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Teaching for Learning: designing resource based learning courses for the internet age

Mark Nichols’s e-book provides an in-depth, yet cohesive, exploration of best practices for developing educationally sound courses for Resource Based Learning (RBL) environments. This e-book is primarily geared towards course developers and tutors working within tertiary educational systems; although trainers, writers, or schoolteachers who are developing materials for different learning situations can also benefit from Nichols’ excellent synthesis of best practices. Nichols’ book covers a wide terrain of proven concepts and strategies for developing effective and high quality courses within a variety of learning situations. He draws upon solid research in the education field, quoting numerous leading academics and practitioners. Nichols points out that he is not attempting to capture all of the latest and greatest developments in the field, but rather to present proven best strategies and approaches for developing high quality materials. As he says, he is ‘not concerned with cutting edge developments.’ Although Nichols has included the Internet Age within the sub-title of his book, he takes into account that RBL strategies and concepts can be applied to a variety of learning models, whether it is open learning/distance learning, face-to-face teaching, or a hybrid of different models. The majority of Nichols’ e-book revolves around what he called the VARIES principles, which stands for Variety, Access, Reflection, Interactivity, Explicit, and Support. These principles are grounded in learner-centred flexible approaches that help guide anyone who is developing course materials for a variety of learning settings by using a hybrid of technologies. The VARIES principles encourage educators to use a variety of media and writing styles to present course content, so that students can learn in ways which suit their preferences and level of knowledge. The e-book is well structured around three parts with a total of eleven chapters. Each chapter in Part Two begins with scenarios illustrating some of the challenges that students face today within some tertiary educational systems. These scenarios also form the theme of each chapter (e.g., variety, access, reflection, interaction, feedback). Aside from providing a cornucopia of best practices, Nichols also reinforces what he preaches through a sample Learning Guide, which is provided as part of the Appendix. Part One is comprised of three chapters that help form the foundation and rationale for the other parts. Chapter one, ‘The Need for Effective Teaching and