Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning

Written by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, experts in the field of online teaching and learning, this hands-on resource helps higher education professionals understand the fundamentals of effective online assessment. It offers guidance for designing and implementing creative assessment practices tied directly to course activities to measure student learning. The book is filled with illustrative case studies, authentic assessments based in real-life application of concepts, and collaborative activities that assess the quality of student learning rather than relying on the traditional methods of measuring the amount of information retained.

How can online instructors and course designers' instruction harness the popular Web 2.0 tool, the wiki, for successful collaboration and learning outcomes? This book focuses on using wikis in the active learning processes that are the hallmark of collaborative learning and constructivism. It provides both the pedagogical background and practical guidelines, tools, and processes for accomplishing these goals with special emphasis on wikis and other collaborative design tools. This book supports the effective design and delivery of online courses through the integration of collaborative writing and design activities.

Making Online Teaching Accessible offers online teachers, instructional designers, and content developers a comprehensive resource for designing online courses and delivering course content that is accessible for all students including those with visual and audio disabilities. Grounded in the theories of learner-centered teaching and successful course design, Making Online Teaching Accessible outlines the key legislation, decisions, and guidelines that govern online learning. The book also demystifies assistive technologies and includes step-by-step guidance for creating accessible online content using popular programs like Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, as well as multimedia tools. Including a wealth of helpful tips and suggestions for effectively communicating with disabled students, the book contains practical advice on purchasing accessible course management systems, developing solutions for inaccessibility issues, and creating training materials for faculty and staff to make online learning truly accessible.

This important new resource shows how a strong sense of online presence contributes to greater student satisfaction and retention. The authors explore the psychological and social aspects of online presence from both the instructor and student perspective and provide an instructional design framework for developing effective online learning. Based on solid research and extensive experience, the book is filled with suggested methods, illustrative case scenarios, and effective activities for creating, maintaining, and evaluating presence throughout an online course.

The infusion of games, simulations, and virtual worlds into online learning can be a transforming experience for both the instructor and the student. This practical guide, written by education game expert Clark Aldrich, shows faculty members and instructional designers how to identify opportunities for building games, simulations, and virtual environments into the curriculum; how to successfully incorporate these interactive environments to enhance student learning; and how to measure the learning outcomes. It also discusses how to build institutional support for using and financing more complex simulations. The book includes frameworks, tips, case studies and other real examples, and resources.

“Exploring the Digital Library” addresses the key issue of library services for faculty and their students in the online learning environment. Written by librarians at Athabasca University, a leading institution in distance education, this book shows how faculty can effectively use digital libraries in their day-to-day work and in the design of electronic courses. Exploring the Digital Library is filled with information, ideas, and • Discusses how information and communication technologies are transforming scholarship communication • Provides suggestions for integrating digital libraries into teaching and course development • Describes approaches to promoting information literacy skills and integrating these skills across the curriculum • Outlines the skills and knowledge required in digital library use • Suggests opportunities for faculty and librarians to collaborate in the online educational environment

“Learning in Real Time” is a concise and practical resource for education professionals teaching live and online or those wanting to humanize and improve interaction in their online courses by adding a synchronous learning component. The book offers keen insight into the world of synchronous learning tools, guides instructors in evaluating how and when to use them and illustrates how educators can develop their own strategies and styles in implementing such tools to improve online learning.

“Managing Online Instructor Workload” is a groundbreaking book that offers strategies, advice, illustrative examples, and a four-step process for identifying challenges and rethinking, prioritizing, managing, and balancing one's online instruction workload. Based on surveys and interviews with successful online instructors, the book is filled with timely and comprehensive insight that is essential for online instructors, instructional designers, faculty developers, and anyone who wants to succeed in online learning.

