Facilitating Learning

Citation

Mumford, A. (2001), "Facilitating Learning", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 33 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2001.03733aae.002

Facilitating Learning

Facilitating Learning

Christine HoganEruditions PublishingPO Box 555, Emerald, Victoria, Australia 37821999ISBN 1-86491-0054A$29.95

Keywords: Learning, Learning styles

At A$29.95, this is good value, even if people from other countries have to pay postage. It is aimed primarily at colleges and universities, though training institutions ought to be attracted by the author's "desire to make learning more effective and enjoyable by catering for the many different learning styles in each classroom". Hogan provides an excellent practical guide to the use of different exercises for learning. The book offers a variety of essentially classroom-based processes and exercises, initially through a selection grid chart and subsequently through analysis of each exercise. The headings used are sometimes familiar, "A brief description and purpose for the exercise" – sometimes less familiar, such as "An obligatory debriefing". Particularly valuable for any tutor would be the author's final standard heading, "User reflections". Through this heading, tutors can review what worked, what did not work and why.

The book therefore provides an excellent practical checklist that could be applied to any exercise, not just those included. There are some helpful practical comments, such as the fact that "brainstorming" is too often abused by being shortened in time and described as "throwing around ideas" instead of being used seriously with an action plan. However, while the author is right to say that for most people the kind of interactive exercise she is describing will be attractive, it would have been valuable for her to identify some of the ways in which different individuals with "different learning styles in each classroom" are catered for, well or otherwise, through particular exercises.

Alan Mumford