online learning

This bookadvocates civic engagement and service learning in higher education to provide students with transformative learning experiences. Linking service learning with online learning the authors present eService-Learning – a high-impact modality of learning for the twenty-first century. Contributors to the volume present research on teaching and learning as it relates to eService-Learning and provide best practices on how to incorporate eService-Learning experiences in courses and curricula.

Divided into three parts, the first part of the book consists of four chapters setting forth “Essentials, Components, and Nuts and Bolts of eService-Learning.” Contributors present a rationale for civic engagement and service learning in higher education (7-19) and provide theoretical foundations for service and experiential learning, coupling both theory and practice to the emerging field of online learning (20-39). Authors guide readers in creating syllabi and learning experiences that facilitate the development of aptitudes and skills for service in online courses (40-57) and address the technology requirements for implementing eService-Learning (58-66).

The second part, “Models for eService-Learning,” introduces readers to five different models for implementing eService-Learning as illustrated by universities that have implemented it at course or program levels. Models described leverage online and on-site learning in the following ways: (1) instruction online, service-learning on-site (69-88); (2) e-portfolio and reflection online, instruction and collaboration with service partners in class (89-104); (3) instruction and service partially on-site and online (105-118); (4) instruction and service conducted online (119-129); and (5) a mixed hybrid of models (130-143). Research in part two provides a critique and analysis of these five models of eService-Learning and step-by-step guidance for implementing each model.

The third part, “Next Steps And Future Directions” provides advice to administrators and faculty interested in implementing eService-Learning at the course or program level. The first of two chapters describes the challenges that universities face if they question the relevance of higher education. The author skillfully argues that eService-Learning can reassert the relevance and worth of higher education in the twenty-first century (149-163). The final chapter expands the horizons of eService-Learning beyond the borders of higher education, suggesting possible applications for K-12 education, workplace training, learners with disabilities, and senior adults (164-166).

This book is to be commended for articulating a rationale for including outcomes related to civic engagement and service-learning in higher education and best practices for using online technologies to implement eService-Learning in courses and curricula. A conspicuous strength is the description of various eService-Learning models. As such, the volume is particularly valuable for faculty and administrators in higher education.

If your school is in the process of transitioning to online learning, Integrating Pedagogy and Technology may be the only book you need – it certainly should be one of the first you read. Bernauer and Tomei’s work is brimming with very useful information for schools in transition. The authors have devised what they call an “Integrated Readiness Matrix” (IRM) to assist institutions both in discerning how ready their faculty may be for this change and in moving them toward greater technological and pedagogical proficiency. “The goal of the IRM and this textbook is simple: move higher education faculty incrementally from lower left quadrants to more advanced upper right quadrants” (80).

Considering how best to integrate technology into instruction “requires all faculty to be conversant with the theories of learning, the taxonomies and domains of learning, a new methodology for preparing and developing college faculty for a career of classroom teaching” (vii). The book includes a chapter on educational psychology, exploring the unique features of five pedagogies: behaviorism, cognitivism, humanism, constructivism, and connectivism. It builds to address taxonomies of learning, pedagogical skills and competencies, and technological skills and competencies. The lists of competencies and learning objectives for faculty development in chapters eight and nine are worth going over with faculty even by themselves.

The authors, from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, model educational theory, using advance organizers at the beginning of each chapter, for example. Chapters may end with review sections, indices of concepts addressed in particularly complex chapters, suggested readings, and so forth. The preface introduces preconditions for using the Integrated Readiness Matrix, which is considered “sufficiently valid and reliable to serve as a basis for faculty self-assessment and professional faculty development,” to determine where each faculty member’s pedagogical and technological skills need bolstering (vii).

Another strength of this book is its applicability to various kinds of learners and institutional contexts. This material is valuable whether you are teaching undergraduates, graduate students, or other adult learners. Your field does not matter; this is not one of those texts where everything must be translated in order to be useful to theological or religious-studies faculty. Reflective teachers and institutional administrators concerned about how to develop faculty competencies will both find appropriate and important resources here.

