Discussion-Based Online Teaching to Enhance Student Learning: Theory, Practice and Assessment

The new edition of what is now considered a classic on online learning has been expanded by about a third to reflect new opportunities offered by social media, new insights and ideas derived from the author’s teaching in the eight years since she wrote the first edition, as well as from extensive research in the latest literature. In particular, Tisha Bender investigates whether the existing paradigm of teaching and learning has been changed, not so much because of the advent of the Internet, but because of the potential divide between the expectations and practices of students who are “digital natives” of the digital revolution, and those of their teachers who are mostly “digital immigrants”. She addresses the question: do we need to change the way we teach in order to reach and engage digital natives fruitfully and enjoyably in their education.This accessible and comprehensive book offers an engaging and practical approach to online teaching that is rooted in the author's experience and enthusiasm for creating a virtual environment that engages students and fosters their deep learning. This is a book for all educators and administrators in higher education, in any discipline, engaged in, or contemplating offering, online classes that involve discussion or collaborative learning. It is relevant both to faculty teaching a hybrid and face-to-face classes, and courses conducted entirely online.

Tisha Bender Tisha Bender is Assistant Director in the Rutgers Writing Program, and is the Hybrid Coordinator as well as the Coordinator of Research Writing. She is currently embarking on a project in which she will train teachers from China to teach effectively online, and they will then team-teach online international Rutgers Research Writing courses with teachers in the Rutgers Writing Program. She is the founder of Hybrid teaching in the Rutgers Writing Program, having trained groups of teachers since 2007 to the present to adapt their pedagogy to effectively teach online. Prior to this she was an Online Faculty Development Consultant, who has extensively trained online faculty at New York University, the SUNY Learning Network, New School Online University and Cornell University-ILR Extension. She currently teaches in the Rutgers Writing Program and the Geography department at Rutgers, and had also taught as an online instructor at Cornell and the New School. Tisha Bender is also the author of "Facilitating Online Discussion in an Asynchronous Format" in Issues in Web-Based Pedagogy: A Critical Primer (ed. Robert Cole), Greenwood Press 2001; "Role Playing in Online Education: A Teaching Tool to Enhance Student Engagement and Sustained Learning" in Innovate, April, May 2005; and “Engaging the Student: Learning for Life”, chapter 1 of Pedagogical Models: The Discipline of Online Teaching, edited by Michael F. Shaughnessy and Susan Fulgham, Nova Publishers, February 2011. In addition she features in the following online interview: “An Interview with Tisha Bender: Discussion Based Online Teaching,” by Michael Shaughnessy. In Education News, April 19, 2010, and online at http://www.educationnews.org/michael-f-shaughnessy/95329.html.