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Design for How People Learn
Products, technologies, and workplaces change so quickly today that everyone is continually learning. Many of us are also teaching, even when it's not in our job descriptions. Whether it's giving a presentation, writing documentation, or creating a website or blog, we need and want to share our knowledge with other people. But if you've ever fallen asleep over a boring textbook, or fast-forwarded through a tedious e-learning exercise, you know that creating a great learning experience is harder than it seems. In Design For How People Learn, you'll discover how to use the key principles behind learning, memory, and attention to create materials that enable your audience to both gain and retain the knowledge and skills you're sharing. Using accessible visual metaphors and concrete methods and examples, Design For How People Learn will teach you how to leverage the fundamental concepts of instructional design both to improve your own learning and to engage your audie
259 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 172 reviews
June 6, 2023
Julie Dirksen is an instructional designer in primarily a corporate setting, but the elements of instructional design laid out in this book are relevant to academia as well. While she has limited understanding of learning theory and the neuroscience of knowledge, her practical-real-world applications coupled with her "show-don't-tell" educational model is theoretically (and practically) sound. I was very impressed with this book. In fact, I read it in under 24 hours. It is now relegated to the "will read multiple times, I'm sure" reference shelf of my office library.
July 2, 2013
A well designed book and content. Focuses on Adult learning. Really helpful for people creating training materials, software applications, UX, and design
September 14, 2018
Learned a lot and had fun along
After reading a few other books about learning, I discovered this one. It took me longer as each chapter was to be studied, understood and absorbed. I just finished, but will read it again.
I read on kindle, but will buy also a hard copy. Each with its advantages. Now, I really understand how much goes into creating a good learning experience for adults. A book I recommend to many who teach, train, create any material.
After reading a few other books about learning, I discovered this one. It took me longer as each chapter was to be studied, understood and absorbed. I just finished, but will read it again.
I read on kindle, but will buy also a hard copy. Each with its advantages. Now, I really understand how much goes into creating a good learning experience for adults. A book I recommend to many who teach, train, create any material.
December 19, 2019
I've been on a binge of books about presentations/teaching to adults/visual teaching etc... They are all a little different, so I'm not sure how I would lump them all together as a category. But I'm going to say that this book was by far the most helpful to me. It was also the least literal. If you are looking for specific examples of how to teach, you might be disappointed. But it's a great book to help you visualize how people learn. I'd also recommend "Made To Stick" by the Heath brothers if you are looking for more reading about adult learners.
June 5, 2018
I’ve worked in instructional design for eight years and this is one of the best books on the subject that I’ve read. The book is intended for entry level, but vets should read this too as a refresher and to find new ideas. If you teach in any environment, read this book.
April 4, 2012
This book was absolutely brilliant. The information was relevant completely relevant for my job as a Change Manager and I could see numerous ways to apply the learnings from this book in day-to-day learning experiences.
I loved the layout of the book, the tone and the illustrations. It was easy to read while also being really useful.
Highly recommended.
I loved the layout of the book, the tone and the illustrations. It was easy to read while also being really useful.
Highly recommended.
March 14, 2019
Well-presented, tangible advice for how to design with the learner in mind.
January 17, 2022
Ngl, I liked this book a lot because I was unconsciously doing a lot of these things when I try to teach my students...but there are a lot of things here that simply put into words WHAT I was doing so it wouldn't just sound like, "Uhh idk why it worked but it worked???" when people ask me why my design group crits are not just fun, but informative.
July 8, 2019
Takeaways from reading the book:
Learning tip # 1: Set a goal
- Page 238: To change something, set a goal AND be specific about implementation. Example of goal: Stop smoking. Example of specific implementation plan: If you crave a cigarette after lunch, take a 5 minute walk outside.
- Page 269: Ask why you are doing things in the way you are.
Learning tip # 2: Get information you need
- Page 20: What information does the learner need when to be successful?
- Page 42: Find out what learning resources people need. Then make sure people have access. Then stop bothering them.
- Page 287: Small children are natural learners. They suck information out of their environment through curiosity and play.
Learning tip # 3: Do the task over and over again
- Page 6: To get ready for a major hike, do a lot of hiking.
- Page 13: To learn something new, repeat it.
- Page 32: Work on what is meaningful for you.
- Page 57: If you have an idea for a learning activity, test it.
- Page 178: If you just want a person to get to point A, exact instructions or GPS are great. But if you want people to learn how to get to point A, you want the process to be more effortful on the part of the learner.
- Page 186: Start with tasks that give learners early wins.
- Page 186: Whenever possible, let learners drive themselves rather than be passengers in your car.
Learning tip # 4: Teach others
- Page 33: Encourage learners to teach.
- Page 151: Everyone is a visual learner.
- Page 162: Whenever you want to tell learners something, first ask yourself if there is anyway they can tell you instead.
- Page 171: The right content is less than you think it is. Focus on what is most relevant to learners.
- Page 261: The closer you can get the knowledge to where the user needs it, the better.
- Page 207: In order for practice to be effective, learners need to be able to tell how they are doing.
Learning tip # 5: Give feedback
- Page 207: Increase the frequency of feedback whenever possible.
- Page 208: Provide feedback in various ways.
- Page 279: At the heart of learning assessment are 2 things: 1. Ask the learner to do the task. 2. Give the learner useful feedback.
Learning tip # 6: Ask questions
Page 145: Ask questions that require learners to create something new, form an opinion, or apply a concept - not questions that require the rote recitation of information.
Questions for students:
- Pages 20 and 269: What in your environment is preventing you from being successful?
- Page 28: What part of this topic is particularly useful for you?
- Pages 28 and 56: Why are you learning this?
- Page 30: What do you find useful / interesting about this learning experience?
- Page 56: How will learning this help you?
- Page 56: What could make it easier for you?
- Page 251: What worked? What did not work? What would you do differently next time?
Other tips:
- Page 202: Balance the learning experience between what is known and what is new.
- Page 218: Create environments that make it easier for learners to succeed.
- Page 269: Make the learning process simple.
- Page 270: What could you do before a learning event to make people more ready? What could you do after a learning event to reinforce learning.
Learning tip # 1: Set a goal
- Page 238: To change something, set a goal AND be specific about implementation. Example of goal: Stop smoking. Example of specific implementation plan: If you crave a cigarette after lunch, take a 5 minute walk outside.
- Page 269: Ask why you are doing things in the way you are.
Learning tip # 2: Get information you need
- Page 20: What information does the learner need when to be successful?
