Resources

Higher education is facing a renaissance in terms of its approaches to teaching and learning and the use of physical and virtual spaces. Physical and Virtual Learning Spaces in Higher Education: Concepts for the Modern Learning Environment documents real-world experiences of innovators in higher education who have redesigned spaces for learning and teaching. The redefined spaces encompass a broader range of physical, virtual, formal, informal, blended, flexible, and time sensitive factors. (From the Publisher)

sequence of learning objects that is adapted to an individual user’s goals, preferences, and... Sample PDF $37.50 Chapter 5Technology enhanced learning takes place in many different forms and contexts, including formal and informal settings, individual and collaborative learning, learning in the classroom, at home, at work, and outdoor in real life situations, as well as desktop-based learning and learning by using mobile devices. Environments range from desktop-based learning systems such as learning management systems, which present learners with learning material and activities, to mobile, pervasive, and ubiquitous learning environments which are used in real life settings and enable learners to learn from real learning objects. In each of these forms and contexts, adaptive and intelligent support has potential to contribute in making such learning environments more personalized, user-friendly, and effective in supporting learners in learning. Intelligent and Adaptive Learning Systems: Technology Enhanced Support for Learners and Teachers focuses on how intelligent support and adaptive features can be integrated in currently used learning systems and discusses how intelligent and adaptive learning systems can be improved in order to provide a better learning environment for learners. This book provides academics as well as professional practitioners innovative research work for enhancing learning environments with adaptively and intelligent support in different contexts and settings, ranging from provision of courses and assessment in formal desktop-based learning systems to learning environments that support collaborative, informal, ubiquitous learning. (From the Publisher)

All too often, managing a classroom means gaining control, dictating guidelines, and implementing rules. Designed for any teacher struggling with student behavior, motivation, and engagement, Developing a Learning Classroom explores how to create a thriving, learning-centered classroom through three critical concepts?relationships, relevance, and rigor. Discover how you can: • Develop an interactive learning mindset • Create a safe environment where students question, explore, and discover • Uncover a student's learning profile as well as your own teaching style • Use student input to create classroom practices and procedures • Apply brain-based instructional strategies to keep students engaged • Use student surveys and a personal education plan to improve learning environments Filled with classroom stories, starter worksheets, and action steps, this book reveals the secrets to transforming an ordinary classroom into an extraordinary learning community! (From the Publisher)

As described by Terry O’Banion, “Nancy Vader-McCormick is an authentic voice, seasoned and tempered in the fires of the teaching and learning experience; she has been on the firing line, on the ground, and in the trenches. In this book, she has transcended her experience as a practitioner to become a scholar, an author, a mentor—but always a teacher who wants to make passionate connections with her students and her readers.”   The Engaged Teacher describes today’s college students, trends in the growth of postsecondary education, and the increased demand for accountability in education. It reaffirms major lessons learned from the teaching and learning research. This new title answers the question: “What do exemplary teachers do to engage today’s students in deep and sustained learning?”    The purpose of this book is to examine ways teachers can better engage today’s students in learning and help them succeed in school. Teachers that employ some of the practical approaches presented in this book will:  • Understand the relationship between the students, the subject matter, themselves, and teaching practices that positively influence and sustain student learning.  • Reflectively examine and expand their teaching approaches to increast student engagement in deeper learning and increased responsibility.  • Learn effective ways of teaching to enhance overall student success by employing a wide variety of practical examples, strategies, and pedagogies. (From the Publisher)

Supporting Online Students shows how effective and efficiently delivered support services improve academic success and course retention for online learners. Drawing on a decade's worth of research, Crawley describes the scope of services that should be made available to online students, from admissions and registration to advising and student engagement. The book includes guidelines and standards for these services as outlined by half a dozen national professional organizations, as well as planning and implementation, innovative practices, and specialized services needed by particular online student groups. (From the Publisher)

In MindMeld, Jon D. Aleckson and Penny Ralston-Berg draw on a great many years of experience in educational technology to describe how the benefits of learning from an accomplished expert (a professor, for instance) can be translated into an online format. Industry professionals know that the online format presents an opportunity for highly interactive pedagogy, a pedagogy by which students synchronize learning with doing, replicating the information-processing habits that come from real-life work in the field. According to Aleckson, the key to creating an ideal eLearning product is to meet the challenge of micro-collaboration. In order to develop sophisticated online learning activities, we must find a way to convey the tacit knowledge of someone with real-life experience using the tools of software design. This requires us to micro-collaborate: individuals with very different backgrounds and very different skills sets have to work in harmony to achieve a common goal. It may sound simple, but anyone who has labored on an eLearning project knows otherwise. In MindMeld, Aleckson and Ralston-Berg take us step by step through the leadership, management, and communication strategies that make effective micro-collaboration possible, using stories of actual projects to illustrate his points. In addition, they provide a collection of documentation tools to assist in keeping an eLearning project on spec, on time, and on budget. This concise, readable volume contextualizes each aspect of eLearning development and highlights the ways in which different team members interact. It will prove invaluable to readers in both the business and academic worlds. As a bonus to readers, the authors have created an exciting set of "tools" for helping conceptualize and implement the process. (From the Publisher)

