Worth Reading features books and articles that may be of interest to faculty and instructors teaching online and at a distance, instructional designers charged with designing online and distance programs and courses and academic administrators and policy makers.
Worth Reading is featured in each edition of Online Learning News.
Olivier, J. (Ed.). (2020) Self-directed multimodal learning in higher education. Cape Town, SA: AOSIS. This short, readable and accessible book is a collection of practical, evidence-based ideas that illustrate how immersive virtual worlds can be integrated successfully in higher education and school settings. Leveraging a variety of technologies, the book features student and teacher reflections on the experience and analyzes the implications for pedagogy and the design of engaged learning. Based on a significant body of Australian practice, the book shows how learner engagement through virtual worlds can make a real difference to learning outcomes. Natriello, G. (2021). Digital-Age Innovation in Higher Education – A Do It Yourself Approach. New York: Routledge This intriguing (and expensive) book offers an insider’s look at the growth of an innovation unit within a major university - the EdLab at the Gottesman Libraries of Teachers College, Columbia University. Its mandate was to leverage emerging technologies to improve teaching and learning in a university environment not known for innovation and change (it is a teacher’s college). With interesting language (who can resist a chapter with a title like “Wind Resistance – Why is it So Hard to Change Higher Education?”) and nuanced accounts of what seeking to enable change was (and is) like, this book is a good read. Given the price (US$160), persuade your librarian to purchase it. Watters, A. (2021). Teaching Machines – The History of Personalized Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Audrey Watters is the online learning sectors resident critic. For many years she has been “calling out” EdTech and big-tech’s claims about learning in her blog Hack Education. Now she has crafted a comprehensive and critical-reflective look at EdTech from the Sidney Pressey’s 1926 “positive reinforcement provider” through to present day AI enabled technologies. Well written, Watters challenges the “transformation” narrative that often accompanies an emerging educational technology and, in doing, so challenges the “learnification” industry as a whole. Full of excellent examples and case vignettes, including wonderful stories of failed adventures (including some from repeat offenders), Watters offers a compelling narrative of caution and respect for the bigger purposes of education. Gagliardi, J.S., Parnell, A., Carpenter-Hubin, J. (Eds.) (2018). The Analytics Revolution in Higher Education: Big Data, Organizational Learning and Student Success. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Universities and colleges are sitting on substantial data-sets which, if used intelligently, could improve their retention and completion rates as well as the level of faculty and student satisfaction. Yet so few are using the available data for planning, decision making and innovation. This book outlines both the benefits of analytics for improving our ability to help students and run efficient and effective organizations. It also provides examples of analytics in use and what impact their use has had. A strong collection of papers which are still relevant and useful. Fisher, D., Frey, N., Bustamante, V. and Hattie, J. (2020). The Assessment Playbook for Distance and Blended Learning: Measuring Student Learning in Any Setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. One challenge the pandemic gave rise to was the need to rethink assessment for and of learning. This is as true for higher education as it has been for K-12, which is the focus for this book. Despite its overly cute format – the book has three sections titled cookies, playlist and upgrades – the book is very practical, insightful and helpful. The ideas apply just as much to graduate work as they do to high school or any educational setting. As you explore what else you can do to help students learn through evaluation and assessment, this will prove to be an invaluable resource. Jagannathan, S. (Ed.). (2021). Reimagining Digital Learning for Sustainable Development – How Upskilling, Data Analytics, and Educational Technologies Close the Skills Gap.New York: Routledge. Shelia Jagannathan has had her finger of the pulse of learning for sustainable development since she joined the World Bank in 2001, where she is now Head of the Open Learning Campus in Washington, DC. A force of nature, she has gathered some truly insightful and creative chapters in this book – there are twenty-seven in all. The book explores major shifts in content formats, pedagogic approaches, technology frameworks, user and design experiences, and learner roles and expectations that are now beginning to reshape our institutions, particularly in emerging economies. The agile, lean, and cost-effective strategies examined here can function in scalable and flexible bandwidth environments to enable education leaders and practitioners to transform brick-and-mortar learning organizations into digital and blended ecosystems. Kergel, D. (2021). Digital Learning in Motion – From Book Culture to the Digital Age. London: Routledge. This book seeks to interpret our understanding of “learning” as a construct mediated by the ways in which knowledge is presented (the medium is the message). The book explores the relationship between learning and motion. The “big idea” is to consider how learning is based on motion, generated by new experiences and changes with the environment and through access to media, information, community and sharing. The book presents a normative model that outlines how learning can be structured on the basis of society’s values and self-understanding discourse in the digital age. It also explores how fluid access to content changes “learning” and the relationship between learners, teachers and knowledge. Glăveanu, V.P., Ness, I.J., & de Saint Laurent, C. (Eds.).