- Page 42: Find out what learning resources people need. Then make sure people have access. Then stop bothering them.
- Page 287: Small children are natural learners. They suck information out of their environment through curiosity and play.
Learning tip # 3: Do the task over and over again
- Page 6: To get ready for a major hike, do a lot of hiking.
- Page 13: To learn something new, repeat it.
- Page 32: Work on what is meaningful for you.
- Page 57: If you have an idea for a learning activity, test it.
- Page 178: If you just want a person to get to point A, exact instructions or GPS are great. But if you want people to learn how to get to point A, you want the process to be more effortful on the part of the learner.
- Page 186: Start with tasks that give learners early wins.
- Page 186: Whenever possible, let learners drive themselves rather than be passengers in your car.
Learning tip # 4: Teach others
- Page 33: Encourage learners to teach.
- Page 151: Everyone is a visual learner.
- Page 162: Whenever you want to tell learners something, first ask yourself if there is anyway they can tell you instead.
- Page 171: The right content is less than you think it is. Focus on what is most relevant to learners.
- Page 261: The closer you can get the knowledge to where the user needs it, the better.
- Page 207: In order for practice to be effective, learners need to be able to tell how they are doing.
Learning tip # 5: Give feedback
- Page 207: Increase the frequency of feedback whenever possible.
- Page 208: Provide feedback in various ways.
- Page 279: At the heart of learning assessment are 2 things: 1. Ask the learner to do the task. 2. Give the learner useful feedback.
Learning tip # 6: Ask questions
Page 145: Ask questions that require learners to create something new, form an opinion, or apply a concept - not questions that require the rote recitation of information.
Questions for students:
- Pages 20 and 269: What in your environment is preventing you from being successful?
- Page 28: What part of this topic is particularly useful for you?
- Pages 28 and 56: Why are you learning this?
- Page 30: What do you find useful / interesting about this learning experience?
- Page 56: How will learning this help you?
- Page 56: What could make it easier for you?
- Page 251: What worked? What did not work? What would you do differently next time?
Other tips:
- Page 202: Balance the learning experience between what is known and what is new.
- Page 218: Create environments that make it easier for learners to succeed.
- Page 269: Make the learning process simple.
- Page 270: What could you do before a learning event to make people more ready? What could you do after a learning event to reinforce learning.
June 17, 2012
I don't have much to say about this book. There were a few good points, and it is helpful to read a teaching book geared for an adult audience. At times I felt that it wasn't as clear it could be considering the book is about clearly communicating to teach. It also had some pretty lackluster graphics throughout the book. It did bring some interesting points to the surface as I re-work a teaching plan I'm in the middle of though, and I can see myself coming back to reference a few times as I fiddle with the teaching plan.
June 10, 2017
Good book in general, however I was missing a lot more scientific evidence of the points and recommendations made in the book.
As a book inspiring new ways and ideas on how to educate, it was a good resource though.
As a book inspiring new ways and ideas on how to educate, it was a good resource though.
July 13, 2018
This book is so informative and insightful. As a teacher, the content was relevant and presented in a really engaging way. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to improve their instructional design practice!
August 26, 2014
This is a great intro / broad exploration of learning design! It definitely gave me ideas to consider for designing online courses.
December 18, 2019
I read this for a book club at work; it was highly effective at generating meaningful conversations amongst my coworkers and helped us to recognize a shared definition of what constitutes quality work in our field. It's geared towards instructional design in a corporate environment, but the content would be applicable to anyone involved in learning & development and/or adult learning.
Very little information was presented that I haven't already heard, but it was organized in a way that will make it an valuable reference tool. I also walked away feeling more confident when dicussing the needs of our learners with SMEs, stakeholders and upper management. There were a number of specific real world examples backed up by research which I can add to my arsenal to better influence design principals and teaching strategies.
Very little information was presented that I haven't already heard, but it was organized in a way that will make it an valuable reference tool. I also walked away feeling more confident when dicussing the needs of our learners with SMEs, stakeholders and upper management. There were a number of specific real world examples backed up by research which I can add to my arsenal to better influence design principals and teaching strategies.
October 4, 2021
There were a lot of takeaways for me from this read but it also fell into the category of books I find challenging to make actionable. I call it "1,ooo Things to Keep in Mind When You Are _____". These books are crammed with great information but are so broad and unfocused that it is difficult to walk away with a clear picture of what you will do, think, or say differently as a result.
January 9, 2023
Discover how to design your lesson plans around how people learn.
Contrary to popular belief, education doesn't just end once you leave the classroom. Technology, innovation, and knowledge are all progressing at an exponential rate – and in order to keep up and stay competitive, we all need to be lifelong learners. But if you’ve ever dozed off over the pages of a tedious textbook or found yourself scrolling Twitter when you’re supposed to be completing an online module, you’ll know that not all learning experiences are exactly well-designed.
Luckily, when you’re called upon to lead a workshop at your office or given the opportunity to teach a course in your field, you won’t fall into the trap of teaching dull, ineffective lessons. Why? Because by the end of this book Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen, you’ll understand how students learn, how memory works, and how good lesson design can turn a dull course into a memorable learning experience.
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Chapter 1 – Great teachers know their students as well as their topic.
Meet Sven. He’s head of graphic design at a fancy start-up and he’s about to lead a group of new hires in a typography workshop. He’s done a lot of preparation – if anything, Sven’s overprepared – and he’s excited to share what he knows. So when he gets started, he doesn’t even bother with introductions. Instead, he decides to launch right into the exciting stuff – the difference between a typeface and a font, the merits of serif vs sans serif, and exactly what kerning is.
But therein lies the problem: Sven knows a lot about typography. However, he doesn’t know anything about his students.
Before Sven even began teaching, he should have gauged how much his students already knew. That way, he might have found out that Juanita in the front row is a typesetting nerd with strong feelings about Helvetica – and that Liam, in the back, doesn’t know anything past the fact that he used Times New Roman for his college essays.
Learning about your students allows you to pitch your course content to their skill levels and tailor it to their motivations. So, before you start teaching, here are a few initial steps to get to know your audience a bit better.
First, try to establish whether you’re dealing with a skills gap or a knowledge gap – or both! Let’s say your class is on hiking the Appalachian trail. A practiced hiker already has the skills to tackle the trail. They lack knowledge: What’s the best route? What weather conditions should they prepare for? But a novice hiker will lack skills as well as knowledge. You’ll need to teach them the basics – like how to lace up their hiking boots – before you move on to anything specific. And you should lead them through a few basic short hikes, then multi-day hikes, before you let them attempt a 2,000-mile-plus route.
