Performance Support & Job Aids

Allison Rossett and Lisa Schafer have a new textbook out: Job Aids & Performance Support — Moving From Knowledge in the Classroom to Knowledge Everywhere.

I didn’t read the book so much as adsorb its message by osmosis. This has become a common practice for me since I wrote about it in
Informal Learning. I read the covers of the book and the table of contents. Then I flip to the back to scan the references and index. I look at the illustrations and an occasional caption. I may read the introduction and a chunk of the first chapter. I’ll read the last few pages. I try to sort of breathe it in. That’s about it. I come away from this fifteen-minute speed-read with probably 80% of the message I’d remember after four or five hours of front-to-back reading. It’s how I grapple with “So little time, so many books.”

Day before yesterday I found the book clear, well-constructed, and a good resource for someone new to the field. Yesterday I had a flash of inspiration about how to simplify the messages of the next Unworkshops: two key job aids. And today I realized where the inspiration had come from.