Adult Learning Basics - William J. Rothwell

William J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CPLP Fellow is aprofessor in the Workforce Education and Development program, Department of Learning and Performance Systems, at the PennsylvaniaState University, University Park campus. He is also president of hisown consulting firms--Rothwell & Associates, Inc. and Rothwell &Associates, LLC. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited300 books, book chapters, and articles--including 111 books. Beforearriving at Penn State in 1993, he had nearly 20 years of work experienceas a training director in government and in business. As a consultanthe has worked with more than 50 multinational corporations--including Motorola, GeneralMotors, Ford, and many others. In 1997 he and his wife founded a small business--a personalcare home for the elderly that employed 27 workers and served as the residence for 54 people. Thatcompany was sold in 2017.His books since 2017 include Winning the Talent Wars Through Neurodiversity (Taylor& Francis, in press); The Essential HR Guide for Small Business and Start Ups (Society forHuman Resource Management, 2020); Increasing Learning and Development's Impact ThroughAccreditation (Palgrave, 2020); Workforce Development: Guidelines for Community CollegeProfessionals, 2nd ed. (Rowman-Littlefield, 2020); Human Performance Improvement: BuildingPractitioner Performance, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2018); Innovation Leadership (Routledge,2018); Evaluating Organization Development: How to Ensure and Sustain the Successful Transformation(CRC Press, 2017); Marketing Organization Development Consulting: A How-ToGuide for OD Consultants (CRC Press, 2017); and, Assessment and Diagnosis for OrganizationDevelopment: Powerful Tools and Perspectives for the OD practitioner (CRC Press, 2017).Rothwell received a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with aspecialization in Human Resource Development, an MABA in Business Administration witha specialization in Human Resource Management from Sangamon State University (now calledthe University of Illinois at Springfield), an MA in English from the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign, and a BA with High Honors and Department Honors from Illinois StateUniversity in Normal, IL. He holds certifications in HR (SPHR and SHRM-SCP), Corporate146About the AuthorsTraining (CPLP Fellow), Organization Development (RODC), and Life Insurance (the FLMIdesignation). In 2012 he earned ASTD's prestigious Distinguished Contribution to WorkplaceLearning and