Next, check in on the learners’ motivation. A motivated learner is more likely to excel than an unmotivated one. Teaching French to a Francophile? They’re already excited and engaged! But what if you’re teaching French to someone with a passion for bassoon? Well, you can always direct them to the nearest bassoon class. Then again, they might have to learn French – say, for dealing with French clients at work. Sometimes that’s motivation enough – but in case it’s not, tying your course material to your learner’s interests is a useful strategy. Sure, it might mean you stay up all night preparing a lesson about the eighteenth-century French bassoonist Adolphe Blaise – yes, he is a real person – but you’ll probably see a pay-off in the classroom.
The point is, keep learning about your students long after the initial round of introductions. In particular, aim for a two-way flow of information throughout the course. Ask them to explain concepts and demonstrate skills – you’ll easily be able to see who’s grasped the material, who needs some more help, and who’s misunderstood and needs correction quickly!
Finally, give your students input into the course wherever possible. Ask them to vote on how the course is paced or structured – this creates a sense of ownership. And if you have a range of experts and beginners, allow experienced students to opt out of sessions where you’ll be teaching something they already know. The best teachers aren’t the ones that know their topic inside out – they’re the ones who know their students inside out, too.
---
Chapter 2 – Creating memorable lessons is simple.
Let’s try out a test. Try and remember as much as you can from the following. Ready? OK.
The inventor Nikola Tesla was born in 1856, in Smiljan, Croatia. After he moved to the US, he collaborated frequently with Thomas Edison, before the two men fell out. Tesla’s inventions include the Tesla Coil and the alternating current, or AC, motor.
Got it? Alright, time for a pop quiz!
In which Croatian city was Tesla born?
Who was Tesla’s one-time collaborator?
And, what does the AC in AC motor stand for?
The answers are Smiljan, Thomas Edison, and alternating current.
Maybe you got some, or even all of those answers correct. But will you know those answers a week from now? The answer depends on how well they penetrate through your three layers of memory – sensory, short-term, and long-term. Our brains can’t store every piece of information we learn. Each layer of memory acts like a filter, deciding which inputs we want to keep and for how long.
First, your sensory memory filters all your sensory perceptions and decides what to pass on to your short-term memory. Then, your short-term memory stores information, but only on an as-needed basis. So, for example, it will remember that the Wi-Fi password in a cafe is bananamuffin666 but only for the time it takes you to type it in and get online. We can hold a lot of information in our short-term memory, but not forever. And unless you’re teaching Forgetting Information 101, you want your learners to retain course content for longer than the span of your session. To make sure information penetrates from short-term memory to long-term memory, try a technique called chunking. Funny word – very handy technique.
Here’s an example. Here’s a number, you repeat it back: 549.
Not too hard, right? Try this one next: 100,783,305,222.
Slightly more difficult. But can you repeat these four numbers: 100; 783; 305; 222?
A bit easier? Now, that was the same number as before but just broken down into digestible chunks. Hence, chunking. Breaking your course material down like this – whether it's breaking a process down into several instructions or breaking up a large text with headings and bullet points – will make it more memorable. Maybe even memorable enough to penetrate into your long-term memory filter.
But just breaking in through the long-term memory filter once isn’t always enough. To get information to stick, you need to find multiple entrances.
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Chapter 3 – Apply new information to the proper context.
Think of your long-term memory as a huge closet. Some shelves are beautifully labeled and organized – while others are stuffed with all kinds of random bits and pieces. As a teacher, your goal is to make sure your information lands on one of those beautifully labeled shelves. Ideally, the same piece of information would land on multiple shelves, so it’s even more accessible. But, with so many options, how do we make sure the information goes where we want?
This comes back to knowing your students. Leverage and work with the shelves they already have. An English speaker learning Spanish already has a good set of shelves because the two languages have similar roots and grammatical structures. So, in your lessons, help your students make those connections. If you’re teaching Finnish, which has very little in common with English, you’ll have to build those shelves from scratch. But repetition will help ensure new information sticks in long-term memory.
It's also crucial to help your learners shelve new information effectively. If you’re teaching Intro to Hip-Hop, you don’t want all the course content to land on one overstuffed shelf labeled Hip-Hop. Instead, repeating the same information in different contexts and with different associations will make sure it's stored across multiple shelves. That way, they can store Run DMC’s career on shelves labeled East Coast, Def Jam, Adidas, and so on. The more shelves the better.
To extend the closet metaphor just a little bit further, it’s important to know that as humans we only access certain shelves in certain contexts. A receptionist might greet all a company’s clients by name when he’s sitting behind his desk, but fail to recognize them if he bumps into them at a restaurant over the weekend. Try and encode your course teachings in the environment where they will be used – so if you’re teaching court reporters to write in shorthand, create an environment that’s as close to a real legal trial as possible. Better yet, hold class during an actual trial.
Just as important as environmental context is emotional context. The calm, supportive emotional context of a classroom often doesn’t match the context where skills and knowledge are applied. In this sense, role-plays that mimic the stressful, real-life situations where learners will apply new skills can be very helpful. If you’re coaching trainee telesales employees, for example, have them role-play dealing with harassed or irritated customers.
And just in case all that didn’t make it into your long-term memory, here it is again in a nutshell:
Break down new information into digestible chunks.
Help your students shelve information precisely and intuitively.
Match the tone and context of your class to the tone and context of the situations in which learners will apply their new-found knowledge.
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Chapter 4 – Good design is the foundation of great teaching.
Incorporating a few principles of good lesson design will engage your learners and elevate your material. So, to help you implement these, this chapter will run through five of the most effective strategies for lesson design. Grab a pen – you’ll want to take notes!
One: Design your lessons to be action-oriented. Create opportunities for learners to apply new knowledge and practice new skills. They’ll retain much more that way. For example, if you’re teaching a course on nutrition, rather than simply telling students that a balanced daily diet should comprise roughly 2,000 calories, ask them to create a meal plan that hits that caloric target.
Two: Design with desirable difficulty in mind. Difficulty? Desirable? It may sound like an oxymoron, but the truth is you don’t want your lessons to be too easy. The psychologist Robert A. Bjork has shown that students learn better and form stronger connections with learning material when they’re working at the very edge of their ability. Setting challenging tasks will keep your learners motivated. Remember to adjust the difficulty as your course progresses and your learners’ competence grows.
