Abstract
Teachers ask, how can we make them want to learn? This mistitled book is one place to look. The title, Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching All Adults, is wrong (more later on why wrong) but indeed, the word ‘comprehensive’ is right: The book covers everything. What to do before the session, how to start a lecture, how to keep things moving, getting results, online or face-to-face, it is all in these 400 plus pages. Many book reviews seem to say must read. Relax, not this book review. Not a must read, unless you are researching educational motivation, or maybe in a job requiring assessment of learning. Average teacher? Took me a month to get through this heavy book, a month with no teaching. Normally I simply would not have had the time.
Although not a book to put on your must read list, this is a book to put on your if you have time list. Maybe your life is not too hectic, or perhaps you are director of learning somewhere. Then this encyclopedic volume may be worth slogging through. Not easy reading, but smoothly written. Parts seem aimed at teachers like me: lots of concrete examples, light on fancy jargon, even somewhat engaging. But the adjective ‘encyclopedic’ above seems to me appropriate. It has so much good information, but more like an encyclopedia than like a novel that you would read cover to cover before stopping.