Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction

by Rita-Marie Conrad, J. Ana Donaldson

Engaging the Online Learner This updated edition includes an innovative framework—the Phases of Engagement—that helps learners become more involved as knowledge generators and cofacilitators of a course. The book also provides specific ideas for tested activities (collected from experienced online instructors across the nation) that can go a long way to improving online learning. Engaging the Online Learner offers the tools and information needed to: Praise for Engaging the Online Learner "The Phases of Engagement framework provides a road map for creating community at each phase of an online course. This book is an invaluable guide to innovative practices for online learning."
–Judith V. Boettcher, coauthor of The Online Teaching Survival Guide "Engagement is the heart of online learning. The authors have developed an encyclopedia of tried-and-true learner engagement activities that are authentic and ready to use."
–Donald P. Ely, professor emeritus, instructional design, development and evaluation in the School of Education, Syracuse University

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction, Reference

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 7, 2004

Reviews

[Nikki McDorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good; definitely for secondary and post-secondary students. No activities that are content-specific; these are all more or less about team building and ice breakers.

[Kathy Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for those completely new to teaching online. Some useful exercises for experienced and inexperienced online instructors.

If I could give half-stars, this would be 3.5.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the content and suggested activities are overly basic, but I took away a couple of new ideas for my classes. I got my money's worth.

[Mai Alfahid · Rating 1 out of 5]

Basic activities + poor Arabic translation

[Justin Harbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conrad remains one of the best in terms of deep learning in digital modalities. This is quite dated, but useful in terms of discussion prompts and protocols - a ton of great ideas here!

[Jo-Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I think Rita-Marie Conrad and J. Ana Donaldson did a great job of describing a variety of activities for online classes at each stage of community building. I would love to see a focus on elementary activities. Most of the activities in this book are geared toward high school or college students, and need to be "tweaked" to be used with younger students. Overall, this book gave me several ideas for my own hybrid classroom.

[Ebony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging the Online Learner is such a useful little book. I’m always wary about these instructional texts because there’s no one size fits all education but I liked the way this one encouraged me to think differently about my courses. I only wish I can remember how this reference came to my attention. Nonetheless, I am documenting many of these activities so they will remain front of mind as I (re)design several of my online courses.

[Tyff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book so much I want to buy a personal copy to have on hand whenever I am teaching an online or blended course. It has really practical activities which are categorized based on type of engagement. Written without a lot of jargon and activities have easy instructions which would allow even the inexperienced online instructor to feel confident using the activities.

[Mark Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great idea. The flow of learning to learn online.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

some interesting ideas

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Takes a very practical approach by providing a number of examples from actual classrooms for each major theme covered.

[Drea Rusher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remedial for anyone with a basic knowledge of instructional design.

[Liz]

Lots of ideas...I ended up using two in my online class.