Many institutions of higher learning are already in the process of transitioning to more online offerings. But this often happens in a haphazard, unorganized way, leaving certain faculty to carry the technological burden for the entire institution. Alternately, online expectations are introduced or imposed, but faculty are not empowered and trained to make the best use of technological tools, or pedagogical considerations do not enter the discussion. This book can be used to assist entire departments in training faculty, generating conversation about the pedagogical sophistication necessary to use technology well, and balancing technological and pedagogical considerations while transitioning to online learning.

For many reasons, universities and seminaries are asking faculty to teach more courses online. As a result, professors are ever vigilant for online strategies and tools that could help them with communication, interaction, and live online collaboration between professor and learners, learner and learner, and learners and course content. For professors in religious studies and theology who want to or are required to teach live online, this book is a good place to start. Based on years of research and experience, Cornelius, Gordon, and Schyma propose best practice guidelines in using web conferencing technology and provide helpful tips for teaching that is learner centered. Each of the ten chapters begins with an outline and concludes with a helpful summary.

The usefulness of this book is its breadth in the coverage of materials for teaching in a web conference classroom. Chapter 1 covers creating the virtual classroom environment by using web conferencing technology to create the learning space that inspires learning and teaching. Chapters 2 to 8 follow, in a logical manner, the actual design of a live online course and cover preparation to teach in a virtual classroom, welcoming students to the virtual classroom, bringing professor and students together to the learning space, engaging learners, gaining feedback, helping learners work together, and assessing for learning. The authors conclude in chapters 9 and 10 with thoughts and tools to help professors assess their skills in the live online teaching environment and creative and inclusive ways of using web conferencing technology to support diverse groups of learners.

Within each chapter there is a wealth of information and practical suggestions. From the beginning to the end the authors cover topics and practices such as: creating learning space, strategies to inspire students and professor, exploring the technology, planning live online sessions, building trust and rapport, engaging learners through activities, collaboration and group work, effective group activities, and student centered assessment. For instance, chapter 5 provides a good example of the breadth of information as it relates to engaging learners. The authors explain the importance of engaging learners; give examples of activities that can be used in any context, followed by step-by-step practical ways to introduce learning activities and activities that maintain student engagement. What is further helpful in this chapter and each of the chapters in the book is the way the authors cleverly interweave their narrative with actual teaching and learning experiences from teachers and learners that gives genuineness to the teaching and learning situation.

In summary, Live Online Learning Strategies for the Web Conferencing Classroom succeedsbecause of thebreadth of information and depth of its application. Because it is written in non-technical language, this book will be especially helpful for new instructors who are beginning to teach online live. Its focus on teaching and learning issues and student-centered learning is a welcomed resource.

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Do students learn as well online as they do in the face-to-face classroom? Miller argues not only that they can, if the instruction is well-designed, but also that online tools and resources are uniquely able to deliver instructional experiences that take advantage of the innate properties of human learning. “[W]hat technology allows us to do,” she claims, “is amplify and expand the repertoire of techniques that effective teachers use to elicit the attention, effort, and engagement that are the basis for learning” (xii).

Miller realizes that many faculty do not share her positive view of technology in instruction, however. She opens her book by targeting that resistance with well-reasoned and supported counterarguments: in chapter 1, she counters the fear that teaching with technology is a faddish, passing phenomenon with a recounting of its potential lasting value to both administrators and instructors; in chapter 2, she presents evidence for the effectiveness of online learning and against typical worries about its effects on students; and in chapter 3, she debunks several major myths about learners and computing that have made instructors skeptical or misdirected their efforts.

