Posted By Gettysburgian Staff on Jan 23, 2024 | 2 comments

By Theodore Szpakowski ’24, Contributing Writer

Last year, four Gettysburg College Spanish professors worked to create a set of textbooks that would better meet student needs in the areas of curriculum and cost. As a result, students in Spanish 101 and 102 saved a combined total of $46,762 from Fall 2022 to Fall 2023.

The professors have found that some textbooks do not cover all the course materials or cover some poorly, and this in turn forces the professors to supplement the textbooks with additional materials in other places.

“Books, even when they are expensive, they are never perfect,” said Spanish Lecturer María Pérez.

Spanish Adjunct Instructor Barbara Sommers shared similar thoughts: “I was constantly frustrated with textbooks that did not change errors in their publications for months and months.”

Students have also expressed the challenges that come with commercial textbooks regularly increasing in costs.

“The cost of textbooks has caused severe financial instability for my family in the past,” shared one student in Gettysburg College’s 2022 textbook survey.

In this survey, other words used to describe the cost of textbooks were “absurd,” “unfair” and “outrageous.”

Faced with these challenges, as well as changing student demographics that increased concerns over textbook costs, a team of Spanish instructors decided to create a two-volume open textbook that would better meet students’ needs.

The team includes Pérez, Sommers and Associate Professor of Spanish Christopher Oechler. Spanish Native Speaker and former Gettysburg College Professor Covadonga Arroyo García joined them for the second volume. The first book, Ventanas Abiertas I, began being used in Spanish 101 in Fall 2022. Ventanas Abiertas II was completed in time for Spanish 102 courses in Spring 2023. The open textbook remix and the creation of interactive assignments was supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Consortium for the Liberal Arts in 2022. Additionally, Assistant Dean and Director of Scholarly Communications at Musselman Library Janelle Wertzberger provided administrative support.

“The library’s textbook affordability work is rooted in our equity mindset for supporting student success. We know that high textbook prices disproportionately and negatively impact first-generation students, Pell-eligible students, and international students, so it’s important to lower or remove those costs that so often are a barrier to student learning,” said Wertzberger.

Wertzberger shared that the advantages of Ventanas Abiertas go beyond being free to students. Ventanas Abiertas is an open textbook, allowing anyone with internet access to use it free of charge. It is also free of most copyright restrictions.

“Beyond the cost conundrum, the use of OER frees faculty and students alike from the constraints of commercial materials which may be not quite right in any number of ways. The ability to build a textbook or reading list that perfectly aligns with Gettysburg course learning goals and content scope, while addressing concerns related to equity and representation, is liberating,” Wertzberger said.

Many of its materials were adapted from other institutions, but they were combined in a way that suits Gettysburg’s unique context.

“What we did was we looked at different textbooks to remix some of their materials. In the OER community that’s a big thing. Instead of recreating the wheel, if you can use that expression, you can kind of reuse what’s out there but give it your own spin, change it a little bit, adapt it to your needs. And so that’s exactly what we did,” said Oechler.

The open structure also means that the project is never completely finished, even as it is being used.

“As we use the text, we see which activities work better than others do, and we have the freedom to edit the text accordingly,” Sommers said.

The team has found that the flexibility of open textbooks makes up for potential imperfections.

“I know everything that’s there. I trust the information that we have. And I trust that my students are getting the right information. And if they aren’t, I can fix it. And I will use the whole textbook,” Oechler said.

The team also created activities to go along with the textbook on Moodle, which can allow students to practice the material before coming to class to work with it. This decision was made in response to student frustration with paying for homework systems.

“Intro language classes (and intro classes in general) are the worst culprits about requiring expensive online homework systems which aren’t helpful,” one student commented on Gettysburg College’s 2022 textbook survey.

“It’s unfair to make students pay for homework assignment access alongside books,” said another student.

With Ventanas Abiertas, students don’t have to pay for either book or homework access.

As they continue to improve the books and homework, the team is also considering ways to build on their success. This summer, they presented on their textbook at a conference in Spain and got feedback from colleagues at other universities. In the future, they are interested in working on another textbook project to cover intermediate Spanish.

“So, you can see by the fact that we’re thinking about continuing with this type of project that it was a positive project, and we feel it’s really been helpful and beneficial for our students as well,” Oechler said.