Customer Reviews

Planning Programs for Adult Learners: A Practical Guide for Educators, Trainers, and Staff Developers, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is overloaded with flowcharts, exercises, and tables, but has limited useful content. One slim chapter on developing an instructional plan, most of the rest of the book is fluff about choosing meeting rooms, developing budgets, and similar material.

If you are looking for a book to teach you how to teach, this ain't it. But if you are looking for something comprehensive that discusses all the many aspects one must consider to plan and execute a quality program, this is a gem. If you do much sponsoring of programs and events, you know it is the little things that can ruin your day: the air conditioner is not working, you did not adequately budget for the materials needed, you did not anticipate the needs of the participants, etc. This helps prevent geting blindsided. I refer to this frequently when preparing workshops and programs, and recommend it to others.

This book covers all the aspects of adult education program planning. Though, most of the information seems common sense, it is this straight-forward writing that makes this book such a fantastic reference. I continually refer back to the book when developing my adult ed programs to make sure I'm not missing anything. The information covered in each chapter is a great overview and provides insight to program development. I recommend for more specific information on a particular chapter to seek out other resources that go more in depth. Overall, it is a great guide to successful program planning.

This book is a great read for anyone who is interested in the programming aspect of any type of organization or educational setting. The author explains the somewhat complex programming process in a simplistic manner that novel and experienced program planners can comprehend. There are numerous workesheets and tips to guide you to presenting a great program. It is trull an excellent source of knowledge.

This book provides a good model and checklist for program planning. We used it in my Program Planning class and it helped streamline the processess used to make new programs in my company.

While the author's 12-point "interactive model of program planning" is suitable for both novice and experienced program planners, her book is best suited for people who are just at the beginning and new at their jobs. Each of the twelve points is described in individual chapters illustrated with scenarios, scholarly citations, and exercises, however, it stays on a superficial level. For example, in chapter 7 on sorting and prioritizing ideas, she explains, "What constitutes priority ideas in the context of program planning? Priority ideas are often thought of as ones that are among the most important and/or the most feasible to address." This is followed by a supporting excerpt from another publication, some questions, and a brief discussion. That may be helpful to a novice that's not considered this before, but if you've had some experience in program planning, this is far too basic. What may have helped is including some recommendations to find more advanced information--not scholarly sources, but technical ones. For example, the section on setting program priorities includes a discussion on ranking priorities and assigning individual weights, but it's basic and if readers want more details, there's no place to turn.

Secondly, the book needed a stronger editor. There are some minor misspellings (e.g., site for sight) but more frustrating is the repetitive statements (her point that her approach is suitable for both novice and experienced planners is repeated in each of the first few chapters, and even within chapters--enough already!) and writing style (each chapter opens with something like, "in this chapter is going to be about this topic, then I'm going to discuss why it's important" and closes with "in this chapter we discussed this topic, and here's why it's important."). As a result, at times it reads like an udergraduate research paper--a strong editor would have tightened this up considerably.

Finally, for Kindle users, be aware that the author includes many charts, worksheets, and checklists that you may find helpful but are treated as images. Unfortunately the type is small, gray, and blurred so it's a challenge to read the charts either on the Kindle device or on a computer monitor (I tried both ways and some charts are okay and others impossible to read ). The body text is fine.

This book is a valuable asset and guide for planning programs. It comes together with examples and templates that help clarify the ideas.

I graduated a couple of years ago with my masters in Instructional Technology. This was a required book in one of my last classes. It is a great book that I continue to refer to when planning training programs. This book is definitely worth the money.

It is a very useful book especially if you're starting from scratch to design any programs.

Book was exactly what the seller said it would be and it arrived when promised.