Discussion-Based Online Teaching to Enhance Student Learning: Theory, Practice, and Assessment

"The new edition of Tisha Bender’s book exceeds even the virtues of the first. She has made her work more timely than ever, with attention to current debates about cognition, reading, networked communications, and other features of life in the digital age. She also knows how today’s online students think and behave, and what can be done to make them effective learners. But unlike others writing about online teaching and learning, Bender takes nothing for granted about the transformational features of the digital age for education. She believes in what’s new, but makes the case for online pedagogical innovation reflecting thoughtful judgments about what the digital age means for students and instructors alike. This book offers a practical discourse of online course design framed by recognition of how the best teaching is also theoretical and critical. Much more than a simple 'how-to', this book offers a deep reading of a significant dimension of online teaching. Readers will learn how to be better online teachers and also better thinkers about what they do in the virtual classroom.”―Steven Weiland, College of EducationMichigan State University

“I’ve been teaching at Rutgers University since 1968 and Tisha Bender’s wonderful little book served as the primer for designing my first online course two years ago. Now we have the second edition, even wiser and more useful than the first in a rapidly advancing field where even old dogs can learn new tricks. A must read for the novice deciding whether to go online, or forced to do so by circumstances, and a necessary reference guide throughout the semester when the unexpected starts happening. Bender’s been there and she tells all.” ―Dr. Rudolph M. Bell, Professor of HistoryRutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The new edition of what is now considered a classic on online learning has been expanded by about a third to reflect new opportunities offered by social media, new insights and ideas derived f

Tisha Bender Tisha Bender is Assistant Director in the Rutgers Writing Program, and is the Hybrid Coordinator as well as the Coordinator of Research Writing. She is currently embarking on a project in which she will train teachers from China to teach effectively online, and they will then team-teach online international Rutgers Research Writing courses with teachers in the Rutgers Writing Program. She is the founder of Hybrid teaching in the Rutgers Writing Program, having trained groups of teachers since 2007 to the present to adapt their pedagogy to effectively teach online. Prior to this she was an Online Faculty Development Consultant, who has extensively trained online faculty at New York University, the SUNY Learning Network, New School Online University and Cornell University-ILR Extension. She currently teaches in the Rutgers Writing Program and the Geography department at Rutgers, and had also taught as an online instructor at Cornell and the New School. Tisha Bender is also the author of "Facilitating Online Discussion in an Asynchronous Format" in Issues in Web-Based Pedagogy: A Critical Primer (ed. Robert Cole), Greenwood Press 2001; "Role Playing in Online Education: A Teaching Tool to Enhance Student Engagement and Sustained Learning" in Innovate, April, May 2005; and “Engaging the Student: Learning for Life”, chapter 1 of Pedagogical Models: The Discipline of Online Teaching, edited by Michael F. Shaughnessy and Susan Fulgham, Nova Publishers, February 2011. In addition she features in the following online interview: “An Interview with Tisha Bender: Discussion Based Online Teaching,” by Michael Shaughnessy. In Education News, April 19, 2010, and online at http://www.educationnews.org/michael-f-shaughnessy/95329.html.