Book Review: Ruth Clark’s Evidence-Based Training Methods

I’ve been trying to read a lot lately – books, not just blogs. 

And I do find that the age-old book report is a great way to synthesize and encode all those juicy learning nuggets.

My latest review: Ruth Clark’s Evidence-Based Training Methods: A Guide for Training Professionals. 

Recommendation:  Thumbs Up. 

I presented a webinar today and found myself quoting liberally from this book.  So if that’s not a good indicator of its usefulness, I don’t know what is!

Clark effectively summarizes current learning research, covering important topics like use of audio and graphics.  And bashes the learning styles myth.  A lot of the material was familiar to me from having read E-Learning and the Science of Instruction and from participating in her session of the same name last fall at DevLearn (my notes are here).

Click here to read my review of Evidence-Based Training Methods on the Kineo site.

US Dept of Education Report on Online Learning

The US Department of Education has just released a new report "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies".

Nice brief title.

I'll admit, the full article is on my to do list for when I come back from vacation. But this stood out in the abstract:

"The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."

"In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K–12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education)."

Over at the Kineo site, there's a nice rundown of some of the key points in the US Dept of Education report.

What are your thoughts? Is this indeed cause for celebration and an opportunity to feel some real job security for those of us who dabble in elearning?