TIA: A Resource for Those Interested in Educational Development

283 Volume 14, Number 2 online resources are available for the students including animations, interactive case studies and quiz banks. In addition, instructor resources are also accessible with PowerPoint slides, worksheets, and lesson plans. Reading this textbook and performing the learning activities was very comfortable and intuitive. The larger type and word spacing, the formatting and subheading organization, and the simplified verbiage made the content easier to read and follow. Having the short case studies integrated into the content entices you to immediately test your skills thereby providing reinforcement. Yet, this effort to simplify and make information more accessible sometimes leads to oversimplification and misrepresentation. I found myself wishing I had a bit more in-depth content at certain times and felt the “Stop and Consider” questions were sometimes obtuse and too far removed from the factual content given. For subject areas with which I was less familiar, I consulted another textbook to verify the information or get more. My impressions, of course, reflect the debate about the need for student mastery of content and memorization vs. the need to conceptualize that content and encourage critical thinking. Many of us ask, “How fine a line is there between simplification and dangerous loss of detail?” However, I do believe that the authors have made great strides in taking a very complex subject encompassing many scientific disciplines and presenting it in an accessible and interactive manner. Instructors and students will need to acclimatize to this way of organization and presentation and may desire additional resources or information from previous foundation courses to supplement the content of this book.