Going far beyond the latest instructional fads or merely theory, Writing Training Materials That Work offers an up-to-date synthesis and summary of "best practices" in instructional design. It provides specific how-to guidelines that are research-based, have been used by practitioners long enough to show they are acceptable and can be implemented in business settings, and-- perhaps most importantly-- produce consistently good instructional results. The book includes instructional strategies grounded in cognitive theory and covers a range of key areas, including Declarative Knowledge (facts, concepts, principles, and metal models), Procedural Knowledge (well-structured and ill-structured), Problem Solving-- including a special chapter on teaching troubleshooting. The authors also provide a variety of illustrative examples, templates, and other useful job aids.

"Writing Training Materials that Work is a solid and practical resource to move our field to a more professional level of practice in which instructional decisions are based on research and valid models of how people learn"
--Ruth Clark, president, Clark Training and Consulting, past president, ISPI

"I can see how this book will be immediately useful to my students. In fact, I can see how it will be immediately useful to me. Thanks for putting it all together between two covers."
--Allison Rossett, professor, San Diego State University

The explosion of e-learning has attracted huge numbers of practitioners to the field of instructional design (ID), many with little or no actual ID training. And most current texts fail to cover the substantial recent developments in the field. Writing Training Materials that Work is different. In it, the authors identify, synthesize, and summarize the most current best practices in ID. They offer new ways of teaching declarative knowledge (facts, concepts, and principles) and well- to ill- structured procedural knowledge (problem solving). Their recommendations are based on those principles in the cognitive learning and instruction literature that are internally consistent, prescriptive, and have been empirically demonstrated to make a cost-effective difference. The authors' approach is easy to implement and consistently gets results because it focuses on teaching deep understanding and problem-solving, allowing learners to generalize and transfer learning to new situations without re-training. Whether you re an experienced instructional design practitioner who wants to expand your skills or a graduate student in an advanced instructional design course, Writing Training Materials T\that Work will prove to be a readable, usable, and indispensable guide!