Three: Design for interactivity. Rather than explain a new concept, try guiding your learners to uncover that concept for themselves. This interactive approach is far more engaging. For instance, if you’re leading a workshop on how to ace a job interview, you could share a checklist of best practices for prospective job candidates. Or you could show recordings of successful, and unsuccessful, interviews and ask your learners to formulate that checklist for themselves. With some guidance from you, your learners can uncover core concepts for themselves.
Four: Design good habits. When we implement a skill, we’re sometimes using our conscious mind and sometimes acting automatically – and the difference between good and great performance can come down to how well those habitual actions are performed. Let’s look at computer coding. When a programmer designs new code, she applies herself consciously to the task. But she should also be in the habit of performing regular version controls where she tracks any changes she makes to the code – making it easier to identify bugs and errors, among other things. You can’t simply tell learners to have good habits – but you can get them to participate in habit formation. Create new habits by asking students to identify a trigger – for example, performing a version control every time you save a file. Bundling the good habit – version control – with an existing trigger – clicking save – will help the habit become automatic.
Five: Design knowledge into the environment. Visitors to Boston don’t need to read a history of the city, or even download a map signposting its significant historical sites to enjoy an informative walking tour of the city center – a big red line winds through the sidewalk, connecting key historical monuments. It’s accessible to anyone and simple as anything to use. This is a great example of how knowledge can be designed into the environment. After all, there’s no reason learners need to store all the information they need in their heads when you can encode it into the environment instead. If your learners are getting overloaded with new information and concepts, take a step back and ask yourself if some of this info can be offloaded into the environment, whether through signs, visual reminders, online resources, or even a workplace manual.
Keep these five principles of lesson design in mind and it’s likely your students will grasp your course content successfully. Of course, there’s only one way to find out for sure how effective your lessons actually are: through testing and evaluation.
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Chapter 5 – Evaluate learners effectively with well-designed assessments.
A stomach full of butterflies. Sweaty palms. A racing mind. Pretty typical stuff for a student about to sit a big exam. Funnily enough, designing an evaluation for your students can feel just as stressful as taking tests used to feel. Creating an evaluation tool that accurately assesses your learners’ competence can seem challenging – but it doesn’t have to be.
The best tip for designing an effective evaluation also happens to be the simplest: write your evaluation at the start of the course, not the end. That way you can make sure you’re actually teaching the skills and concepts you’re planning to test.
In fact, reconsider the idea that evaluations happen at the end of a course. Certainly, it’s useful to have a test or evaluation once your course wraps up, but it’s equally important to sprinkle opportunities for feedback throughout the course. That doesn’t mean setting a formal exam every week. Instead, provide informal feedback on tasks – you can do this in-task if it doesn’t disrupt learners’ flow, or at the end of the lesson. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback by asking students to correct each other’s work. And build in opportunities for self-evaluation by asking students to reflect on their progress and performance.
When it comes to setting formal assessment tasks, test for recall, not recognition. Here’s an example:
Based on this book so far, what is one way teachers motivate learners?
Tell them that the course material is actually extremely interesting;
Tie course content to their interests and ambitions; or
It’s not the teacher’s job to motivate learners.
No prizes for guessing the correct answer is b. Even without prior knowledge, it’s easy to recognize that this answer is the most plausible of the bunch. So, to actually test your learners' knowledge, ask them to recall information instead of handing it to them.
For an evaluation like this, your question should be more like this:
The learners in your class are lacking motivation. Write down three teaching strategies that might get them excited about the course material.
This will get them thinking about the actual steps they’d take using the lessons they’ve learned along the way.
Lastly, don’t forget that feedback is just as useful for teachers as it is for students. Setting a short, anonymous survey at the end of your course will allow your students to share what’s working and what’s not. But be prepared – if you’ve followed the advice on lesson design in this book, you may well be swamped by effusive praise from satisfied students!
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If you want to design effective, exciting, practical learning experiences, begin by focusing on your learners. Share new concepts in a memory-friendly way. Adhere to the key principles of educational design. And don’t neglect to evaluate your learners – or yourself.
And here’s some actionable advice to get you started:
Don’t stress attention spans.
In the digital age, attention spans are apparently shrinking. But ignore statistics about the average adult's attention span – after all, the average adult can binge Netflix for hours at a time. If your material is varied, absorbing, and exciting, you’ll have no problem holding the class’s attention, even for long periods of time.
Contrary to popular belief, education doesn't just end once you leave the classroom. Technology, innovation, and knowledge are all progressing at an exponential rate – and in order to keep up and stay competitive, we all need to be lifelong learners. But if you’ve ever dozed off over the pages of a tedious textbook or found yourself scrolling Twitter when you’re supposed to be completing an online module, you’ll know that not all learning experiences are exactly well-designed.
Luckily, when you’re called upon to lead a workshop at your office or given the opportunity to teach a course in your field, you won’t fall into the trap of teaching dull, ineffective lessons. Why? Because by the end of this book Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen, you’ll understand how students learn, how memory works, and how good lesson design can turn a dull course into a memorable learning experience.
---
Chapter 1 – Great teachers know their students as well as their topic.
Meet Sven. He’s head of graphic design at a fancy start-up and he’s about to lead a group of new hires in a typography workshop. He’s done a lot of preparation – if anything, Sven’s overprepared – and he’s excited to share what he knows. So when he gets started, he doesn’t even bother with introductions. Instead, he decides to launch right into the exciting stuff – the difference between a typeface and a font, the merits of serif vs sans serif, and exactly what kerning is.
But therein lies the problem: Sven knows a lot about typography. However, he doesn’t know anything about his students.
Before Sven even began teaching, he should have gauged how much his students already knew. That way, he might have found out that Juanita in the front row is a typesetting nerd with strong feelings about Helvetica – and that Liam, in the back, doesn’t know anything past the fact that he used Times New Roman for his college essays.
Learning about your students allows you to pitch your course content to their skill levels and tailor it to their motivations. So, before you start teaching, here are a few initial steps to get to know your audience a bit better.
First, try to establish whether you’re dealing with a skills gap or a knowledge gap – or both! Let’s say your class is on hiking the Appalachian trail. A practiced hiker already has the skills to tackle the trail. They lack knowledge: What’s the best route? What weather conditions should they prepare for? But a novice hiker will lack skills as well as knowledge. You’ll need to teach them the basics – like how to lace up their hiking boots – before you move on to anything specific. And you should lead them through a few basic short hikes, then multi-day hikes, before you let them attempt a 2,000-mile-plus route.
