Developing Technical Training: A Structured Approach for Developing Classroom and Computer-based Instructional Materials

I have been providing continuing education to healthcare professionals for more than 20 years. I have invested hundreds of dollars on stacks of books and few have been as helpful as this book. This book gave me clear focus on writing my objectives, organizing my content, determining what media to use, and hitching all of that to my post-test questions.I've spent most of my career married to Bloom's taxonomy, which Ruth Clark acknowledges and incorporate into her book. But she relies more heavily on the work of Gagne, which I found helpful. All of her recommendations are clear and practical. I could read a chapter and almost instantaneously implement what she was suggesting.This book helped me to realize the things that I do successfully, and enabled me to do more of those things! It also helped me to do less of the stuff that wasn't useful.Although the theoretical underpinnings are very clear, the book is not a theory book on instructional design. It is for the real-life teacher or trainer, with plenty of practical implications. The book is highly well-organized, and written with an easy-to-understand approach. Clark gives multiple examples, exercises to reinforce learning, and useful resources in each chapter.There are only two things I might have wished for that this book did not provide. First, the book is indeed limited to technical training. Since I do continuing education, I often had to make the leap in my own mind between how to teach a task (which this book explains well) and how to manage a healthcare management issue, which is what I teach. But since the title of the book clearly says "technical training", I could not realistically expect it to address my particular concerns. Second, I would have wished for more examples of how to use media and practice exercises, but on the other hand, a thorough treatment of those issues is probably beyond the scope of the book.Overall, this book is extremely helpful for the expert, but I would say it's not too difficult for the novice to grasp. If the reader cannot make the leap between technical training and professional education, it might be disappointing. Most teacher or trainers are likely to find reinforcement for what they're doing right, and guidance on how to dramatically improve their instructional design.

Overall, I would rate this as a very good purchase, but it is a bit outdated for its time. It was published quite a while ago. I would say it is a very good book if you are not that well versed on Technical Training development. There are some excellent flow charts and information that would help even the most savvy developers.

I wish I had had this book when I was starting out as an ID. It is a MUST have for anyone involved in designing technical training.

There are many books that cover the design and development of training, however, few address the specific requirements for developing technical training. The author has combined sound research, theory and practical application in creating a valuable training development resource. The information and examples presented can be readily applied to most technical training development situations. The book is a good read and leaves out the "filler and fluff" found in many other training related books. Great value for the money.

I found this to be extremely helping in thinking through how to develop a training session so to bridge the technical and social aspects of the material I needed to cover. This book will serve as a key reference in developing future training.

Ruth is truly a pioneer of Training and Development. She has a way of putting it in simple terms so that you can make sense of what you are learning... I would recommend this book to anyone who is on the journey of learning how to develop training via eLearning or instructor-led..

This book gets to the heart of the instructional design process and provides the reader with a good grasp of how to construct learning materials. The research and resources provided in this book will provide me with rationale for design factors. Highlighting the differences in virtual vs classroom influences on learning was really helpful.

A classic book for those in Instructional Design. Gives the low-down on what to consider when called upon to design or develop a curriculum that is difficult to understand or has lots of jargon. I would also recommend Technical Training Basics ASTD