Online Teaching Guide, The: A Handbook of Attitudes, Strategies, and Techniques for the Virtual Classroom

B> For anyone preparing to teach online, The Online Teaching Guide is a one-of-a-kind resource for developing and implementing a successful online course. From the basics of online teaching to techniques, tools, and methods for effective online communication, The Online Teaching Guide addresses the breadth of conceptual and practical issues related to the online classroom. In each chapter, The Online Teaching Guide's contributing authors -- faculty members at the University of Phoenix Online Campus -- offer a wealth of useful strategies to sharpen your instructional skills. Each author focuses on the interpersonal aspect of online teaching and learning, providing a deep understanding of various instructional methods and techniques. Learn how to keep a classroom interpersonal, how to communicate effectively with students, how to facilitate groups and discussions, and how to give and get feedback in the online class, helping to overcome the challenges that confront all online instructors. By increasing understanding of how to use technology as a dynamic teaching tool, readers will achieve success in the online classroom, enhancing their teaching experience, and students' learning experience, in the fast-changing world of online communication. This book is intended as a practical introduction for instructors, beginning or otherwise, who want useful ideas and techniques that will help them teach more effectively in the online classroom.

To date, most books about online learning have focused on academic research or institutional policy. White and Weight have now added a solid practitioner's guide to the literature. The Online Teaching Guide, published in October 1999, consists of a collection of 14 individually authored essays and articles on the art of being an online instructor. Each of the authors borrows on his or her own experience teaching for the University of Phoenix's online campus to shed light on different aspects of how to facilitate a classroom environment in cyberspace. Ken White begins the collection by writing on the importance of understanding that the virtual classroom is first and foremost not a lonely place created by technology but a crucible for human communication. "As in any social venture, people are imprecise, unclear and unpredictable," writes White. This theme, that the virtual classroom is an experiment in human communication, is repeated throughout the individual essays. The job of the online instructor, argues each of the authors, is to understand and direct non-verbal communication so that students experience a learning environment that captures a high level of student interest and enjoys high levels of student retention. The book is rich with real life examples and practitioner's tips for executing them. In the essay "The Elements of Effective Online Teaching," Anita Bischoff, Director of Academic Affairs at the University of Phoenix, outlines a communication matrix that requires the online instructor to communicate presence by providing regular feedback, maintaining public course visibility, selecting and directing students to high quality learning materials, and removing obstacles to student retention. Bischoff provides helpful, practical examples of how an instructor can achieve each of these elements. This book contributes a great deal to our practical understanding of how real-life instructors are successfully creating and maintaining e-classrooms using asynchronous platforms. The only disappointment of the book is that contributions were limited to instructors who have practiced at a single college, The University of Phoenix Online. A diversity of institutional voices would have resulted in a richer, more eclectic reader for use in educating the next generation of virtual professors. Summary evaluation: This is a top-notch, e- instructor's survival guide. Don't go virtual without it.

Reviewed by Vicky Phillips, Virtual University Gazette