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Category: Essential Reading

Recommended books

  • Human Resource Development: Today And Tomorrow

    Human Resource Development: Today And TomorrowHuman Resource Development: Today And Tomorrow by Ronald R. Sims
    Get it at AMAZON

    This book is written with the belief that HRD professionals will continue to learn, change and find ways to reinvent themselves and the profession individually and collectively as we move further into the 21st century. A major point of this book is that HRD will continue to become more and more important to organizational success. And, that in as calls for accountability and bottom line impact continue to rise, HRD professionals will be proactive in demonstrating their value to the organization.

    The primary audience for this book is practicing HRM and HRD professionals, and other organizational leaders. The book provides tested and proven ideas important to demonstrating the value of HRD. From a practical viewpoint, it is based on actual experience, a strong research base, and accepted practices presented in an easy to read form.

    A second target audience is students of HRD and HRM who are preparing for careers in this important field. This book will help them develop a solid foundation to the study of HRD practices that are key to HRD success regardless of the type of organization.

    A third target audience is managers or leaders at all levels of an organization who are increasingly expected to take on HRD responsibilities while also partnering with HRD professionals. It offers these individuals a firsthand look at what they should expect of their HRD functions or areas and how they can encourage HRD professionals in their organizations to be accountable’ strategic partners in helping the organization achieve its success by getting the most out of its human capital.

  • Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels

    Evaluating Training ProgramsEvaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels by Donald L. Kirkpatrick and James D. Kirkpatrick
    Get it at AMAZON

    The “Kirkpatrick Model” for evaluating training programs is the most widely used approach in the corporate, government, and academic worlds. First developed in 1959, it focuses on four key areas: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. “Evaluating Training Programs” provides a comprehensive guide to Kirkpatrick’s four-level model, along with detailed case studies that show how the approach is used successfully in a wide range of programs and institutions.

  • A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment

    A Practical Guide to Needs AssessmentA Practical Guide to Needs Assessment by Kavita Gupta
    Get it at AMAZON

    Practical Guide to Needs Assessment offers a practical and comprehensive guide for practitioners who are responsible for

    •     Introducing a training program
    •     Creating adult education programs
    •     Assessing the development needs of a workforce
    •     Improving individual, group, organization or interorganizational performance in the workplace
    •     Implementing community, national, or international development interventions

    Designed as a resource for practitioners, this book is filled with how-to information, tips, and case studies. It shows how to use data-based needs assessments to frame people-related problems and performance, improvement opportunities to obtain support from those who are affected by the changes, make effective decision, and increase efficiency.

  • Training Needs Assessment: Methods, Tools, and Techniques

    Training Needs AssessmentTraining Needs Assessment: Methods, Tools, and Techniques by Jean Barbazette
    Get it at AMAZON

    This book covers the essentials of needs analysis from the emerging trainer’s perspective by providing just the right amount of support and knowledge without going too deep into the subject. The topics covered include when and how to do a training needs analysis; using informal and formal analysis techniques; goal, task and population analysis; and how to develop and present a training plan for management approval. Each chapter includes appropriate data gathering tools. “The Skilled Trainer” series provides practical guidance for those who’ve had some exposure to training and would like to take their career to the next level.

  • Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development

    Experiential LearningExperiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development by David A. Kolb
    Get it at AMAZON

    Experiential learning is a powerful and proven approach to teaching and learning that is based on one incontrovertible reality: people learn best through experience. In this book, David A. Kolb offers a systematic and up-to-date statement of the theory of experiential learning and its modern applications to education, work, and adult development. Kolb models the underlying structures of the learning process based on the latest insights in psychology, philosophy, and physiology. Building on his comprehensive structural model, he offers an exceptionally useful typology of individual learning styles and corresponding structures of knowledge in different academic disciplines and careers. Kolb also applies experiential learning to higher education and lifelong learning, especially with regard to adult education. This is an indispensable resource for everyone who wants to promote more effective learning: in higher education, training, organizational development, lifelong learning environments, and online.

