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Design for How People Build Skills
- By Julie Dirksen
- Published Sep 30, 2026 by New Riders.
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- Your Price: $53.99
- List Price: $89.98
- Includes EPUB and PDF
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This eBook includes the following formats, accessible from your Account page after purchase:
EPUB
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PDF
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eBook
- Your Price: $31.99
- List Price: $39.99
- Estimated Release: Sep 30, 2026
- Includes EPUB and PDF
- About eBook Formats
This eBook includes the following formats, accessible from your Account page after purchase:
EPUB
The open industry format known for its reflowable content and usability on supported mobile devices.
PDF
The popular standard, used most often with the free Acrobat® Reader® software.
This eBook requires no passwords or activation to read. We customize your eBook by discreetly watermarking it with your name, making it uniquely yours.
Description
- Copyright 2027
- Dimensions: 7" x 9-1/8"
- Pages: 352
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-13-591950-9
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-591950-7
Book 3 of 3 in the Learning Design Essentials Library
How do you help people to genuinely become proficient in a skill?
People dont learn skills by reading about them or hearing a lecture. They learn skills by practicing, getting feedback, solving increasingly complex problems and performing in the real world. Yet most learning is still designed as if information alone creates capability.
Drawing on cognitive science, behavioral science, expertise research, and decades of instructional design experience, Julie Dirksen provides a practical roadmap for designing learning and practice that develops the real skills and judgment needed in a complex, AI-driven world.
Filled with realistic case studies, design tools, templates, and examples from healthcare, customer service, management, technical training, and higher education, this book gives learning designers a practical framework for building capability, not just delivering information.
Julie Dirksen shows you how to:
Define Skills That Matter
Learn how to identify clear actionable skills and distinguish them from knowledge or procedures.
Design Practice and Feedback
Create practice sequences, rubrics, and feedback loops that drive growth and fluency.
Support Learner Agency
Help people take ownership of their own skill journey.
Build for Transfer and Context
Design learning that supports performance across complex and variable work situations.
Consider AI and Skill Development
Use AI to enhance coaching and feedback while keeping human judgment central.
Sample Content
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Defining Skill
Chapter 2 Analyzing the Scope of the Skill
Chapter 3 Analyzing the Variability of the Skill
Chapter 4 Analyzing the Context of the Skill
Chapter 5 Designing Feedback and Assessment
Chapter 6 Considering the Role of Talent
Chapter 7 Phase 1: Designing Learning
Chapter 8 Phase 2: Creating Practice
Chapter 9 Phase 3: Supporting Performance
Chapter 10 Evaluating Skill Development
Chapter 11 Looking to the Future of Skill Development
Conclusion
More Information
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