(2020).Creative Learning in Digital and Virtual Environments: Opportunities and Challenges of Technology-Enabled Learning and Creativity London: Routledge. Written during the pandemic, the book is focused on possibilities, opportunities and challenges associated with online learning. While some of the language is a little opaque, the content is focused on unleashing creativity and passion. Subjects include mathematics, creative collaboration, leveraging social media for social action. With a strong European focus (two of the editors are based in Bergen and the third in Bologna) but globally relevant, the book is full of creative ideas and rich examples of practice. Bhatt, I. (2019). Assignments as Controversies – Digital Literacy and Writing in Classroom Practice. London: Routledge. How has access to ubiquitous content online and to open education resources changed how students tackle an assignment? How has it changed how instructors create assignments? What is now possible for creating assignments, which do more than “test understanding”, but create challenges, controversy and provide an opportunity for students to co-create knowledge? If the pivot to online learning has done anything, it has opened up new approaches and thinking about assessment. If you are rethinking what you assess, how you assess and how you engage learners in the design of their own assessment then this is a “must-read” book. Lowenthal, P. R., & Dennen, V. P. (Eds.). (2019). Social presence and identity in online learning. New York, NY: Routledge. Originally published as a collection of papers in the journal Distance Education, this is another set of materials which will help you think about how we move past a “banking” notion of online learning where students receive “chunks” of information, are tested on it, and put the test in the bank. The book pushes us to consider the idea of a community of inquiry and constructivists understanding of learning processes and the need for instructors and students to engage and experience a real sense of presence. Gert Biesta, the educational philosopher, reminds us that teaching and learning are intensely personal experiences and require presence. Some theory, a lot of practical examples and some great ideas. Öztok, M. (2019). The Hidden Curriculum of Online Learning – Understanding Social Justice Through Critical Pedagogy. London: Taylor & Francis. Black lives matter is not a slogan. It is a powerful statement with implications, especially for education. It is one that resonates with other statements about truth and reconciliation and gender inequality, especially as the pandemic has revealed how education in both its structure and substance reinforces such inequalities. This book asks us to stop, reflect and change, and it is timely. Based on the idea that, rather than transforming communities and societies, education is engaged in cultural reproduction, the book challenges us to explore just what “inclusion” means for different students in our online course and what the implications of cultural pluralism are for instructional design. Are we given equal voices to different perspectives and enabling different representations of the ideas and worlds as experienced by different persons in our course? Some good writing which will make you think. Piña, A., Lowell, V.L. and Harris, B.R. [Eds.]. (2018). Leading and Managing e-Learning: What the e-Learning Leader Needs to Know. New York: Springer. The twenty-five chapters in this book, which was in fact published in 2017, cover a range of topics of interest to universities and colleges seeking to build on their pivot to remote teaching and embed online learning into their futures strategy. Topics covered include quality assurance, getting to scale, marketing, resourcing an e-learning centre or program and professional development. Practical, grounded in experience and substantial. The book can be bought as a whole or as separate chapters. Worth a look. Molenda, M.H. & Subramony, D.P. (2020). The Elements of Instruction: A Framework for the Age of Emerging Technologies. New York: Routledge. How do we optimize technology and people for effective instruction and learning? What are the models and frameworks that should inform our design thinking? How should we assess the opportunity to create a design for learning that will meet the needs of both our discipline and the learners? These are the questions that inform this book. The book proposes a new framework for teaching and learning based on theory, research and practice. Seasoned instructors who have been working online and those new to this work will benefit from the way in which this book is written and presented – lots of ideas presented in a focused way. Spence, J. (2020). Empowered at a Distance – How to Build Self-Direction into Remote and Hybrid Learning. Philadelphia, PA: IM Press LP. How do we move students from passive recipients of content and a Zoom lecture to self-directed, empowered and engaged learners? How do we rethink the roles of teacher and technology in enabling learners to become self-managing, persistent and effective online learners? These challenges are addressed here in direct and clear ways. The book focuses on the idea of the student “owning” their learning – driving their learning agenda. The book is not naïve about the challenges associated with this work and examines the journey that instructors and students need to take together to enable this shift. Practical, clear and focused, the book is well worth reading Fisher, M. and Fisher, E. (2018). Hacking Instructional Design – 33 Extraordinary Ways to Create a Contemporary Curriculum. South Euclid, OH: Times 10 Publications. Times 10 have been producing practical, hands-on books for some time. This one focuses on how to creatively and quickly adopt and adapt principles of instructional design for whatever course it is you have been asked to create for online delivery. Especially helpful for “first time” online course creators, the book is full of tips and tricks and short vignettes which will help readers get to grips with the demanding work of course creation. Darby, F. and Lang, J.M. (2019). Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Starting from a focus on what students do and why they do it, this book is full of practical and useful advice whatever the subject you are teaching. Learning does not happen (often) by accident – it needs designing and the designs begin and end with what students need to be engaged with and how you as an instructor need to be present (even online and remotely) in that learning. This practical, down to earth book will help focus on what matters most in teaching what matters in your subject. It takes James Lang’s 2016 book Small Teaching to the next level. Kennepohl, D. (Eds.). (2016) Teaching Science Online: A Practical Guide for Instruction and Lab Work. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing LLC. The editor pioneered a great many innovations in online science education at Athabasca University and in this collection of papers he enlists colleagues from around the world in a practical and in depth exploration of “how to” teach biology, physics and earth sciences. Full of useful advice about lab work and field-laboratory work, this book is a “must read” for those about to do this work for the first time. Kurzman, P.A. and Littlefield, M.B. (Eds).(2020). Online and Distance Social Work Education – Current Practice and Future Trends. New York: Routledge. Social work education is a mix of theory and hands-on practice under supervision with support. Covering a range of topics, contributors to this edited collection focus on innovative pedagogy, strengthening assessment of practice, simulation, remote supervision, ethics and diversity and a range of materials on quality assurance. Chapters include materials from the US, New Zealand, the UK and Canada. Full of ideas and insights of relevance not just to social work educators, but all who work in human services. Pacansky-Brock, M. (2017). Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies. London: Routledge. [2nd Edition]. There is a commons license version of this book, which makes it worth looking at. While it is really about blended learning and the flipped classroom, there are very useful resources here to make it a worthwhile resource for all engaged in online learning. It is very basic – emphasis on the very – but that is just what some need right now. It’s a great place to start if all of this “online and remote stuff” is new to you. Bear in mind that it was published before Zoom, the deployment of AI chatbots and before augmented and virtual reality took off. Still worth an hour or so of your time. Youde, A. (2020). The Emotionally Intelligent Online Tutor – Effective Tutoring in Blended and Distance Learning Environments. London: Routledge. Tutoring online is an art. Some see it as correcting student work or as an instructional activity, but it is much more than that. It is a relationship of engagement and sharing in which the intention is to develop a sense of real engagement of the learner with the work, the materials being studied, with other learners and with the tutor. It’s a real skill – one that not all who “lecture for a living” have. The focus is on adult learners and the development of intensely human connections. It’s well written and researched. Kritik (2020) How Peer Assessment Develops the Higher Order Thinking Skills Students Need Today. Toronto: Kritik. Kritik is a software company focused on the development of tools to support peer to peer learning and peer assessment. It has produced this free to read booklet (32 pages) of easy to read, focused material looking at what this work is and why it is important. The booklet is practical and has case studies of peer learning and assessment in use. It’s a handy beginner guide to this work. Worth a look. Ko, S. and Rossen, S. (2017). Teaching Online – A Practical Guide [4th Edition]. New York: Routledge. Another helpful, practical book, which is light on theory and heavy on suggestions, ideas and examples of what to do. Some really helpful suggestions about how to teach when many of your students can only use mobile devices (true for many international students) and ideas about how to integrate open education resources (OERs) into your courses. Some great case studies of quality online teaching. O’Keefe, L., Rafferty, J., Gunder, A., Vignare, K. (2020, May 18). Delivering high-quality instruction online in response to COVID-19: Faculty playbook. Every Learner Everywhere. http://www.everylearnereverywhere.org/resources This resource – published by Every Learner Everywhere in the US in partnership with The Online Learning Consortium, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – is a free to download resource just released (May 2020). Full of direct, clear and practical guidance for the design, development, deployment, and delivery of a quality learning experience for students. There are helpful materials here for everyone from Provosts, to Deans, to instructors and technology managers. Online learning is much more than a quick Zoom meeting – there is work to do. This will help you do it. Callender, C., Locke, W., and Marginson, S. (2020). Changing Higher Education for a Changing World. London: Bloomsbury. A global review of developments and innovations in higher education from around the world, including snapshots from South Africa, China, US, Europe and the UK. Insightful, inspiring, challenging and imaginative, the accounts offered provide real insight