Learning Science for Instructional Designers

Book excerpt: Ensure Your Instructional Design Stands Up to Learning Science Learning science is a professional imperative for instructional designers. In fact, instructional design is applied learning science. To create effective learning experiences that engage, we need to know how learning works and what facilitates and hinders it. We need to track the underlying research and articulate how our designs reflect what is known. Otherwise, how can we claim to be scrutable in our approaches? Learning Science for Instructional Designers: From Cognition to Application distills the current scope of learning science into an easy-to-read primer. Good instructional design makes learning as simple as possible by removing distractions, minimizing the cognitive load, and chunking necessary information into digestible bits. But our aim must go beyond enabling learners to recite facts to empowering them to make better decisions—decisions about what to do, when, and how. This book prepares you to design learning experiences that ensure retention over time and transfer to the appropriate situations. Gain insights into: Providing spaced practice and reflection Tapping into motivation and challenge to build learner confidence Using performance-support tools, social learning, and humor appropriately Prompts at the end of each chapter will spark your thinking about how to use these concepts and more in your daily work. Written by Clark N. Quinn, author of Millennials, Goldfish & Other Training Misconceptions: Debunking Learning Myths and Superstitions, this book is perfect for anyone who strives for their instruction to stand up to learning science.