Personal Professional Development in Instructional Design

Recently, a colleague of mine mentioned they were starting to build up a bit of a home library of useful books that would help them develop professionally. They asked if there were any books that I would recommend for Instructional Designers. This is not going to be a definitive list of resources, but more just off the top of my head where I go to for professional development. I’d love to hear your contributions in the comments.

Books

Some recent reads or audiobooks and some classics, this is a real mixed bag of publications and in no particular order:

Eyler, J. R. (2018). How humans learn: The science and stories behind effective college teaching. West Virginia University Press.
Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick. Harvard University Press.
Schank, R. C. (2015). Teaching minds: How cognitive science can save our schools. Teachers College Press.
Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech. Athabasca University Press.
Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (2004). Instructional design. John Wiley & Sons.
Watters, A. (2014). The monsters of education technology. CreateSpace.
Watters, A. (2015). The revenge of the monsters of education technology. CreateSpace.
Watters, A. (2016). The curse of the monsters of education technology. CreateSpace.
Watters, A. (2017). The monsters of education technology. CreateSpace.
Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920. Teachers College Press.
Reigeluth, C. M. (Ed.). (2013). Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. 2). Routledge. (actually all the volumes are worth having nearby if ID is your jam)

I’m sure more will come to mind later.

Journals

Most of my focus in instructional design it specific to online and distance ed, so I try to keep tabs on publications in a few journals. Some of these include:

Blogs

Of course, not all relevant, innovative, or interesting work happens only in books and journals. Keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in edtech and ID still happens through blogs. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, and if you don’t already have an RSS reader I’d strongly recommend getting one. It’s way better than any stream or feed any social media app will serve up. This is just a sampling of what is connected to my RSS feed:

Podcasts

As I scroll through my podcast list, it turns out I have everything from philosophy conversation (like the Bruce Lee podcast), to technology (so much technology), to design (graphic, industrial, architecture, you name it), to UX, to news and reporting, to funny and interesting, to people playing Dungeons and Dragons (the good old days of The Adventure Zone). For education & instructional design specific podcasts that I’ve listened to at least a handful of episodes – not just one offs where I knew the person being interviewed – we get a shortened list:

#IDIODC Instructional Designers in Offices Drinking Coffee
Dear Instructional Designer
Gettin’ Air with Terry Greene
Instructional Redesign Podcast
Praxis Pedagogy Podcast
SoTL Chat
Teaching Plus
The eLearning Coach
The Learning Hack
TLDCast Podcast

Photo by John-Mark Smith on Unsplash

About the blog

Blogwall features reflections, think-alouds, and experiments in instructional design, educational technology, and being a human on the web. It’s a space to share insights, resources, and personal reflections drawn from my work and interests.

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