Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education - Softcover

Simonson, Michael; Smaldino, Sharon E.; Albright, Michael; Zvacek, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0132487314 ISBN 13: 9780132487313

Publisher: Pearson, 2011

Synopsis

Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education, 5th Edition,  was awarded the 2011 Association for Educational Communications and Technology: Division of Distance Learning Distance Education Book Award!

 

Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education, Fifth Edition, provides its readers with the most comprehensive coverage on the market today of information about distance education in the 21st century. Primarily written for pre-service teachers, corporate trainers, and staff development programs that discuss teaching distant learners or managing distance education systems. Readers will be better equipped with the knowledge and ability to select appropriate strategies for teaching the distant learner and how to implement this new knowledge in a distance learning program, so important to today's educational culture.

Five over-arching themes support the text: 1) defining distance education, 2) the importance of research development, 3) distance learning is a viable and increasingly important alternative for teaching and learning, 4) equivalency theory, and 5) the book should be comprehensive–which means it should cover as much as is possible of the various ways instruction is made available to distant learners.

Significantly revised and updated, the fifth edition now includes these noteworthy new features and more: chapter goals and objectives, chapter discussion questions, a look at best practice issues, new strategies and techniques, over thirty-percent new resources and references, and a stronger emphasis on how to design, deliver, and evaluate online instruction.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Unique in its broad coverage of the various technologies that can be used for the delivery of distance education, the fifth edition of Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education provide the basics you need to become a knowledgeable distance educator or manager of distance education systems:

• Part I cover the theory and research that inform distance learning,
• Part II addresses practical skills and knowledge needed to function immediately in a distance learning environment, and
• Part III explores managerial and administrative issues that arise in distance learning environments.

 

Know for its definition of education for the field, research base, advocacy for distance ed as a viable and increasingly important alternative for teaching and learning, coverage of equivalency theory, and comprehensive coverage of the modes of distance learning, this thoroughly revised edition reflects the following changes:

 

New to This Edition:

• A streamline edition containing 12 chapters (instead of 13) with the Internet-based distance education content incorporated throughout.
• Dozens of new visuals have been added to clarify ideas and explain procedures.
• Additional information about the virtual schooling movement.
• Major revision of Chapter 3 (Research and Distance Education) to update what is known about the best practices in DE.
• Stronger emphasis in this edition is placed on how to design, deliver, and evaluate online instructions, supported by the latest research.
• All new end-of-chapter discussion questions are designed for instructors to post as a start for threaded discussions and for students to focus on key ideas.
• As distance education has grown into a mainstream teaching and learning approach, many new strategies are included in this edition to help the learner, teacher, and manager understand the impact of new ideas, such as open source course management systems.
• Over 30% of the resources and references included in this edition of Teaching and Learning at a Distance are new.

About the Author

Michael Simonson is a program professor at Nova Southeastern University in the Instructional Technology and Distance Education program. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in Instructional Systems. He works with schools, organizations, and corporations to assist them to integrate instructional technology and distance education into teaching and training, and on the development of virtual schools. Simonson has authored four major textbooks dealing with distance education, instructional technology, instructional computing, and instructional media. Mike has over 150 scholarly publications, and in excess of 200 professional presentations dealing with distance education and instructional technology. Simonson has considerable experience working with domestic and international businesses and industries, especially on projects related to instructional technology, virtual schools, and distance education. Technology planning, distance education/virtual school policy development and effective design of online instruction are current projects. He is editor of the Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Distance Learning Journal, and Proceedings of Selected Research and Development Papers presented at the Annual Conventions of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. He has won the award for most outstanding research in the field of distance education presented by the United States Distance Learning Association. Most recently he has been an external evaluator South Dakota’s Connecting the Schools and Digital Dakota Network projects, and is a consultant for the U.S. Army Research Institute. Simonson was honorably discharged as a Captain from the United States Marine Corps (R).

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0132487314
• ISBN 13: 9780132487313
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 408