147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups : Essentials of Web-Based Education (Paperback)

~ (Author), Simone Conceicao-Runlee (Author), Michelle Glowacki-Dudka (Author) "Before you begin to organize an online course, consider and clarify your own philosophy and assumptions about teaching and learning..." (more)
Key Phrases: interactive online course, expect learners, online teaching (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

From experienced distance educators comes this comprehensive collection of strategies for teaching effectively online. Beginning with pre-instruction preparation and progressing through actual online teaching, "147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups" will help you feel more comfortable and competent heading into an online course, whether you're a new instructor or an experienced professor. The authors dispel popular myths in online education and anticipate the potential problems you might face teaching in the online medium.

From the Publisher

If you're involved in web-based education, or if you're about to be, this new book in distance education will become one of your most trusted references.

The authors offer you advice on how to set up and implement your online course, and make the course discussions as interactive as those you have in the traditional face-to-face classroom setting.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 74 pages
• Publisher: Atwood Publishing; 1st edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 189185934X
• ISBN-13: 978-1891859342
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #122,965 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Great Disappointment, August 28, 2002

By A Customer

This is a book with a promising title and little else. The opening chapter suggests that the book is intended for experienced teachers who are new to the online environment. Consequently, readers are led to expect useful tips that will help them translate their classroom experience to the Web. But instead readers will find revelations such as these:
"You can create quiz questions that are true-false, matching, multiple choice, completion and short answer, and essay." (page 40) Really? What news!
"Evaluate Your Learners" (Tip 82, page 38) Indeed! What a concept! Actually find out what your students know!
As Fred Gailey, the attorney defending Kris Kringle in "Miracle on 34th Street" told the judge when he offered some letters in evidence of Santa's identity, "I have further exhibits, but I hesitate to produce them."
A teacher with the most modest experience can open this book at random and find such [content] on any page.
I hope that these comments help someone else ...

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly what I had expected...., February 20, 2003

By	Christopher Phillips (Quincy, MA USA) - See all my reviews

If you are looking for specific distance education methodologies and techniques you might want to look elsewhere, but if all you are looking for are general distance education concepts put into a book- then this is for you. I thought that the tips were similar to something you might get in a "Thought of the Day" email, some interesting concepts with very little substance.

The book does have some very good ideas and the structure of the book allows you to quickly browse through the tips if you are looking for new ideas or affirmation of something that you are currently doing. The 4 chapters present the tips in a logical framework of ideas to help you find something, even if you're not quite sure what it is you are looking for:
Chapter 1. Before You Begin
Chapter 2. Myths and Constraints of Online Teaching and Learning
Chapter 3. Organizing the Online Course
Chapter 4. Beginning Instruction in the Online Course: Implementing the Course Design

The fact that they don't go into specific technologies very much also facilitates the tips being useful across a wider variety of technologies.

I would recommend this book for someone new to the field of distance education looking to get a handle on general concepts, but for anyone who has been around the block this book is only going to tell you what you already know.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what professors need to jump into online learning..., April 4, 2001

By	Michael Johnson PHD (The Woodlands, TX United States) - See all my reviews

147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups delivers what the title implies and much, much more. Over the last three years I have traveled to scores of universities across the United States and talked to chancellors, presidents, provosts, deans, and faculty about technology in education. Online education is on everyone's mind. Most faculty members are very un-nerved and yet intrigued by the idea of exploring this new mode of publishing and. So many faculty I have visited with from all academic fields are holding back, unsure of where to step into this seeming ocean of unknown waters. 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online is the PERFECT book to start faculty off on this new adventure. If I were a dean wondering how to start a discussion with faculty about exploring online education, I would purchase everyone a copy.

This book provides a practical road map, warns of the potholes to avoid, asks readers to think about important questions they will face along the way, and illuminates the myths about teaching online. It is written in a gentle yet affirming tone that lets the reader evaluate from her/his own experience, how he/she might jump into this new medium of information and discourse.

Professors will make the decision to adopt new ways of teaching and learning when they hear about it from another professor, from a colleague who has been there before and can show them some of the journey they will encounter. This book takes nothing for granted about what an instructor may or may not know about effective teaching. It gives a reasonable and detailed series of guideposts that even the best instructors can appreciate in planning their own first adventure into online education.

I recommend this book even for experienced distance educators as I learned a great deal from it myself. I wish I could have had this book when I jumped into distance education 13 years ago.