Next, check in on the learners’ motivation. A motivated learner is more likely to excel than an unmotivated one. Teaching French to a Francophile? They’re already excited and engaged! But what if you’re teaching French to someone with a passion for bassoon? Well, you can always direct them to the nearest bassoon class. Then again, they might have to learn French – say, for dealing with French clients at work. Sometimes that’s motivation enough – but in case it’s not, tying your course material to your learner’s interests is a useful strategy. Sure, it might mean you stay up all night preparing a lesson about the eighteenth-century French bassoonist Adolphe Blaise – yes, he is a real person – but you’ll probably see a pay-off in the classroom.
The point is, keep learning about your students long after the initial round of introductions. In particular, aim for a two-way flow of information throughout the course. Ask them to explain concepts and demonstrate skills – you’ll easily be able to see who’s grasped the material, who needs some more help, and who’s misunderstood and needs correction quickly!
Finally, give your students input into the course wherever possible. Ask them to vote on how the course is paced or structured – this creates a sense of ownership. And if you have a range of experts and beginners, allow experienced students to opt out of sessions where you’ll be teaching something they already know. The best teachers aren’t the ones that know their topic inside out – they’re the ones who know their students inside out, too.
---
Chapter 2 – Creating memorable lessons is simple.
Let’s try out a test. Try and remember as much as you can from the following. Ready? OK.
The inventor Nikola Tesla was born in 1856, in Smiljan, Croatia. After he moved to the US, he collaborated frequently with Thomas Edison, before the two men fell out. Tesla’s inventions include the Tesla Coil and the alternating current, or AC, motor.
Got it? Alright, time for a pop quiz!
In which Croatian city was Tesla born?
Who was Tesla’s one-time collaborator?
And, what does the AC in AC motor stand for?
The answers are Smiljan, Thomas Edison, and alternating current.
Maybe you got some, or even all of those answers correct. But will you know those answers a week from now? The answer depends on how well they penetrate through your three layers of memory – sensory, short-term, and long-term. Our brains can’t store every piece of information we learn. Each layer of memory acts like a filter, deciding which inputs we want to keep and for how long.
First, your sensory memory filters all your sensory perceptions and decides what to pass on to your short-term memory. Then, your short-term memory stores information, but only on an as-needed basis. So, for example, it will remember that the Wi-Fi password in a cafe is bananamuffin666 but only for the time it takes you to type it in and get online. We can hold a lot of information in our short-term memory, but not forever. And unless you’re teaching Forgetting Information 101, you want your learners to retain course content for longer than the span of your session. To make sure information penetrates from short-term memory to long-term memory, try a technique called chunking. Funny word – very handy technique.
Here’s an example. Here’s a number, you repeat it back: 549.
Not too hard, right? Try this one next: 100,783,305,222.
Slightly more difficult. But can you repeat these four numbers: 100; 783; 305; 222?
A bit easier? Now, that was the same number as before but just broken down into digestible chunks. Hence, chunking. Breaking your course material down like this – whether it's breaking a process down into several instructions or breaking up a large text with headings and bullet points – will make it more memorable. Maybe even memorable enough to penetrate into your long-term memory filter.
But just breaking in through the long-term memory filter once isn’t always enough. To get information to stick, you need to find multiple entrances.
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Chapter 3 – Apply new information to the proper context.
Think of your long-term memory as a huge closet. Some shelves are beautifully labeled and organized – while others are stuffed with all kinds of random bits and pieces. As a teacher, your goal is to make sure your information lands on one of those beautifully labeled shelves. Ideally, the same piece of information would land on multiple shelves, so it’s even more accessible. But, with so many options, how do we make sure the information goes where we want?
This comes back to knowing your students. Leverage and work with the shelves they already have. An English speaker learning Spanish already has a good set of shelves because the two languages have similar roots and grammatical structures. So, in your lessons, help your students make those connections. If you’re teaching Finnish, which has very little in common with English, you’ll have to build those shelves from scratch. But repetition will help ensure new information sticks in long-term memory.
It's also crucial to help your learners shelve new information effectively. If you’re teaching Intro to Hip-Hop, you don’t want all the course content to land on one overstuffed shelf labeled Hip-Hop. Instead, repeating the same information in different contexts and with different associations will make sure it's stored across multiple shelves. That way, they can store Run DMC’s career on shelves labeled East Coast, Def Jam, Adidas, and so on. The more shelves the better.
To extend the closet metaphor just a little bit further, it’s important to know that as humans we only access certain shelves in certain contexts. A receptionist might greet all a company’s clients by name when he’s sitting behind his desk, but fail to recognize them if he bumps into them at a restaurant over the weekend. Try and encode your course teachings in the environment where they will be used – so if you’re teaching court reporters to write in shorthand, create an environment that’s as close to a real legal trial as possible. Better yet, hold class during an actual trial.
Just as important as environmental context is emotional context. The calm, supportive emotional context of a classroom often doesn’t match the context where skills and knowledge are applied. In this sense, role-plays that mimic the stressful, real-life situations where learners will apply new skills can be very helpful. If you’re coaching trainee telesales employees, for example, have them role-play dealing with harassed or irritated customers.
And just in case all that didn’t make it into your long-term memory, here it is again in a nutshell:
Break down new information into digestible chunks.
Help your students shelve information precisely and intuitively.
Match the tone and context of your class to the tone and context of the situations in which learners will apply their new-found knowledge.
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Chapter 4 – Good design is the foundation of great teaching.
Incorporating a few principles of good lesson design will engage your learners and elevate your material. So, to help you implement these, this chapter will run through five of the most effective strategies for lesson design. Grab a pen – you’ll want to take notes!
One: Design your lessons to be action-oriented. Create opportunities for learners to apply new knowledge and practice new skills. They’ll retain much more that way. For example, if you’re teaching a course on nutrition, rather than simply telling students that a balanced daily diet should comprise roughly 2,000 calories, ask them to create a meal plan that hits that caloric target.
Two: Design with desirable difficulty in mind. Difficulty? Desirable? It may sound like an oxymoron, but the truth is you don’t want your lessons to be too easy. The psychologist Robert A. Bjork has shown that students learn better and form stronger connections with learning material when they’re working at the very edge of their ability. Setting challenging tasks will keep your learners motivated. Remember to adjust the difficulty as your course progresses and your learners’ competence grows.
Three: Design for interactivity. Rather than explain a new concept, try guiding your learners to uncover that concept for themselves. This interactive approach is far more engaging. For instance, if you’re leading a workshop on how to ace a job interview, you could share a checklist of best practices for prospective job candidates. Or you could show recordings of successful, and unsuccessful, interviews and ask your learners to formulate that checklist for themselves. With some guidance from you, your learners can uncover core concepts for themselves.
