A Book Critique of: The Theory and Practice of Online Teaching: A Guide for Academic Professionals


The theory and practice of online teaching and learning: A guide for academic professionals is a compendium of six excerpts from different specialized titles in the field of online teaching. Each chapter provides “a peek at some of what is at stake in online teaching” (Routledge, n.d, p. 4) to give readers a broader idea of how to work with technological resources for educational purposes. This compilation is aimed for academic professionals and offers a smooth progression from approachable to more challenging notions as chapters advance.
The first chapter “Online teaching: The basics” lays the ground for the rest of the book. It introduces key concepts and presents the notion that “teaching online heightens our awareness of what we are actually doing in the classroom” (Ko, n.d., p. 13). This informal and reader-friendly extract gives prospective online instructors a feeling of attainment of the online teaching endeavour, emphasising that were a teacher interested in working online, knowledge of basic computer skills and giving constant feedback to learners would be essential.
The second excerpt “Orientation to online teaching and learning” not only provides a glossary of vital concepts for online novices but also purveys clear guidelines as to what needs to be done when attempting to execute an online course. Readers are swiftly guided through the different types of online courses that can be administered. Throughout this chapter, it is clearly seen how the authors,Vai and Sosulski, portray all the advantages of working in online settings supporting his beliefs with a series of insightful examples.
The third chapter “E-tivities for active online learning” by Salmon explores the advantages that are to be ripped by learners and instructors following the incorporation of electronic activities in online environments. It mainly stresses that e-tivities offer a benefit face to face activities will never have since they are kept in records that can be analysed and reflected upon after they have been carried out. In this chapter, it would have been beneficial for the reader to have some examples of e-tivities so that readers have a clearer idea of what they look like. 
In the fourth chapter the book “The varied terrain of online learning” is examined.  Means, Bakia and Murphy propose an outline of some basic elements such as context, design, features, implementation and outcomes which could be taken into consideration when analysing an online course.  As it is difficult to delimitate different aspects involved in online learning scenarios, the writer uses his own work to illustrate this. Had the author investigated the field more thoroughly and explored its results, the work outcome would have been more substantial. 
 The fifth extract “Reusing open resources for learning” is heavily technical and requires additional background knowledge to be understood. Had the meaning of open resources been explained, the reader could have followed the explanation and classification more comfortably. Despite the technicalities, this extract brings to focus a crucial notion of online teaching that is that sharing can contribute to the development of new ideas and contents which can be found and reused for learning due to the fact that “online resources are created not only by teachers or experts” (Littlejohn and Pegler, n.d., p.50) .
In the last chapter, “Teaching as a design science” the author states that the educational act is not just limited to spreading knowledge but also developing learners’ personal knowledge and capabilities, which is part of the teacher's responsibilities. “Teaching is more like a design science because it uses what is known about teaching to attain the goal of students learning” (Laurillard, n.d., p. 57) and technology plays an important role here. While it is true that teaching is a design science the author need not have enclosed it completely as a design science but also consider it as a theoretical and practical one, due to the fact that teachers contribute, explain and teach by sharing knowledge gained through experimentation. In online teaching and learning environments technology is used to make this possible.
In this carefully combined book, Routledge has successfully compiled the work of well-known authors in the field of teaching online, providing a general view of  the books published by them in a summarized fashion. What is more, it is a good source of information on the topic, aiding the reader to start exploring online environments, e-tivities, the use of open educational resources (OER) and reflect upon the benefits and nature of online teaching scenarios. All in all, the book offers useful guidance for those who either intrigued or compelled by online teaching. Hardly does this book cover every aspect of online teaching but it can definitely suffice as a general starting point.

References

Routledge Freebooks, (n.d.). The Theory and Practice of Online Teaching: A Guide for Academic Professionals. Routledge. Retrieved from: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rtfiles/docs/FreeBooks+Opened+Up/Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_FB_final.pdf


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