In Winter of 2021, I tried to have students write a textbook.
It failed. Miserably.
But I suspected it might--and I've been wanting to try again for a while. Last semester, I tried again. It worked.
The problem wasn't student work output, it was structure: they didn't know how to tackle a full chapter. So instead, this time, I broke it out by small topics, which I call concepts, and asked them to write about each one. Each student owned a few concepts, and had to put something together.
They. Did. Great.
It's not perfect. There are mistakes. Some chapters go long. Some chapters have inaccuracies. Some chapters are a little thin.
But it's an excellent working draft of a good textbook--and it's free.
But what really came in clutch was when I asked this semester's students to read, improve, and polish last semester's work--and they are killing it. They are all responsible for parts of the textbook, but now they get feedback from peers in Perusall.
Here's a link to the textbook, which will be getting improved over the semester.
And here's a video explanation.