Welcome To The Free Training and Development Resource Center

In a fast paced world, continuous learning is essential to success. Individuals need to learn to succeed in life and at work. Companies need to ensure their employees continue to learn, so they can keep up with increased job demands, and so the company can gain or maintain competitive advantage.

This site provides resources, ideas, strategies, etc to help those involved in the training and development profession help meet the learning needs of the organization through the use of training techniques, facilitation, and development activities.

Of course, there's also material here for learners themselves, and corporate personnel (e.g. those in human resources departments to help them maximize training and learning effectiveness.

Below are the newest training and development items added to our library:

• How to Develop a Case Study

  By na - Did you know that case study is an expression marketers and sales professionals borrowed from science? When we talk about case studies, what we mean is a bit simpler, although getting to the results takes work. We mean telling the story of how we progressed through solving a problem and delivering ^new (Added: 27-Aug-2010 Hits: 56)

• Information Processing Theory (G. Miller)

  By na - George Miller contributed at least two notable concepts to cognitive science. The first concept is "chunking" and the capacity of short term memory. Miller (1956) presented the idea that short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information (seven plus or minus two) where a chunk is any meaningful unit. A chunk could refer to digits, words, chess positions, or people's faces. The concept of chunking and the limited capacity of short term memory became a basic element of all subsequent theories of memory. The second concept is TOTE (Test-Operate-Test-Exit) proposed by Miller, Galanter & Pribram (1960). Miller et al. suggested that TOTE should replace the stimulus-response as the basic unit of behavior. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 143)

• Cognitive Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

  By na - Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computational procedures. Its organizational origins are in the mid-1970s when the Cognitive Science Society was formed and the journal Cognitive Science began. Since then, more than seventy universities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia have established cognitive science programs, and many others have instituted courses in cognitive science ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 101)

• Cognitive Science Celebrities

  By Martin Ryder - This is a rather amazing list containing information about the major players in cognitive science. It's basically links, and it's a great starting point for those interested in cognitive science. It probably would take several days to go through all of it. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 84)

• Cognitive Apprenticeship - Collins, et al.

  By na - Effective teachers "involve" students in learning as apprentices: they work alongside students and/or set up situations that will cause students to begin to work on problems even before fully understanding them. A key aspect of an "apprenticeship" approach to teaching involves breaking the problem into parts so that students are challenged to master as much of a task as they are ready to handle. In addition, teachers are encouraged to provide students with varying kinds of practice situations before moving on to more challenging tasks, allowing an understanding that surpasses the use of formulas. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 88)

• A Cognitive Apprenticeship for Disadvantaged Students

  By Allan Collins Jan Hawkins Sharon M. Carver - cognitive apprenticeship, refers to the focus of the learning-through-guided experience in cognitive skills and processes, rather than physical ones. Although we do not wish to draw a major theoretical distinction between the learning of physical and cognitive skills, there are differences that have practical implications for the organization of teaching and learning activities. Most importantly, traditional apprenticeship has evolved to teach domains in which the process of carrying out target skills is external, and thus readily available to both student and teacher for observation, comment, refinement, and correction, and bears a relatively transparent relationship to concrete products. The externalization of relevant processes and methods makes possible such characteristics of apprenticeship as its reliance on observation as a primary means of building a conceptual model of a complex target skill. And the relatively transparent relationship, at all stages of production, between process and product facilitates the learner's recognition and diagnosis of errors, upon which the early development of self-correction skill depends. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 73)

• ARCS Model of Motivational Design (Keller)

  By na - Summary: According to John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design, there are four steps for promoting and sustaining motivation in the learning process: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction (ARCS) ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 176)

• The ASSURE Model of Instructional Design

  By Heinich, Molenda, Russell, Smaldino - The ASSURE model is an ISD (Instructional Systems Design) process that was modified to be used by teachers in the regular classroom The ISD process is one in which teachers and trainers can use to design and develop the most appropriate learning environment for their students. You can use this process in writing your lesson plans and in improving teaching and learning. (Very short summary of key points) ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 126)

• ADDIE Model of Instructional Design

  By na - One of the better know models for instructional design. Summary: The ADDIE model is a systematic instructional design model consisting of five phases: (1) Analysis, (2) Design, (3) Development, (4) Implementation, and (5) Evaluation. Various flavors and versions of the ADDIE model exist. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 187)

• Psychology History - John B. Watson

  By Emily Watson - Bio sketch of John B. Watson who is generally acknowledged as the father of behaviorism. ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 88)

• Behaviorism - The Forerunner

  By Gary DeMar - Behaviorism originated with the work of John B. Watson, an American psychologist. Watson claimed that psychology was not concerned with the mind or with human consciousness. Instead, psychology would be concerned only with behavior. In this way, men could be studied objectively, like rats and apes. (Overview of behaviorism which is probably of more interest for its historical information ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 149)

• Instructional Design Models

  By Martin Ryder - While billed as a listing of various resources for instructional design models, it really sets forth links to information on various learning theories. Obviously an old site, very ugly, but worth checking ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 148)

• Teaching At Stanford - An Introductory Handbook

  By na - Ten chapters covering course preparation; getting started; common teaching situations, testing and grading; technology in teaching; teaching assistants; evaluating and improving your teaching; interations with students and combining teaching and research ^new (Added: 4-Jul-2010 Hits: 121)