University of Toronto, Department of Family and Community Medicine 1

Gryan Garcia
INTAPT 2016 2017
November 29, 2016

BOOK REVIEW #2
Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance
Education, 2e

Author: Michael Simonson, Sharon Smaldino, Michael Albright, &

Susan Zvacek
Publisher: Prentice Hall, Inc. A Pearson Education Company
ISBN: 013094629X
Number of pages: 408 pages
Price: Paperback $70.47 CAD (Indigo)
Target audience: This book is for those in training programs who wish to
teach at a distance or manage distance education systems.

Summary

Teaching and Learning at a Distance has two types of chapters - foundation chapters
and application chapters. Chapters 1 through 4 are designed to provide a conceptual,
theoretical, and research-based foundation for the rest of the text. Chapters 5 through
12 are designed to provide educators with the practical skills and information they need
to function immediately in a distance learning environment. The final two chapters
discuss two very important and closely related topics: (1) assessment of learning and
learners and (2) evaluation of teaching and systems. Assessment and evaluation are
closely related, but their importance is special to every distance educator.

Strengths

As distance education has matured and become more widespread, the importance of
online, World Wide Web - based instruction has grown. This book has considerable
information about how online instruction can be designed, delivered, and evaluated.
Each chapter has goals and objectives to provide an organizational plan for the student,
and visuals are used liberally in an attempt to show the reader in addition to telling.

Weaknesses

Personally, the weakness of this book is on how their readers gives an open mind to
distance education. In addition, this book did not discuss any possible ways to
overcome limitations to share with student when taking distance education such as the
University of Toronto, Department of Family and Community Medicine 2

requirement to have constant, reliable access to technology. Also, the challenges for
teachers to overcome for any student who opts to learn through distance learning.

Overall impression

Distance education is a new concept to many. It is possible that distance education as

an idea may provide educators in rural, isolated, or economically disadvantaged areas
the opportunity to overcome the problems inherent in their situations. Teaching and
Learning at a Distance gives teachers and trainers the background and skills needed to
function effectively and critically in the educational environment of the 21st century. I
highly recommend this book in graduate programs especially to those who have the
passion in teaching through distance learning.

Overall rating

/5