The following resources represent some of the books, web, and media resources that are currently influencing me and that I consider to be a part of my learning network.
Text Resources
Brown, P.C., Roediger III, H.L., & McDaniel, M.A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Make It Stick is an important text for educator to read, offering solid defense for designing with strategies that support learner retention, such as chunking and interleaving.
Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2008). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. New York: Random House.
Made to Stick is an invaluable resource for recognizing key principles that can be incorporated into any design in order to increase a sense of relevance and reader retention, such as structuring a learner experience around story and invoking learner emotions.
Holmes, K. (2018). Mismatch: How inclusion shapes design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
In Mismatch, Kat Holmes argues that we have all experienced “mismatches,” or moments when we were excluded from a design (of space, of an object, of an experience). Those who have experienced such exclusion in designs are in the best position to innovate inclusive responses to mismatches.
Williams, R. (2015). The non-designer’s design book. San Francisco, CA: Peachpit Press.
Robin Williams’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book is essential reading for anyone who will have a hand in presenting information visually, whether in a media object, through course authoring software, within a learning management system, or in any other context. Williams’s acronym CARP (contrast, alignment, repetition, proximity) are concepts designers must account for in professional, polished products that learners will trust.
Web Resources
Blog: Cathy Moore, Action @ Work, designs with the end user’s experience as the priority. Her work is an inspiration for those of us who seek to build usable learning experiences, and she also pushes us to question our assumptions about the type of learning solution required.
Blog: Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen, offers conceptual and practical advice on improving the aesthetic layer, and thus the engagement and retention aspects, of presentations. Reynolds clearly applies Robin Williams’s design principles of CARP from The Non-Designer’s Design Book.
Website: InstructionalDesign.org is a helpful resource for quick comparisons and refreshers of instructional design models and learning theories.
Website: WebAIM is an authoritative resource for accessible design and interpretation of WCAG standards.
Media and Organizational Resources
Anne Lamott provides insight into life and writing that is discouraging and motivational–discouraging because I don’t always follow the advice, but motivational because I aspire to.
I am a Quality Matters facilitator and strongly believe that the Quality Matters rubric provides a sound basis for aligned and learner-centered course design.
This UX Virtual Panel sponsored by Deque offered a candid and insightful glimpse into the ever-changing language of accessibility and inclusion. Our design goals are influenced by the language we choose, and there is good reason to cast the net of inclusion wider in order to serve as many learners as possible through design strategies and choices.