject area and fits firmly within the confines of your course as defined by your student learning outcomes. Consider the importance of student-friendly, contemporary content and strategies for connecting disciplinary excellence to real-world relevance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<h1>Things to consider as you choose course materials<\/h1>\n<p><strong>Consider educational value<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">when selecting textbooks or other course materials:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are they the appropriate level for your course?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Will you assign or have students use a good portion of them?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do they offer <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/inclusivity-and-diversity\/incorporating-varied-course-materials\/\">varied examples and perspectives<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do they support the way you want to teach your course? Or is the format too rigid (making it so that you need to use all the chapters in order, for example)?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Consider their cost<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>:<\/strong> Often when a textbook is expensive, students will not purchase them or may delay purchasing them. If you have an expensive textbook ($100 or more), see if there are cheaper alternatives. Do students need the most recent edition? Or will a previous edition suffice? Would a different text work? Would a collection of resources work? Are there library resources you could use?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Consider access: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To ensure all students have access to <\/span>course materials<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, where possible, instructors should <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/library\/services-and-spaces\/reserves\/reserves-information-for-faculty\/\">place materials on reserve<\/a><\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">at University Libraries and\/or use Open Educational Resources (OER). For more on<\/span> <strong>Open Educational Resources (OER), Open Access, and Open Textbooks,<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> see University Libraries\u2019 <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/montclair.libguides.com\/oer\">research guide on OER<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Consult your department\u2019s<\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/library\/about-the-library\/liaison-librarians\/\"> liaison librarian<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for suggestions and guidance on library and\/or open materials for your course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><div class=\"prpl-drawer\"><div class=\"prpl-drawer-header\">Resources and References<\/div><div class=\"prpl-drawer-content\">\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/montclair.libguides.com\/c.php?g=297182&amp;p=1981905]\">Fair Use and copyright<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> research guide developed by Montclair University Libraries<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/library.thechicagoschool.edu\/c.php?g=1312110&amp;p=9662517\">Textbook and Course Reading Materials Evaluation Checklist<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: developed by the Chicago School\u2019s University Library, this checklist guides you through evaluating course materials for flexibility, cost, cultural relevance, accessibility, and data, privacy, ethical business practices. <\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><p><em>Last Modified: Friday, March 28, 2025 2:40 pm<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>For more information or help, please <a href=\"mailto:faculty@montclair.edu\">email<\/a> the Office for Faculty Excellence or <a href=\"https:\/\/montclair-faculty-excellence.libcal.com\/appointments\/\">make an appointment<\/a> with a consultant.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/195\/2022\/08\/CC.png\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" width=\"80\" height=\"15\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nTeaching Resources by <a rel=\"cc:attributionURL\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/\">ÌÇÐÄvlog Office for Faculty Excellence<\/a> is licensed under a <a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Third-party content is not covered under the Creative Commons license and may be subject to additional intellectual property notices, information, or restrictions. You are solely responsible for obtaining permission to use third party content or determining whether your use is fair use and for responding to any claims that may arise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons CC BY-NC-4.0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Choose relevant and meaningful material that reflects your discipline or subject area and fits firmly within the confines of your course as defined by your student learning outcomes. Consider the importance of student-friendly, contemporary content and strategies for connecting disciplinary excellence to real-world relevance. Things to consider as you choose course materials Consider educational value [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":12194,"parent":7474,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12191","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12191"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13583,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12191\/revisions\/13583"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}