  • The Adult Learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development

    The Adult Learner- The definitive classic in adult education and human resource developmentThe Adult Learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development by Malcom S. Knowles, Elwood F. Holton III, and Richard A. Swanson
    Get it at AMAZON

    How do you tailor education to the learning needs of adults? Do they learn differently from children? How does their life experience inform their learning processes? These were the questions at the heart of Malcolm Knowles’ pioneering theory of andragogy which transformed education theory in the 1970s. The resulting principles of a self-directed, experiential, problem-centered approach to learning have been hugely influential and are still the basis of the learning practices we use today. Understanding these principles is the cornerstone of increasing motivation and enabling adult learners to achieve. If you are a researcher, practitioner or student in education, an adult learning practitioner, training manager, or involved in human resource development, this is the definitive book in adult learning you should not be without.

  • A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

    A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing- A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Abridged EditionA Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by Lorin W. Anderson
    Get it at AMAZON

    This revision of Bloom’s taxonomy is designed to help teachers understand and implement standards-based curriculums. Cognitive psychologists, curriculum specialists, teacher educators, and researchers have developed a two-dimensional framework, focusing on knowledge and cognitive processes. In combination, these two define what students are expected to learn in school. Like no other text, it explores curriculums from three unique perspectives-cognitive psychologists (learning emphasis), curriculum specialists and teacher educators (C&I emphasis), and measurement and assessment experts (assessment emphasis). This “revisited” framework allows you to connect learning in all areas of curriculum. Educators, or others interested in Educational Psychology or Educational Methods for grades K-12.

  • Andragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult Learning

    Androgogy In ActionAndragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult Learning by Malcolm S. Knowles
    Get it at AMAZON

    This classic work by a pioneer in the field of adult learning provides over thirty case examples from a variety of settings illustrating andragogy (principles of adult learning) in practice, including applications in business, government, colleges and universities, religious education, remedial education, and continuing education for the professions.

  • Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults

    Powerful Techniques for teaching adultsPowerful Techniques for Teaching Adults by Stephen D. Brookfield
    Get it at AMAZON

    One of the enduring realities teachers of adults face is negotiating the power dynamics of their classrooms. Teachers have positional power and authority but can feel powerless in the face of student resistance or noncompliance. How can teachers create classrooms that empower learners? When is a teacher’s power used responsibly, and when is it abused? How can teachers ensure that power inequities that exist outside the classroom are not automatically reproduced inside them? These are some of the questions Stephen Brookfield explores in his new book.

    In this practical manual, full of tested exercises, methods, and activities, Brookfield explains how teaching critical thinking, using discussion, and fostering self-directed learning can create the conditions for student empowerment and how teachers can democratize their classrooms. He reveals why adults often resist teaching that encourages them to challenge dominant power and describes how teachers can set a tone to help students push back against ideological manipulation. Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults explores the connections between emotion, intuition, and power and reviews different ways for instructors to survive the emotional demands of powerful teaching.

    Although power is the theme that runs through the book, it is primarily a collection of teaching techniques, described in Brookfield’s down-to-earth, accessible style, which covers these important areas:

    •     Exercises to help adults to think critically
    •     Activities to promote adult self-directed learning
    •     Ways to create more democratic adult classrooms
    •     Techniques to teach adults about power
    •     Empowering adults using the creative arts

  • The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life

    The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life by Parker J. Palmer
    Get it at AMAZON

    Courage To Teach

    For nearly forty years, Parker Palmer has worked on behalf of teachers and others who choose vocations for reasons of the heart but may lose heart because of the troubled, sometimes toxic systems in which they work. Hundreds of thousands of readers have benefited from The Courage to Teach, which takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with themselves, their students, and their colleagues, and toward reclaiming vocational passion.

    The Courage to Teach builds on a simple premise: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique but is rooted in the identity and integrity of the teacher. Good teaching takes myriad forms but good teachers share one trait: they are authentically present in the classroom, deeply connected with their students and their subject. These connections are held in the teacher’s heart—the place where intellect, emotion, spirit, and converge in the human self. Good teachers weave a life-giving web between themselves, their subjects, and their students, helping their students learn how to weave a world for themselves.