Four: Design good habits. When we implement a skill, we’re sometimes using our conscious mind and sometimes acting automatically – and the difference between good and great performance can come down to how well those habitual actions are performed. Let’s look at computer coding. When a programmer designs new code, she applies herself consciously to the task. But she should also be in the habit of performing regular version controls where she tracks any changes she makes to the code – making it easier to identify bugs and errors, among other things. You can’t simply tell learners to have good habits – but you can get them to participate in habit formation. Create new habits by asking students to identify a trigger – for example, performing a version control every time you save a file. Bundling the good habit – version control – with an existing trigger – clicking save – will help the habit become automatic.
Five: Design knowledge into the environment. Visitors to Boston don’t need to read a history of the city, or even download a map signposting its significant historical sites to enjoy an informative walking tour of the city center – a big red line winds through the sidewalk, connecting key historical monuments. It’s accessible to anyone and simple as anything to use. This is a great example of how knowledge can be designed into the environment. After all, there’s no reason learners need to store all the information they need in their heads when you can encode it into the environment instead. If your learners are getting overloaded with new information and concepts, take a step back and ask yourself if some of this info can be offloaded into the environment, whether through signs, visual reminders, online resources, or even a workplace manual.
Keep these five principles of lesson design in mind and it’s likely your students will grasp your course content successfully. Of course, there’s only one way to find out for sure how effective your lessons actually are: through testing and evaluation.
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Chapter 5 – Evaluate learners effectively with well-designed assessments.
A stomach full of butterflies. Sweaty palms. A racing mind. Pretty typical stuff for a student about to sit a big exam. Funnily enough, designing an evaluation for your students can feel just as stressful as taking tests used to feel. Creating an evaluation tool that accurately assesses your learners’ competence can seem challenging – but it doesn’t have to be.
The best tip for designing an effective evaluation also happens to be the simplest: write your evaluation at the start of the course, not the end. That way you can make sure you’re actually teaching the skills and concepts you’re planning to test.
In fact, reconsider the idea that evaluations happen at the end of a course. Certainly, it’s useful to have a test or evaluation once your course wraps up, but it’s equally important to sprinkle opportunities for feedback throughout the course. That doesn’t mean setting a formal exam every week. Instead, provide informal feedback on tasks – you can do this in-task if it doesn’t disrupt learners’ flow, or at the end of the lesson. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback by asking students to correct each other’s work. And build in opportunities for self-evaluation by asking students to reflect on their progress and performance.
When it comes to setting formal assessment tasks, test for recall, not recognition. Here’s an example:
Based on this book so far, what is one way teachers motivate learners?
Tell them that the course material is actually extremely interesting;
Tie course content to their interests and ambitions; or
It’s not the teacher’s job to motivate learners.
No prizes for guessing the correct answer is b. Even without prior knowledge, it’s easy to recognize that this answer is the most plausible of the bunch. So, to actually test your learners' knowledge, ask them to recall information instead of handing it to them.
For an evaluation like this, your question should be more like this:
The learners in your class are lacking motivation. Write down three teaching strategies that might get them excited about the course material.
This will get them thinking about the actual steps they’d take using the lessons they’ve learned along the way.
Lastly, don’t forget that feedback is just as useful for teachers as it is for students. Setting a short, anonymous survey at the end of your course will allow your students to share what’s working and what’s not. But be prepared – if you’ve followed the advice on lesson design in this book, you may well be swamped by effusive praise from satisfied students!
---
If you want to design effective, exciting, practical learning experiences, begin by focusing on your learners. Share new concepts in a memory-friendly way. Adhere to the key principles of educational design. And don’t neglect to evaluate your learners – or yourself.
And here’s some actionable advice to get you started:
Don’t stress attention spans.
In the digital age, attention spans are apparently shrinking. But ignore statistics about the average adult's attention span – after all, the average adult can binge Netflix for hours at a time. If your material is varied, absorbing, and exciting, you’ll have no problem holding the class’s attention, even for long periods of time.
November 2, 2019
A great primer on learning theory and instructional design for anyone who may be new to the industry or simply just designing products and experiences. Julies way of writing is simple - she has a way of making complicated theories seem approachable to all. Highly recommend!
October 31, 2022
REVIEW:
PHENOMENAL real talk from a seasoned professional! One of the most practical resources on learning design I have ever read. ANY curious mind will find this information accessible, and well organized. Solid design principles. No academic jargon. Plenty of fun illustrations.
I especially appreciated how the author, Julie Dirksen, offers practical activity advice for motivating different types of learning—knowledge, skills, motivation, and habit development.
Fast read. I read the entire book in the time it takes to watch a 5-set tennis match. But it was so so good! I’ll probably buy my own copy as a reference. (That’s a great idea for a Goodreads category. “Books worth owning.”)
SUMMARY:
Chapter 1 – Great teachers know their students as well as their topic. Before launching into a lesson plan, find out what your learners actually know, not just what they are supposed to know. First assess wether your learners have a knowledge gap or skills gap or both. Then check in on your learners’ motivation. Tie content to their interests. Maintain two-communication so you can keep learning about your students long after the initial round of introductions. Finally, give your students input into the course wherever possible. Ask them to vote on how the course is paced or structured – this creates a sense of ownership. And if you have a range of experts and beginners, allow experienced students to opt out of sessions where you’ll be teaching something they already know. The best teachers aren’t the ones that know their topic inside out – they’re the ones who know their students inside out, too.
Chapter 2 – Creating memorable lessons is simple. We have three layers of memory – sensory, short-term, and long-term. Our brains can’t store every piece of information we learn. Each layer of memory acts like a filter, deciding which inputs we want to keep and for how long. Everyone passes through sensory memory. Sensory decides what to filter to short-term. A lot can be held here, but not forever. We need to employ retention techniques like chunking and spaced recall. You see, for information to stick you need multiple penetrations of information into long term memory.
Chapter 3 – Apply new information to the proper context. Think of your long-term memory as a huge closet. Some shelves are beautifully labeled and organized – while others are stuffed with all kinds of random bits and pieces. As a teacher, your goal is to make sure your information lands on one of those beautifully labeled shelves. To shelve properly, match the environmental and emotional context of the learning environment as closely as possible to the real thing.
Chapter 4 – Good design is the foundation of great teaching. A) Design your lessons to be action-oriented. They’ll retain much more that way. B) Design with desirable difficulty in mind. Setting challenging tasks will keep your learners motivated. Remember to adjust the difficulty as your course progresses and your learners’ competence grows. C) Design for interactivity. Don’t list. Lead them to discover on their own. D) Help learners practice good habit formation by Identifying a trigger and attaching a helpful response. E) Design knowledge into the environment to avoid cognitively overloading the learner.