This updated edition includes an innovative framework-the Phases of Engagement-that helps learners become more involved as knowledge generators and cofacilitators of a course. The book also provides specific ideas for tested activities (collected from experienced online instructors across the nation) that can go a long way to improving online learning. “Engaging the Online Learner” offers the tools and information needed to: • Convert classroom activities to an online environment • Assess the learning that occurs as a result of collaborative activities • Phase in activities that promote engagement among online learners • Build peer interaction through peer partnerships and team activities • Create authentic activities and implement games and simulations

Put your course online now, without sacrificing pedagogical quality Conquering the Content: A Blueprint for Online Course Design and Development, Second Edition is a highly practical guide to creating online courses. With guidance on incorporating learning theory into online course content, as well as a host of templates, learning guides, and sample files, this book furnishes instructors and instructional designers with the information and tools they need to design and develop their course content to better serve online students. This second edition introduces relevance statements and time-saving tips as well as content maps which provide a scaffold for content organization and help students anchor the topics in their memories for retrieval. Readers will gain expert insight and best practices for designing within the rapidly changing online learning environment and learn to incorporate recent advances that can improve student outcomes. Because the book is designed to focus on online teaching pedagogy, it won't go out of date as specific tools change. Nearly one-third of all students in higher education are taking at least one online class, and online hybrid classes are becoming more widespread. Distance learning is becoming the norm, but creating an online class is more complex than just posting course content on a website. Conquering the Content demonstrates how instructors can best revamp their course content to suit the online learning environment, and provides the tools and resources instructors need to transfer their effectiveness from the classroom to the online environment. Learn how to: • Create student-friendly navigation structures that support what is known about the brain and learning • Organize content based on priority, flow, and easy navigation • Create assessments that work within the parameters of an online course • "Chunk" information to facilitate better processing Time is of the essence in getting a course online, but it's important that pedagogy not get lost in the crush of new content. Course design is just as critical as course content when it comes to distance learning outcomes, and Conquering the Content provides a holistic and practical approach to effective online course development.

Finally, the first research-based book of sound strategies and best practices to help instructors motivate students to complete their online courses. Although studies support the effectiveness of learning online, students often fail to complete online courses. Some studies have found that as many as 50—70% drop out of their online courses or programs. Retention is not only a growing expectation and imperative, but it is also as opportunity for faculty members to take the lead in innovating, researching, and implementing new strategies while demonstrating their effectiveness. Designed for instructors and instructional designers, Motivating and Retaining Online Students is filled with empirical research from the authors' study of motivation and retention strategies that can reduce online learner dropout. Focusing on the most important issues instructors face, such as course design, student engagement and motivation, and institutional, instructional, and informal student support strategies, the book provides effective online strategies that help minimize student dropout, increase student retention, and support student learning. While helping to improve the overall retention rates for educational institutions, the strategies outlined in the book also allow for student diversity and individual learner differences. Lehman and Conceição's proven model gives instructors an effective approach to help students persist in online courses and succeed as learners.

Contributing to both the theoretical and practical literature, “Continuing to Engage the Online Learner” expands on the work of Conrad and Donaldson's bestselling “Engaging the Online Learner”. This next-step resource introduces a new phase to their proven model, the Phases of Engagement, and addresses a wide range of online and hybrid learning environments, technology tools, and communication styles. Comprehensive in scope, the book provides an introduction to the theory of engaged learning and its design, assessment, and management in online and blended learning environments and describes the types of activities that motivate the online learner in each phase of engagement. This down-to-earth resource also includes 50 new and illustrative activities paired with each phase of engagement. In “Continuing to Engage the Online Learner” Rita-Marie Conrad and J. Ana Donaldson provide relevant and theoretically-sound information to enhance teaching and engage learners, offering a practical handbook for instructors.

Update the visual design of your course in pedagogically sound ways “Visual Design for Online Learning” spotlights the role that visual elements play in the online learning environment. Written for both new and experienced instructors, the book guides you in adding pedagogically relevant visual design elements that contribute to effective learning practices. The text builds upon three conceptual frameworks: active learning, multiple intelligences, and universal design for learning. This resource explores critical issues such as copyright, technology tools, and accessibility and includes examples from top Blackboard practitioners which are applicable to any LMS. Ultimately, the author guides you in developing effective visual elements that will support your teaching goals while reinforcing the learning materials you share with your students. There has been a steady increase of over 10% in online enrollment for higher education institutions since 2002, yet the visual look of online courses has not changed significantly in the last ten years. Adapting to the needs of students within online classes is critical to guiding your students toward success, and the right visual elements can play an integral role in your students' ability to learn and retain the information they need to thrive in their chosen programs. In fact, visual elements have been shown to increase student participation, engagement, and success in an online course. • Leverage the best practices employed by exemplary Blackboard practitioners • Explore three foundational conceptual frameworks: active learning, multiple intelligences, and universal design for learning • Increase student retention and success “Visual Design for Online Learning” is an essential reference for all online educators, both new and experienced.