Resources

Becoming a New Instructor guides new instructors through the planning, preparation, and execution of their first class, whether it is in person or online. Like any good mentor, this book provides clear, simple instructions and makes best-practice recommendations. Becoming a New Instructor provides a step-by-step guide to writing a syllabus, a simple explanation for how to calculate grades, and many additional suggestions from an experienced teacher about how to run a class. Chronologically arranged from conceptualizing the class through putting together the syllabus, planning in-class time, running the class, and assigning grades, this book will answer any new instructors’ questions. Adjuncts and graduate students charged with teaching a college course will find this succinct guide invaluable. Special Features Include: • An entire chapter on teaching online, plus "Concerns Specific to Online Instructors" throughout that connect chapter content to online teaching and CMS platforms • Examples of best practice, checklists, sample assignments, syllabi, and rubrics that guide readers in creating materials for their own courses (From the Publisher)

In this valuable resource, experts share deep knowledge including practical “how-to” and preventive trouble-shooting tips. Instructors will learn about course design and development, instructional methods for online teaching, and student engagement and community building techniques. The book contains successful teaching strategies, guidance for facilitating interactions and responding to diversity, and assessments, as well as future directions for online learning. With many field-tested examples and practice assignments, and with voices from students, teachers, and experts, this book arms instructors and administrators with the tools they need to teach effective and empowering online courses. This one-stop resource addresses all of the core elements of online teaching in terms that are universally applicable to any content area and at any instructional level. (From the Publisher)

After many years in the classroom, in conjunction with many years of mentoring other teachers, David Irving has set out to create a succinct and highly accessible volume of techniques and strategies for beginning educators. Most educators come to teaching with vast subject matter expertise, but limited classroom experience. This text is for them. It offers pragmatic guidelines and suggestions in easily managed bits. For those interested in going deeper, there are suggestions for further study. Drawing upon his own experience in film and the transition he made to the classroom, David is able to highlight some techniques that serve both professions and translate them here for teachers. The issues that he faced in moving to the classroom are the issues that all new educators encounter. Further, drawing upon his experiences as a department chair, David sees the important role that a chair has in fostering the growth of the new educators. He suggests that chairs can do much to assist. However, the most universally helpful part of the text is in the clear, unambiguous techniques and strategies for the classroom and career success. He writes: Instructors need training to teach college courses. Equally important, they should be informed about the workings of the academic department in which they will teach. This volume is ideal for new instructors and for professional development for departments. (From the Publisher)

An ideal textbook for masters, doctoral, or educational specialist certificate programs, Foundations of Educational Technology offers a fresh, project-centered approach to the subject, helping students build an extensive electronic portfolio as they navigate the text. The book addresses fundamental characteristics of educational technology that span various users, contexts and settings; includes a full range of engaging exercises for students that will contribute to their professional growth; and offers the following 4-step pedagogical features inspired by M.D. Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction: • TELL: Primary presentations and pointers to major sources of information and resources • ASK: Activities that encourage students to critique applications and share their individual interpretations • SHOW: Activities that demonstrate the application of key concepts and complex skills with appropriate opportunities for learner responses • DO: Activities in which learners apply key concepts and complex skills while working on practice assignments and/or projects to be created for their electronic portfolios The first textbook to launch Routledge’s new Integrative Approaches to Educational Technology series, this indispensable volume covers the core objectives addressed in foundations of educational technology courses. (From the Publisher)

The hiring, training, and evaluation of good online instructors is a high priority for online institutions. This book shows what it takes to develop a new instructor in order to promote excellent online teaching and describes the qualities of a good online instructor and reveals how to evaluate good teaching online. In addition, It includes illustrative models of faculty training for online teaching based on adult learning principles and best practices in faculty training and identifies how   technology can be used to facilitate and enhance the training process. (From the Publisher)

This book is a straightforward and entertaining primer on college teaching. It discusses the nitty-gritty aspects of teaching while providing readers with a synoptic but concise explanation of the principles of the art. It also offers a viable alternative to the books on teaching currently available or in print. That alternative is the classic texts on education and pedagogy. These books are essential, the author argues, because they show teachers how to apply the principles of teaching while fostering the aims of liberal education at the same time. These books also help them pose the fundamental questions about education that all teachers should be asking. Aimed primarily at graduate students and new college professors, this book is a useful and practical guide for those who are passionate about teaching but feel unprepared to teach, unsure of what to expect in the classroom, and stifled in the current academic climate. It will likewise appeal to high school teachers and veteran college professors who are disenchanted and seek some way to break free from their malaise. It is intentionally short, little, “skinny,” so that it can be read through quickly and so that readers can peruse the chapters and mull over the topics at their leisure. Above all else, this book will introduce a new generation of readers to some of the great masters who can reveal the timeless truths—and yes, even the magic—behind the art. (From the Publisher)

