Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom, Edition 2

Rena M. Palloff · Keith Pratt

Jul 2007 · John Wiley & Sons

About this ebook

Building Online Learning Communities further explores the development of virtual classroom environments that foster a sense of community and empower students to take charge of their learning to successfully achieve learning outcomes. This is the second edition of the groundbreaking book by Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt and has been completely updated and expanded to include the most current information on effective online course development and delivery. A practical, hands-on guide, this resource is filled with illustrative case studies, vignettes, and examples from a wide variety of successful online courses. The authors offer proven strategies for handling challenges that include:

• Engaging students in the formation of an online learning community.
• Establishing a sense of presence online.
• Maximizing participation.
• Developing effective courses that include collaboration and reflection.
• Assessing student performance.

Written for faculty in any distance learning environment, this revised edition is based on the authors many years of work in faculty development for online teaching as well as their extensive personal experience as faculty in online distance education. Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt share insights designed to guide readers through the steps of online course design and delivery.

Ratings and reviews

This textbook is easily three times larger than it needs to be do to repetitious coverage (filler!). While the topic matter is significant and relevant, the authors tend to over-emphasize and overstate far too much - to the point where it starts to read more like a "For Dummies" book than anything remotely academic. It's also unclear throughout most of the book just what age/maturity level the book's advocacy of online communities is being addressed. I would have appreciated a textbook that was more to the point and fewer strained attempts at supporting what remains to be arguable opinion.

About the author

Rena M. Palloff, Ph.D., and Keith Pratt, Ph.D. are the managing partners of Crossroads Consulting Group. They are the authors of Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace, Collaborating Online, Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom, and The Virtual Student, all from Jossey-Bass.