An Instructional Design Book With Theory and Practice

Everyone has that one book that brought them into the world of teaching. The book that explained the how and the why in a way that made sense. For me that book is Small Teaching by James Lang.

I won a research fellowship that allowed me to study and collaborate with 20 other professors. We all came from different disciplines, and the teaching strategies we were researching needed to be applicable to any adult-learning classroom.

Our research advisor was a cognitive scientist, and she recommended Small Teaching to us as a great interdisciplinary resource on best instructional design practices. She was right.

Each chapter centers on an instructional design strategy that research has proven to be effective. The author explains the theory, cites the sources, and then gives a real-world perspective on how the strategy fared when he tried it himself.

The two most impactful chapters for me are “Chapter 3: Interleaving” and “Chapter 8: Motivating.” These chapters center on , “how do we get learners to remember something?” and “how do we keep learners engaged?”

My research for the fellowship focused on interleaving, and Lang’s strategies helped me increase knowledge retention in my college classroom by 40%.