This title serves as a best-practice model for designing online courses. After reading this book, readers will find that preparing for online teaching is, contrary to popular belief, a satisfying and engaging experience.

The Essentials of Instructional Design, 3rd Edition introduces the essential elements of instructional design (ID) to students who are new to ID. The key procedures within the ID process—learner analysis, task analysis, needs analysis, developing goals and objectives, organizing instruction, developing instructional activities, assessing learner achievement and evaluating the success of the instructional design—are covered in complete chapters that describe and provide examples of how the procedure is accomplished using the best known instructional design models. Unlike most other ID books, The Essentials of Instructional Design provides an overview of the principles and practice of ID without placing emphasis on any one ID model. Offering the voices of instructional designers from a number of professional settings and providing real-life examples from across sectors, students learn how professional organizations put the various ID processes into practice. This introductory textbook provides students with the information they need to make informed decisions as they design and develop instruction, offering them a variety of possible approaches for each step in the ID process and clearly explaining the strengths and challenges associated with each approach.

Teachers’ active online participation and engagement with students are critical factors to the success of online courses. Essentials of Online Teaching is a standards-based, straightforward guide to teaching online in higher education, high school and vocational training, or corporate learning environments. This brief but powerful book encourages immediate application of concepts with the help of real-world examples, technical insights, and professional advice. The guide includes: a practical approach informed by, but not about, relevant learning theories; clear models and examples from a wide variety of online courses; teachers’ reflections about their online practice; a checklist of standards to help guide teaching decisions; and an accompanying website (www.essentialsofonlineteaching.com) with additional resources. Essentials of Online Teaching addresses key instructional challenges in online teaching and presents the reader with practical solutions for each phase of a course—preparation, beginning, middle, and end.

Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide provides a practical, streamlined approach for creating effective learning experiences by blending online activities and the best of face-to-face teaching. This guide is: Easy to use: Clear, jargon-free writing; illustrations; and references to online resources help readers understand concepts. Streamlined: A simple but effective design process focuses on creating manageable activities for the right environment. Practical: Real-world examples from different subject areas help teachers understand principles in context. Contemporary: The variety of modern, connected technologies covered in the guide addresses a range of teaching challenges. Forward-Looking: The approach bridges the gap between formal classroom learning and informal lifelong learning. Standards-based: Guidelines and standards are based on current research in the field, relevant learning theories, and practitioner experiences. Effective blended learning requires significant rethinking of teaching practices and a fundamental redesign of course structure. Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide simplifies these difficult challenges without neglecting important opportunities to transform teaching. This guide is suitable for teachers in any content area. Please visit www.essentialsforblended.com for additional resources.

A Guide to Online Course Design offers faculty and professional staff a practical and easy-to-follow model for creating exceptional online courses that focuses on quality standards in instructional design, transparency in learning outcomes, and learner persistence. A comprehensive resource, the book includes effective, research-based instructional strategies to motivate online learners and help them become more self-directed. A Guide to Online Course Design emphasizes quality standards and removing barriers to learners’ persistence, which ensures online courses meet the needs of online learners as well as distance education initiatives. “All faculty members and course designers, regardless of experience level, content background, or technology skills, can benefit from applying the approaches defined in this book. The authors have imparted a wealth of knowledge that can improve the quality of any online class and I highly recommend this book for all those involved with online learning.” - Anton G. Camarota, faculty, University of Denver “Anyone involved in developing online courses should read this book! Packed with great insights and the research to back them up, Stavredes and Herder guide readers with practical information that will support online course development.” - Brenda Boyd, director of professional development and consulting, Quality Matters Program “The blend of theory and application makes A Guide to Online Course Design and indispensable resource for any professional seeking to create high quality, outcomes-based learning experiences. I loved the action steps that close each chapter, as they lead the reader through the entire process of course design from analysis to implementation.” - Kathe Kacheroski, dean of curriculum and instruction, Rasmussen College

As the sixth volume of the Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning series, Conquering the Content provides a highly-practical blue-print for course development and content presentation for web-based courses. While providing guidance for incorporating learning theory into online courses, this book primarily furnishes online instructors with the practical templates, learning guides, and sample files to construct and manage their course content. Unlike other books about online instruction that cover theories of teaching and learning, instructional design, or even graphic design this book gives the "how to" of preparing an online course by focusing on content. The much needed step-by-step guidance in this book will result in fully formed courses where high-quality content is the central feature.

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