Learning is the foundation of the human experience. It begins at birth and never stops, a continuous and malleable link across life stages of human development. Disparities in learning access and outcomes around the world have deep consequences for income, social mobility, health, and well-being. For international development practitioners faced with today's unprecedented environmental and geopolitical pressures, learning should be viewed as a touchstone and target for those seeking to truly effect global change. This book traces the path of international development work—from its pre-colonial origins to the emergence of economics as the dominant discipline in the field—and lays out a new agenda for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners, from early education through adulthood. Learning as Development is an attempt to rethink international education in a changing world.

Everyone thinks they know everything about training. Right? We've all gone to school, been trained on the job, and maybe endured the occasional corporate seminar. But if you're a professional in this field, you know that's familiarity, not expertise. Instructional design and implementation are not as easy as they look. You know there's an art to enabling people to truly change their behavior, moving themselves and their organizations toward the right future. That's what inspired The Learning and Development Book. Open the book to any page and you'll find a short chapter that holds one hard-won lesson—the reward of decades implementing instructional design in real-world settings. Why should learning be more like playing? Is the culture of your organization working against you? Should you really measure the effects of your training program? Have you ever thought that learning begins when training ends? Each chapter holds a nugget of wisdom on subjects like these. Whether you're a battle-tested educator or embarking on your first big training job, we hope we can give you tips, tools, big ideas, and (bonus!) a smile.

The defining attributes of the 21st-century economy and fourth industrial revolution are innovation, technology, globalization, and a rapid pace of change. Therefore, an organization's capacity to enhance the capabilities of its workforce and create a culture of continuous learning are vital to remaining competitive. These trends make an effective learning-and-development (L&D) function more critical than ever. This compendium of articles, from L&D professionals at McKinsey & Company, discusses every facet of professional development and training-from ensuring that L&D's efforts are closely aligned with business strategy to elements of advancing the L&D function, designing learning solutions, deploying digital learning, executing flawlessly, measuring impact, and ensuring good governance. For L&D professionals seeking to hone their organization's efforts, Elevating Learning & Development: Insights and Practical Guidance from the Field is the ideal resource.

This essential text unpacks major transformations in the study of learning and human development and provides evidence for how science can inform innovation in the design of settings, policies, practice, and research to enhance the life path, opportunity and prosperity of every child. The ideas presented provide researchers and educators with a rationale for focusing on the specific pathways and developmental patterns that may lead a specific child, with a specific family, school, and community, to prosper in school and in life. Expanding key published articles and expert commentary, the book explores a profound evolution in thinking that integrates findings from psychology with biology through sociology, education, law, and history with an emphasis on institutionalized inequities and disparate outcomes and how to address them. It points toward possible solutions through an understanding of and addressing the dynamic relations between a child and the contexts within which he or she lives, offering all researchers of human development and education a new way to understand and promote healthy development and learning for diverse, specific youth regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or history of adversity, challenge, or trauma. The book brings together scholars and practitioners from the biological/medical sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, educational science, and fields of law and social and educational policy. It provides an invaluable and unique resource for understanding the bases and status of the new science, and presents a roadmap for progress that will frame progress for at least the next decade and perhaps beyond.

Better Learning Solutions Through Better Learning Experiences When training and development initiatives treat learning as something that occurs as a one-time event, the learner and the business suffer. Using design thinking can help talent development professionals ensure learning sticks to drive improved performance. Design Thinking for Training and Development offers a primer on design thinking, a human-centered process and problem-solving methodology that focuses on involving users of a solution in its design. For effective design thinking, talent development professionals need to go beyond the UX, the user experience, and incorporate the LX, the learner experience. In this how-to guide for applying design thinking tools and techniques, Sharon Boller and Laura Fletcher share how they adapted the traditional design thinking process for training and development projects. Their process involves steps to: Get perspective. Refine the problem. Ideate and prototype. Iterate (develop, test, pilot, and refine). Implement. Design thinking is about balancing the three forces on training and development programs: learner wants and needs, business needs, and constraints. Learn how to get buy-in from skeptical stakeholders. Discover why taking requests for training, gathering the perspective of stakeholders and learners, and crafting problem statements will uncover the true issue at hand. Two in-depth case studies show how the authors made design thinking work. Job aids and tools featured in this book include: a strategy blueprint to uncover what a stakeholder is trying to solve an empathy map to capture the learner’s thoughts, actions, motivators, and challenges an experience map to better understand how the learner performs. With its hands-on, use-it-today approach, this book will get you started on your own journey to applying design thinking.

In order to design and deliver effective learning and development initiatives, it is essential to understand how our brains process and retain information. Neuroscience for Learning and Development introduces the latest research and concepts, equipping L&D and training professionals with an understanding of the inner workings of the mind. Covering areas such as how to create effective learning environments, promoting motivation and how to make learning 'stickier' through the use of stories, the book offers practical tools and ideas that can be applied in a variety of contexts, from digital learning and in-person training sessions, to coaching conversations, to lectures and presentations. Neuroscience for Learning and Development also features insights from L&D practitioners who have applied these approaches. Readers will not only find new techniques they can implement straight away, but will also discover research that backs up what they are already doing well, enabling them to put convincing cases to budget holders. This updated second edition contains new chapters on digital learning and on the importance of sleep, as well as updated wider content and new material on mindfulness, learning through your senses and the neuroscience of habits.

"The authors pull off an impressive double. They synthesize an enormous amount of relevant research on learning and development while also making clear the connections this research has for practice. Written in a helpful and accessible style, and full of case studies, applications, instruments, and vignettes of practice, the book will be an invaluable resource for college teachers at any level."--Stephen Brookfield, Distinguished Professor, University of St. Thomas "Effectively integrating the perspectives of a director of a university learning assistance center and a scholar in the area of developmental education, Silverman and Casazza have written an important book. It should be read by anyone concerned with the academic success of the increasingly diverse population of undergraduates in colleges and universities."--Ernest Pascarella, Petersen Professor of Higher Education, University of Iowa Comprehensive yet easy to follow, Learning and Development is designed to help faculty, student affairs professionals, and other educators understand how students learn and what they can do to foster student achievement. Sharon Silverman and Martha Casazza reveal how diverse developmental needs--such as lack of self-esteem or cultural alienation--can be at the root of a student's learning difficulties. They draw from the latest theory and research to explore the critical connection between learning and development in six key areas: (1) self and identity; (2) motivation; (3) interaction with the environment; (4) ways of knowing; (5) learning styles and preferences; and (6) self-regulation and goal setting. The authors also present six case studies to show how educators can assess and resolve learning problems while enriching and advancing their own teaching expertise. Written in clear, nontechnical language, Learning and Development provides useful, systematic approaches for making connections between teaching and learning.