Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews August signals back-to-school in some parts of the country. Even if your teaching responsibilities begin after Labor Day, you can use the quieter weeks of August to ponder and perfect any changes you plan to make to your courses. The two books featured in this month’s reviews will get you started thinking about potential modifications. Need some guidance about converting your course to an online format? Check out Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design by Robin M. Smith. Or does your dusty organic chemistry course need something new ? Peter Wepplo’s A Guide to Organic Chemistry Mechanisms: A Guided Inquiry Workbook just may be the solution. Conquering the Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design (Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning) by Robin M. Smith Jossey-Bass (a Wiley Imprint): San Francisco, CA, 2008. 176 pp. 3 Appendices with 12 Forms. ISBN: 978-0787994426 (paper). $28 reviewed by Robert E. Belford
This book is written by an instructional design specialist to assist faculty in developing or transferring their course material to an online environment. The fundamental principles behind effective course design from both the perspective of student learning and of course management are covered. Although this book provides a guide for developing online content, the basic ideas of course design transcend the actual teaching and learning environment. This book effectively provides useful information to instructors who are developing material for face-to-face (f2f ) and hybrid online-f2f courses as well those in a pure online environment. Specific attention is paid to some of the differences between f2f and online environments and advice is given on how to avoid potential pitfalls resulting from instructional design in online environments. What this book does not cover are the technical issues associated with any particular learning management system (LMS) such as Moodle or Blackboard, or content associated with any particular academic discipline. Thus this book is thus designed to be a resource for online course design regardless of your academic discipline or the LMS you are using. This easy-to-read book has seven chapters and an appendix with numerous forms that help you organize your course and apply the principles presented within the chapters. All of the chapters are well referenced, and there are 25 action steps that guide the reader through the generalized procedures the book uses to assist instructors in developing Web-based content. These action steps are placed in the back of the appropriate chapters and summarized in one of the appendices. At the end of the process, you have a course that allows you to present material to students with a variety of learning styles, utilize formative assess-
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ment to modify your content as your course evolves, and easily adapt to new textbooks. The first chapter starts with an overview of learning styles and directs you to online VARK (Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic) (1) and Felders (2) inventories, which are questionnaires that educators can use free of charge to identify the learning styles and preferences of their students. Chapter 1 also covers multiple facets of the online learner-centered environment and the differences between f2f classrooms and those your students will experience in an online course. The next chapter guides you in modularizing your course content into packets (course modules) that allow for effective online management. The concept of a learning guide is initially presented here and this learning guide will be the only place in your course where you place information like page numbers and assigned readings from the class text. Thus, if you change texts in the future, the only part of your course that you will need to update is the learning guide. In chapter 3 the importance of both formative and summative assessment in the design of your course is introduced, and once again attention is given to the differences between online and f2f learning environments. The options for enhanced learning through student self-assessment in online environments and the importance of allowing students to remediate themselves prior to summative assessment is introduced, along with issues associated with summative assessment in online environments (such as those associated with proctoring an exam). The next chapter goes over the creation of a course development map, the connectivity of the learning guides to the learning modules developed in chapter 2, and the development of effective transitions between the learning modules. Chapter 5 goes over cognitive load, information processing, and instructional design theories along with the importance of chunking content in a way that connects it to learning activities. The importance of content chunkability, repeatability, pauseability, and understandability in the design of online learning environments is stressed. A chapter follows on best practices for managing an online course. Here the author shares tips from personal experiences relating to instructor/pupil interactions and time-management issues. The author does not go into best practices for Web 2.0 social networking-type online class activities but does provide references related to group work and collaborative learning. The final chapter deals with the actual connectivity of your course content and the importance of a design that facilitates student navigation within the course. In summary, this book covers general principles in online course design but is written as a guide to assist an instructor in developing an online course that incorporates those principles. The extensive appendices, which contain multiple forms and action steps, are a critical component. Yet this reviewer is of the
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 86 No. 8 August 2009 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • © Division of Chemical Education
Chemical Education Today edited by
Cheryl Baldwin Frech University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
opinion that because the book is so easy to read it is of interest to anyone who is interested in effective course design, not just those interested in creating an online course. Literature Cited 1. More information about VARK may be found at http://www. vark-learn.com (accessed May 2009). 2. Information about the Felders index of learning styles may be found at http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html (accessed May 2009).
Supporting JCE Online Material http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2009/Aug/abs926.html Keywords Full text (HTML and PDF) with links to cited URLs
Robert E. Belford is a member of the Chemistry Department, University of Arkansas–Little Rock, 2801 S. University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204;
[email protected] © Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 8 August 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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