As educators assigned with teaching the same or similar courses year after year, it is inevitable that we will reuse/recycle some instructional materials from course to course. This is especially true with foundational courses, since the fundamentals of the field rarely change much between one semester and the next. However, that being said, it still remains our duty to ensure that, in reusing course materials, we don't exhibit the kind of professional complacence/sloppiness that invites ridicule from our students!
Sometimes the cultural context of our instruction can expose our intellectual laziness in uniquely embarrassing ways. There was this professor at my alma mater who - in spite of being a senior faculty member in an educational technology doctoral program - was nevertheless uncomfortable with "new" instructional media such as PowerPoint and preferred to stick with traditional OHP transparencies. His argument - from an instructional design standpoint - was that transparencies served his chosen instructional strategies perfectly well, and therefore it was unnecessary to upgrade to a newer medium simply because it was more fashionable. I agree completely.
However, the issue was not that he used transparencies. The problem was, it was clear - from their yellowing, frayed appearance and antiquated typefaces - that his transparency collection dated back to around the time of the Nixon administration. We students would chuckle about it between ourselves, but of course we were too polite to call him on it.
One fine day, though, as the professor was just projecting a transparency showing an illustration supporting an instructional point he was making, one of my classmates suddenly burst out laughing uncontrollably. Incensed, the professor stopped mid-sentence and demanded to know what was so funny. My classmate - a veteran African-American community leader with a long history of social activism dating back to the Civil Rights era - pointed to the illustration, tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks, and said: "Now I know exactly how old your transparencies are!" "What do you mean?" the professor asked, confused. My classmate replied: "Well, that picture shows a White basketball player..."