Chapter 5 – Evaluate learners effectively with well-designed assessments. The best tip for designing an effective evaluation also happens to be the simplest: write your evaluation at the start of the course, not the end. That way you can make sure you’re actually teaching the skills and concepts you’re planning to test.
Additionally, it’s equally important to sprinkle opportunities for feedback throughout the course. That doesn’t mean setting a formal exam every week. Instead, provide informal feedback on tasks – you can do this in-task if it doesn’t disrupt learners’ flow, or at the end of the lesson. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback by asking students to correct each other’s work. And build in opportunities for self-evaluation by asking students to reflect on their progress and performance.
Lastly, don’t forget that feedback is just as useful for teachers as it is for students. Setting a short, anonymous survey at the end of your course will allow your students to share what’s working and what’s not.
PHENOMENAL real talk from a seasoned professional! One of the most practical resources on learning design I have ever read. ANY curious mind will find this information accessible, and well organized. Solid design principles. No academic jargon. Plenty of fun illustrations.
I especially appreciated how the author, Julie Dirksen, offers practical activity advice for motivating different types of learning—knowledge, skills, motivation, and habit development.
Fast read. I read the entire book in the time it takes to watch a 5-set tennis match. But it was so so good! I’ll probably buy my own copy as a reference. (That’s a great idea for a Goodreads category. “Books worth owning.”)
SUMMARY:
Chapter 1 – Great teachers know their students as well as their topic. Before launching into a lesson plan, find out what your learners actually know, not just what they are supposed to know. First assess wether your learners have a knowledge gap or skills gap or both. Then check in on your learners’ motivation. Tie content to their interests. Maintain two-communication so you can keep learning about your students long after the initial round of introductions. Finally, give your students input into the course wherever possible. Ask them to vote on how the course is paced or structured – this creates a sense of ownership. And if you have a range of experts and beginners, allow experienced students to opt out of sessions where you’ll be teaching something they already know. The best teachers aren’t the ones that know their topic inside out – they’re the ones who know their students inside out, too.
Chapter 2 – Creating memorable lessons is simple. We have three layers of memory – sensory, short-term, and long-term. Our brains can’t store every piece of information we learn. Each layer of memory acts like a filter, deciding which inputs we want to keep and for how long. Everyone passes through sensory memory. Sensory decides what to filter to short-term. A lot can be held here, but not forever. We need to employ retention techniques like chunking and spaced recall. You see, for information to stick you need multiple penetrations of information into long term memory.
Chapter 3 – Apply new information to the proper context. Think of your long-term memory as a huge closet. Some shelves are beautifully labeled and organized – while others are stuffed with all kinds of random bits and pieces. As a teacher, your goal is to make sure your information lands on one of those beautifully labeled shelves. To shelve properly, match the environmental and emotional context of the learning environment as closely as possible to the real thing.
Chapter 4 – Good design is the foundation of great teaching. A) Design your lessons to be action-oriented. They’ll retain much more that way. B) Design with desirable difficulty in mind. Setting challenging tasks will keep your learners motivated. Remember to adjust the difficulty as your course progresses and your learners’ competence grows. C) Design for interactivity. Don’t list. Lead them to discover on their own. D) Help learners practice good habit formation by Identifying a trigger and attaching a helpful response. E) Design knowledge into the environment to avoid cognitively overloading the learner.
Chapter 5 – Evaluate learners effectively with well-designed assessments. The best tip for designing an effective evaluation also happens to be the simplest: write your evaluation at the start of the course, not the end. That way you can make sure you’re actually teaching the skills and concepts you’re planning to test.
Additionally, it’s equally important to sprinkle opportunities for feedback throughout the course. That doesn’t mean setting a formal exam every week. Instead, provide informal feedback on tasks – you can do this in-task if it doesn’t disrupt learners’ flow, or at the end of the lesson. Encourage peer-to-peer feedback by asking students to correct each other’s work. And build in opportunities for self-evaluation by asking students to reflect on their progress and performance.
Lastly, don’t forget that feedback is just as useful for teachers as it is for students. Setting a short, anonymous survey at the end of your course will allow your students to share what’s working and what’s not.
July 22, 2019
Great book, easy to read with a bit of lite humor.
December 12, 2014
This book said a lot of what I already knew, but Julie presents the material in such an accessible and memorable way that I recommend this book even for a moderately experienced Instructional Designer. Her writing style is easy-to-read and accessible, and her use of intermittent humor definitely helped to keep the reading enjoyable. I found new information and approaches that I could take away and apply to future projects and new ways of thinking about what I already felt I understood about ID approaches. Also, thanks to her meticulous citations at the end of each chapter, I have a nice list of other publications to pursue for more information. This is definitely a must-read for those pursuing Instructional Design.
September 24, 2012
Interesting read, even if you are not an instructional designer. The benefit of Dirksen's experience is that she knows how to effectively structure her art and content to communicate points in a way that connects with the reader. For the publisher, though, there were a lot of mistakes...
I recommend it if you like design of any kind, and if you like tidbits about how people think. But especially if you are a teacher or instructional designer. It will give you some new ways of thinking and ways to apply some of it to your instruction.
February 15, 2016
Concise and practical summary of a lot of the research out there into how people learn and thus how to teach. Doesn't get taken in by hokey stuff like catering to different learning styles. While the content overlaps with other books I've read such as Make It Stick, I think as a practical guide for teachers it's the best book out there that I've come across.
May 5, 2012
If I taught on a regular basis, I'd probably want to read this in more detail.
Instead, I was just a little thrown because I took the word "design" to mean "graphic design." Instead, it more meant how to design your class/teaching style to help people learn...
Instead, I was just a little thrown because I took the word "design" to mean "graphic design." Instead, it more meant how to design your class/teaching style to help people learn...
November 9, 2012
This appears to be geared towards learning/teaching in corporations but the concepts are broad enough to be generalizable and relevant in many teaching situations.
e.g. identifying and addressing knowledge and skill gaps, types of motivation
e.g. identifying and addressing knowledge and skill gaps, types of motivation
September 5, 2016
A beginner's guide - basic implications from cognitive psychology and psychology of learning. Not a lot of new stuff for me, but non-psychologist can benefit much from it, as Mrs. Dirksen followed her own rules.
