The topicality of the research is substantiated by the transformations in higher education, leading to changes in professional activity of teachers, working in the conditions of constantly updating educational environment and the lack of modern textbooks satisfying the educational needs of students, postgraduate students and university teaching staff members. The purpose of the article is to reveal the criteria for development and the requirements for the textbooks intended for students of universities and for university instructors in the process of continuing professional education, as well as to propose new approaches to involving students in active use of textbooks. The leading approach to the analysis of the stated problem was the competence-activity approach. The tendency of changing students’ views on the “ideal” textbook at the under-and post-graduate level is revealed. A promising technique of students ' work with textbooks, additional to the traditional types of work, is described. The methodology of the organization of learners’ activities with a textbook in the unity of specific professional and humanitarian contexts, as well as the rationale for designing the content of a textbook at the levels of subject knowledge and experience mastering are presented. The examples of publications based on different approaches are given – an electronic textbook with a fundamental representation of educational technologies and a textbook developed on the basis of the idea of a class designer. The presented results can be used for theoretical analysis of the methodology of textbooks development and for the improvement of textbook compiling practices.

teacher; textbook; higher medical education, humanitarian approach