into the challenges emerging in higher education pre-pandemic. Edited by the team at the Centre for Global Higher Education in London – the leading centre in the world for this work – the book is full of issues that need to be addressed. The issues are amplified loudly by the pandemic – equity, relevance, flexibility and the nature of the learning process. Ashwin, P. (2020). Transforming University Education – A Manifesto. London: Bloomsbury. Ashwin wants us to be reminded of why higher education, especially university education, exists. Colleges and universities are fundamentally about transforming people into smart citizens able to make judgements, understand basic science, math and how the world works. In combatting ignorance, fake news and the relentless search for job-ready skills, higher education needs to be reminded that purpose is to help young people find meaning, purpose and compassion. While heavily focused on undergraduate learning, Ashwin wants us to focus on building informed, engaged and active citizens who understand the idea of “community” and act accordingly. The book is a refreshing antidote to the neo-liberal agenda found in so many policy documents from governments around the world. Hai-Jew, S. (2020). Visual Approaches to Instructional Design, Development and Deployment. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Storyboarding, both for design and development, has been a common practice for all of us who design courses and teach online. Indeed, many are now asking their students to adopt visual design as part of their skills repertoire for planning and completing assignments. This book captures best practices in visual thinking and design and explores how they can be used effectively in course creation, development and delivery. It is the latest in a series of books from this publisher about innovative approaches to online learning. Reich, J. (2020). Failure to Disrupt – Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education.Boston: Harvard University Press. For around seventy years, it has been suggested that teaching machines, computers, artificial intelligence, and immersive technologies will transform education and that schools, colleges and universities will need to urgently adjust to the emerging power of educational technology. It is a fantasy, as many investors who have lost secure dividends on this idea will tell you. But it persists. Recently, Goldman-Sachs advised pension fund investors that COVID-19 and the experience of remote teaching will provide the momentum needed for technology to transform education. This book tells us why this will not happen. A great many technologies haven been developed by well-meaning individuals who have never taught and have no intention of doing so. They see education in terms of “banking” – collecting knowledge, depositing it in we-portfolios and doing so as a single learner interacting with technology. But education is about both the experience of learning – interaction, genuine and deep engagement and the building of learning relationships – not just about knowledge and skill acquisition. While some educational technology can be used to enhance a community of inquiry or the co-creation of knowledge, it cannot replace the purposeful pursuit of learning through partnerships with instructors and peers. That is the core argument of this well-written and thought-through book. There is no “killer-app” that will replace meaningful and thoughtful teaching and learning. Well worth some of your time. Boettcher, J.V. and Conrad, R-M. (2016).The Online Teaching Survival Guide – Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. Jossey-Bass. Many are getting ready to teach online for the first time. They need help. They assume they must convert what they do in a classroom to an online environment – probably the last thing one should be doing. Instead, there is a need to deliberately and specifically design the student experience and create a sense of community and belonging. This design thinking is key and this book is full of practical suggestions and ideas. We know that the key to success of student engagement – less content, more activity. Less testing, more learning. Less lecture, more discovery. This book is a helpful treasury of proven activities that work O’Keefe, L., Rafferty, J., Gunder, A., Vignare, K. (2020, May 18). Delivering high-quality instruction online in response to COVID-19: Faculty playbook>. Every Learner Everywhere. This resource – published by Every Learner Everywhere in the US in partnership with The Online Learning Consortium, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – is a free to download resource just released (May 2020). Full of direct, clear and practical guidance for the design, development, deployment, and delivery of a quality learning experience for students. There are helpful materials here for everyone from Provosts, to Deans, to instructors and technology managers. Online learning is much more than a quick Zoom meeting – there is work to do. This will help you do it. Race, P. (2019). The Lecturer’s Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Assessment, Learning and Teaching. London: Routledge.> It is easy to forget in the height of a pandemic that some are just beginning their career as college or university teachers. Being new to teaching and being thrown into an online environment makes this a tough start to a new career. This book will help. Practical, sensible and full of sage advice, it is aimed at “settling” a teacher into an understanding of what quality, authentic, engaging teaching and learning look like. It also deals with the thorny issues of cheating, plagiarism and the online purchase of essays from essay mills as well as managing the work-life balance. Written and published before the pandemic, the book is strongly recommended for first time colleagues new to this interesting world.