December 29, 2020
How to understand learners? How do we remember? How to design learning experience for knowledge, a skill, motivation, or habits? All these topics are wittily detailed in this book, also with amusing visuals.
I highly recommend this interesting book to all educators, trainers, and L&D specialists.
I highly recommend this interesting book to all educators, trainers, and L&D specialists.
November 2, 2013
A great mix of literature review and practical experience. I recommend this book to anyone interested in instructional design.
December 30, 2016
Very easy to follow and filled with practical insight to design an outstanding learning for your students.
January 25, 2023
Amazing book! I couldn't put it down. It was filled with so many great tips and suggestions for how to design learning for adults.
September 13, 2022
Design for how people learn
من تأليف: Julie Dirksen
المؤلفة تعمل كـInsructional designer (لا أعرف ترجمتها بالعربي🙈) وخبيرة في هذا المجال
الكتاب يتكلم عن كيفية تصميم تجربة تعلّم بأكبر كفاءة ممكنة
هو طويل نوعا ما 😅 لكنه سهل جدا في القراءة وفيه أمثلة ورسوم توضيحية مرِحة، و كأنه موجه للمبتدئين في تصميم التعلم وتجربة المتعلم أكثر شيء
*ملاحظة: محتوى الكتاب مركز هلى تعليم الكبار مش الصغار، مع ذلك فيه مفاهيم تنطبق على الكل
| في الفصول الثلاثة الأولى: تحدثت المؤلفة عن بداية رحلة التعلم، ما هي الـgaps التي تمنع الشخص من التعلم بشكل جيد، وكيفية التعرف على المتعلمين وكيف نحدد مستوى معرفتهم الحالي عشان نكمل منه.
ومن ثم تحديد الفجوات المطلوب سدها، والمدة.
الكلام كأنه نظري لكن بالأمثلة تلقى نغسك مستوعب بشكل جيد
| الفصول 4 و 5 (كل معلم يحتاج يقراها!!) كانت عن الذاكرة وعملها وتأثير التكرار وكيفية الحصول على انتباه المتعلمين
وهاذم أكثر فصلين جذبوني، فيهم معلومات جميلة جدا
| الفصول 6 و 7 و 8 و 9 تحدثت فيها المؤلفة عن:
design for knowledge
design for skill
design for motivation
design for habit
يعني كيف تصمم تجربة تعلم لاكتساب معرفة ومعلومات بأكبر كفاءة
وكيف تصمم تجربة تعلم لاكتساب مهارة معينة وما أفضل الطرق للتمرن على المهارات المختلفة
وكيف تصمم تجربة تعلم تحفز المتعلم أنه يستمر لنهاية الرحلة
وكيف تصمم تجربة تعلم بالاستفادة من العادات وكيفية صنع عادات لصالح المتعلم
كل هذا بخطوات وأمثلة
| الفصل العاشر كان عن التعلم الاجتماعي أو الغير رسمي (Informal learning)
وهو باختصار: عملية التعلم التي تحدث خارج إطار الحصة أو الفصل الدراسي
| الفصل الحادي عشر: Design for environment
كان عن توسيع مداركنا على كل المنظومة التعليمية فأحيانا لا يكون الخلل في المتعلم نفسه وإنما في البيئة، بيئة التعلم تحتاج تجهيز أيضا
| الفصل الأخير: Designing evaluation
صعب تقييم المنهج أو تجربة التعلم الي صممتها، لكنه ضروري باش تتدارك أي شيء فاتك
المهم الكتاب جميل جدا جدا ويستاهل
Highly recommended to anyone in the educational field + UX designers
وأي حد بيجهز كورس أو ورشة يعطيها
من تأليف: Julie Dirksen
المؤلفة تعمل كـInsructional designer (لا أعرف ترجمتها بالعربي🙈) وخبيرة في هذا المجال
الكتاب يتكلم عن كيفية تصميم تجربة تعلّم بأكبر كفاءة ممكنة
هو طويل نوعا ما 😅 لكنه سهل جدا في القراءة وفيه أمثلة ورسوم توضيحية مرِحة، و كأنه موجه للمبتدئين في تصميم التعلم وتجربة المتعلم أكثر شيء
*ملاحظة: محتوى الكتاب مركز هلى تعليم الكبار مش الصغار، مع ذلك فيه مفاهيم تنطبق على الكل
| في الفصول الثلاثة الأولى: تحدثت المؤلفة عن بداية رحلة التعلم، ما هي الـgaps التي تمنع الشخص من التعلم بشكل جيد، وكيفية التعرف على المتعلمين وكيف نحدد مستوى معرفتهم الحالي عشان نكمل منه.
ومن ثم تحديد الفجوات المطلوب سدها، والمدة.
الكلام كأنه نظري لكن بالأمثلة تلقى نغسك مستوعب بشكل جيد
| الفصول 4 و 5 (كل معلم يحتاج يقراها!!) كانت عن الذاكرة وعملها وتأثير التكرار وكيفية الحصول على انتباه المتعلمين
وهاذم أكثر فصلين جذبوني، فيهم معلومات جميلة جدا
| الفصول 6 و 7 و 8 و 9 تحدثت فيها المؤلفة عن:
design for knowledge
design for skill
design for motivation
design for habit
يعني كيف تصمم تجربة تعلم لاكتساب معرفة ومعلومات بأكبر كفاءة
وكيف تصمم تجربة تعلم لاكتساب مهارة معينة وما أفضل الطرق للتمرن على المهارات المختلفة
وكيف تصمم تجربة تعلم تحفز المتعلم أنه يستمر لنهاية الرحلة
وكيف تصمم تجربة تعلم بالاستفادة من العادات وكيفية صنع عادات لصالح المتعلم
كل هذا بخطوات وأمثلة
| الفصل العاشر كان عن التعلم الاجتماعي أو الغير رسمي (Informal learning)
وهو باختصار: عملية التعلم التي تحدث خارج إطار الحصة أو الفصل الدراسي
| الفصل الحادي عشر: Design for environment
كان عن توسيع مداركنا على كل المنظومة التعليمية فأحيانا لا يكون الخلل في المتعلم نفسه وإنما في البيئة، بيئة التعلم تحتاج تجهيز أيضا
| الفصل الأخير: Designing evaluation
صعب تقييم المنهج أو تجربة التعلم الي صممتها، لكنه ضروري باش تتدارك أي شيء فاتك
المهم الكتاب جميل جدا جدا ويستاهل
Highly recommended to anyone in the educational field + UX designers
وأي حد بيجهز كورس أو ورشة يعطيها
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