Telling Ain't Training

This book provides an entertaining, and practical tour-de-force for every trainer and performance improvement professional. It tackles the three universal and persistent questions of the profession-how do learners learn, why do learners learn, and how do you make sure that learning sticks.

The authors of this interactive and provocative volume provide solid answers to these questions backed up by more than 70 years of combined real world experience and academic study. Telling Ain't Training deliberately avoids the one-way communications of "telling" trainers how to be more effective. Instead, it uses an interactive approach which models the basic message of the book-that is, humans learn best through active mental engagement. The authors expect the reader to "do" something, not just read! Despite its fun, and breezy tone, every concept in the book is solidly backed up by research. The ultimate goal of this book is to allow the reader an opportunity to break through learning barriers, to separate learning myth from research-based facts, and to dispel counterproductive beliefs and practices that harm the instructional process.

About the Authors

Harold D. Stolovitch is a graduate of both McGill University in Canada and Indiana University in the United States where he completed a Ph.D. and postdoctoral work in instructional systems technology. With one foot solidly grounded in the academic world and the other in the workplace, he has conducted a large number of research studies and practical projects always aimed at achieving high learning and performance results. In addition to creating countless instructional materials for a broad range of work settings, Stolovitch has authored almost 200 articles, research reports, book chapters, and books. He is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), former editor of the Performance Improvement Journal, and editorial board member of several human resource and performance technology journals. He has won numerous awards throughout his 40-year career, including the Thomas F. Gilbert Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement and ISPI's highest honor, Member-for-Life. Stolovitch is an emeritus professor, Université de Montreal, where he headed the instructional and performance technology programs and a clinical professor of human performance at work, University of Southern California.

Erica J. Keeps holds a master's degree in educational psychology from Wayne State University, Detroit, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, where she later became a faculty member in the Graduate Business School Executive Education Center. Her 30-year professional career has included training management positions with J. L. Hudson Co. and Allied Supermarkets and senior-level learning and performance consultant positions with a wide variety of organizations. Keeps has not only produced and supervised the production of numerous instructional materials and performance management systems but has also published extensively on improving workplace learning and performance. She has provided staff development for instructional designers, training administrators, and performance engineers. Keeps has been acknowledged by many learning and performance leaders as a caring mentor and major influence in their careers. She is a former executive board member of the ISPI, a past president of the Michigan Chapter of ISPI, and a Member-for-Life of both the Michigan and Montreal ISPI chapters. Among her many awards for outstanding contributions to instructional and performance technology is ISPI's Distinguished Service Award for her extensive leadership roles.