Having assuaged common concerns about instructional technology, Miller moves on in chapters 4 through 8 to discuss current psychological theory on the functioning of attention, memory, reasoning, the effect of multimedia elements on learning and motivation, paired in each case with practical strategies to help online instruction optimize these elements. Her evidence is compelling even as it is presented at an accessible level for an audience with little to no background in psychology. Finally, in chapter 9, she presents possibly the most valuable portion of the entire work: a demonstration of all of her principles in practice, in the form of a sample design process and syllabus annotated to show their use of cognitive best practices.

The value of Miller’s overall guidance is only slightly undermined by its fuzzy definition of learning for these purposes. Even as she describes how technology can impact learning, learning itself seems to be equated variously with retention, course completion, grades, and reasoning at different points in the text. In all fairness, each of these measures may well suffice at times for the instructor of a large introductory psychology class, which is the primary use case Miller discusses in this book; and to her credit, she does acknowledge the limitations of each of these as measures of student learning, and also explicitly notes the need for learning experiences that foster deep critical thought, and that engage students at the highest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Nonetheless, a more intentional definition of what is meant by learning would do a great deal to strengthen her argument that online resources can support it.

Despite this limitation, however, this book is a useful, readable guide to an area of instruction whose study is still in its early stages, unusually and gratefully practical even while firmly grounded in theory. It provides a valuable reframing of, and supplement to, the core principles of instructional design, and I expect it to inform my online and even face-to-face instructional practice for some time to come. I would recommend it for any academic library and for the personal collection of any instructor teaching, or considering teaching, in an online or blended environment.

“Teachers are like new parents,” Cari Crumly asserts. “[T]hey don’t want to be told how to raise their children or, in this case, how to teach their students. Yet, sometimes, even the least-experienced teacher can introduce new methods that engage, encourage, and promote motivation and participation among students” (4). Crumly lays down the gauntlet repeatedly in this book: “student-centered learning will revolutionize your classroom and reinvigorate your career” (5).

As Crumly notes, “student-centered learning is a learning model placing the learner in the center of the learning process. Students are active participants in their learning, learning at their own pace and using their own strategies; they are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated; and learning is more individualized than standardized” (4). Certainly there are situations in which (and learners for whom) more external structure is appropriate, but Crumly makes a very persuasive case for those being the exception rather than the rule.

The good news is that if you are a teacher-centered professor, Pedagogies for Student-Centered Learning gives you everything you need to make changes in your teaching. There is an historical timeline to remind readers that student-centered learning is not a new fad; it’s been with us for centuries. There is a section on teacher-centered classrooms, so we can check whether we are (or are not) as student-centered as we’d like to think we are. There is information on understanding your learning population. There are examples from real classrooms about how student-centered learning can play out, and how it benefits students. Each chapter contains questions for investigation. There is also a list of instructional tactics, with commonly used exercises and the advantages of using each one. Appendices and URLs point readers to even more resources, and Pamela Dietz adds a section on how to bring faculty, administrators, and tech support on board. If you are a visual learner, there are a number of graphical elements that will assist in your assimilation of the material presented.

Fortress Press’s new Seminarium: The Elements of Great Teaching series is ideal for twenty-first-century readers. QR codes dot the pages – but don’t worry, if you don’t do QR codes, the URLs are available in footnotes. This book is full of great, useful information – and points readers to more useful information online. Certainly, there are some distractions (for example, misrepresentations of quotations from other thinkers at times). Definitions of student-centered learning can become repetitive over the course of the book. And Sarah d’Angelo’s chapter on student-centered learning in a theater classroom contains a bit more information than is likely to be useful for religious-studies and seminary faculty. But none of these detracts from the benefits of the book as a whole.

I have been reviewing books on teaching for ten years or more – this is easily one of the most helpful books I have ever reviewed, and one to which I will return often. I have attempted student-centered learning in a number of courses and contexts; it can be very hard to pull off successfully, and does require a rethinking of our role as faculty. While Crumly suggests that “The student-centered classroom, whether on ground or online, is characterized by individualization, interaction, and integration,” I did wonder how this might work in an online environment (10). I look forward to further exploring these possibilities.