How can faculty create a strong e presence for their online classes? This volume highlights the need for creating a presence in the online environment. The authors explore the emotional, psychological, and social aspects from both the instructor and student perspective. It provides an instructional design framework and shows how a strong presence contributes to effective teaching and learning. Filled with illustrative examples and based on research and experience, the book contains methods, case scenarios, and activities for creating, maintaining, and evaluating presence throughout the cycle of an online course. (From the Publisher)

In MindMeld, Jon D. Aleckson and Penny Ralston-Berg draw on a great many years of experience in educational technology to describe how the benefits of learning from an accomplished expert (a professor, for instance) can be translated into an online format. Industry professionals know that the online format presents an opportunity for highly interactive pedagogy, a pedagogy by which students synchronize learning with doing, replicating the information-processing habits that come from real-life work in the field. According to Aleckson, the key to creating an ideal eLearning product is to meet the challenge of micro-collaboration. In order to develop sophisticated online learning activities, we must find a way to convey the tacit knowledge of someone with real-life experience using the tools of software design. This requires us to micro-collaborate: individuals with very different backgrounds and very different skills sets have to work in harmony to achieve a common goal. It may sound simple, but anyone who has labored on an eLearning project knows otherwise. In MindMeld, Aleckson and Ralston-Berg take us step by step through the leadership, management, and communication strategies that make effective micro-collaboration possible, using stories of actual projects to illustrate his points. In addition, they provide a collection of documentation tools to assist in keeping an eLearning project on spec, on time, and on budget. This concise, readable volume contextualizes each aspect of eLearning development and highlights the ways in which different team members interact. It will prove invaluable to readers in both the business and academic worlds. As a bonus to readers, the authors have created an exciting set of "tools" for helping conceptualize and implement the process. (From the Publisher)

Successfully launching an academic career in the challenging environment of higher education today is apt to require more explicit preparation than the informal socialization typically afforded in graduate school. As a faculty novice soon discovers, job success requires balancing multiple demands on one's time and energy. New Faculty offers a useful compendium of 'survival' advice for the faculty newcomer, ranging from practical tips on classroom teaching and student performance evaluation to detailed advice on grant-writing, student advising, professional service, and publishing. Beginning faculty members - and possibly their more experienced colleagues as well - will find this lively guidebook both informative and thought-provoking. (From the Publisher)

Two seismic forces beyond our control – the advent of Web 2.0 and the inexorable influx of tech-savvy Millennials on campus – are shaping what Roger McHaney calls “The New Digital Shoreline” of higher education. Failure to chart its contours, and adapt, poses a major threat to higher education as we know it. These forces demand that we as educators reconsider the learning theories, pedagogies, and practices on which we have depended, and modify our interactions with students and peers—all without sacrificing good teaching, or lowering standards, to improve student outcomes. Achieving these goals requires understanding how the indigenous population of this new shoreline is different. These students aren’t necessarily smarter or technologically superior, but they do have different expectations. Their approaches to learning are shaped by social networking and other forms of convenient, computer-enabled and mobile communication devices; by instant access to an over-abundance of information; by technologies that have conferred the ability to personalize and customize their world to a degree never seen before; and by time-shifting and time-slicing. As well as understanding students’ assumptions and expectations, we have no option but to familiarize ourselves with the characteristics and applications of Web 2.0—essentially a new mind set about how to use Internet technologies around the concepts of social computing, social media, content sharing, filtering, and user experience. Roger McHaney not only deftly analyzes how Web 2.0 is shaping the attitudes and motivations of today’s students, but guides us through the topography of existing and emerging digital media, environments, applications, platforms and devices – not least the impact of e-readers and tablets on the future of the textbook – and the potential they have for disrupting teacher-student relationships; and, if appropriately used, for engaging students in their learning. This book argues for nothing less than a reinvention of higher education to meet these new realities. Just adding technology to our teaching practices will not suffice. McHaney calls for a complete rethinking of our practice of teaching to meet the needs of this emerging world and envisioning ourselves as connected, co-learners with our students. (From the Publisher)