Discover how to engage your students and raise their grades and attendance in your classroom. The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game is your detailed guide to designing any structured learning experience as a game. Written for professional educators or those learning to be educators, here are the tools to engage and excite students by using principles learned in the development of popular video games. Suitable for use in the classroom or the boardroom, the book features a reader-friendly style that introduces game concepts and vocabulary in a logical way. You don't need any experience making games or even playing games to use this book. Yet, you will learn how to create multiplayer games for any age on any subject. Bring your classroom into the 21st century! (From the Publisher)

This book focuses on online pedagogy and the challenges and opportunities incumbent in the transformation of a face-to-face college course. It is intended as a resource and support for new online teachers – a source of ideas and strategies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives as well as pedagogical perspectives – and for those experienced in the online environment. The book meets the needs of faculty new to online teaching by providing them a wide variety of perspectives on the online transition – e.g. pedagogical, multidisciplinary, class size and level – by faculty with varying degrees of previous experience who have recently made the transition from face-to-face to online. Their advice and recollections offer a fresh, contemporary perspective on the subject. For administrators and faculty experienced with online instruction, the collection works as a resource for ideas intended to sustain the vibrancy and efficacy of the online environment. Taking Your Course Online includes the experiences of a cohort of faculty that responded to a University - wide call for faculty interested in developing online courses for summer session. This group participated in a series of workshops that addressed various aspects of developing online courses and online pedagogy. All of the authors taught their new online course over a subsequent 10-week summer session, and many of them have done so subsequently as well. Their experiences have great currency in the ever-changing world of online teaching. Because the collection represents the work of teachers exposed to best practices and many discussions concerning rigor, assessment, and accountability, it provides support for the viability of online teaching/learning in an environment frequently plagued by doubts about its effectiveness. Practitioners using this book will learn how to turn their face-to-face course into an online course successfully, understand best practices for transitioning courses/online teaching, minimize errors and avoid pitfalls in the transition process, and maximize learning. Faculty development professionals can use this book as a resource to teach faculty from a wide range of disciplines how to transition from the actual to the virtual classroom. Administrators such as deans and program chairs will gain useful insights into ways to think about taking entire programs online, as well as how to guide faculty in their development of pedagogical skills pertinent to online learning. (From the Publisher)

This is a practical introduction to blended learning, presenting examples of implementation across a broad spectrum of disciplines. For faculty unfamiliar with this mode of teaching, it illustrates how to address the core challenge of blended learning—to link the activities in each medium so that they reinforce each other to create a single, unified, course—and offers models they can adapt. Francine Glazer and the contributors to this book describe how they integrate a wide range of pedagogical approaches in their blended courses, use groups to build learning communities, and make the online environment attractive to students. They illustrate under what circumstances particular tasks and activities work best online or face-to-face, and when to incorporate synchronous and asynchronous interactions. They introduce the concept of layering the content of courses to appropriately sequence material for beginning and experienced learners, and to ensure that students see both the online and the face-to-face components as being equal in value and devote equal effort to both modalities. The underlying theme of this book is encouraging students to develop the skills to continue learning throughout their lives. By allowing students to take more time and reflect on the course content, blended learning can promote more student engagement and, consequently, deeper learning. It appeals to today’s digital natives who are accustomed to using technology to find and share information, communicate, and collaborate, and also enables non-traditional students to juggle their commitments more efficiently and successfully. (From the Publisher)

Success depends on the ability to think critically. Training and practice turn this ability into a powerful skill. BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER gives students the opportunity to develop this skill in a classroom environment while stressing its application to daily life. Students learn to solve everyday problems, maintain successful relationships, make career choices, and interpret the messages of advertising in a variety of media. Exercises throughout the text encourage them to practice what they read and to apply it to their own lives. BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER breaks up critical thinking into a series of cumulative activities, a unique approach that has made this text a staple of many critical thinking courses. Features • “Good Thinking” features throughout the text profile diverse individuals who underscore the role of critical thinking in achievement. Exercises invite students to apply the lessons of the various profiles to their own lives. • Quizzes at the end of each chapter allow students to test their understanding of chapter concepts. • Group activities allow students to practice the transfer of individual thinking skills to situations in which problems require a cooperative solution. • Comprehensive coverage of argumentation helps students develop and communicate arguments strongly. Students are asked to analyze and compare real arguments and viewpoints on contemporary topics as a way of expanding their own reasoning capabilities. • The depth and breadth of theory, skill building, and application in the text make it ideal for an English Composition course or an introductory course in critical thinking. (From the Publisher)