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Learning Guild
The Learning Guild is a community of practice for those supporting the design, development, strategy, and management of organizational learning. As a member-driven organization, we aim to create a place where learning professionals can share their knowledge, expertise, and ideas to build a better industry—and better learning experiences—for everyone.
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Sessions in Instructional Design Track
Is your online training boring? Are you having engagement issues? Are your learners not passing their training? There is a problem these days—learners prefer online training, but budgets are low and training is often dry, making it hard to stay engaged. But even with online training, the learner is often alone, not stimulated by other people around them. Distractions are easy and infinite with social media, smartphones, and the internet at your fingertips.
Read MoreWith the constant changing and evolution of technology, you need to know what is possible and how to determine what is a fit for your audience.
Read MoreAdult learning principles state that adults learn best when content is relevant. So why do most virtual classroom lessons rely on lectures and slides? One of the most effective ways to ensure learning sticks is by getting learners involved, and scenario-based learning design does just that. Join this session to discover ideas for producing appropriate scenarios that resonate with your learners in the virtual classroom.
Read MoreImagine your worst eLearning nightmare, a dry compliance course. Boring! Is it a talking PowerPoint with a next button and a quiz at the end? Extra boring! Unfortunately, simply chopping a boring course into bite-sized modules doesn’t make it any better. But most struggle to break the cycle because they don’t know how to. How do you make a boring topic fun? Where do you even start?
Read MoreAccording to Time magazine, leaders at IBM and other large technology firms project that the future of the digital revolution will be about both social networks and knowledge: “The next phase is not about the network alone, but also about knowledge.” If you believe that this projection is accurate, what role will L&D play? Are there approaches or solutions you can use now to support this ongoing transformation?
Read MoreYesterday’s employees view development and training as an isolated activity outside their daily routine, but today’s employees are pushing organizations into uncharted territory where informal, engaging, interactive eLearning must be incorporated into their lives when and where they need it. Most employees don’t have the time to click through slides or courses that are not engaging or interactive, but how do you take your legacy content and reimagine it quickly?
Read MoreSELR104 Training That’s “Lit”: Engaging with Generation Z Learners
eLearning Rockstars
Sigma Chi Fraternity’s existing, traditional learning methods for incoming pledges weren’t received as well as hoped. Young learners reported the training was too long, too “boring” and not “lit.” What changes could Sigma Chi make that would truly connect with Gen Z pledges while still effectively preparing them for their membership in the fraternity?
Read MoreMicrolearning is really hot right now. You may be getting pressure to “go micro” on your projects. Or maybe you are already using microlearning but question whether it’s really instructionally sound. To resolve these issues, you need to have a clear understanding of microlearning use cases, and how to use microlearning to bring the greatest value to your learning programs.
Read MoreThe two goals of any training program are to teach employees new information and then to enable them to transfer their new knowledge into their workplace. But learning transfer is a complex process, and most trainers do not understand the simple steps that they can take to ensure that knowledge transfers from the computer where it is learned to the workplace where it is needed.
Read More203 Using an Instructional Design Approach to Transform Canned Content
Concurrent Session
Every training department has to begin somewhere. Canned content can save time and money while providing a ready supply of material, especially for a newly developed program. At CTG, pre-purchased content built the base of a program but left a gap between the company’s needs and what was readily available. They needed to leverage that library of content against the principles and practices of instructional design to create engaging training.
Read More301 Business Simulations for Learning: Strategy, Design, and Serious Play!
Concurrent Session
Today’s networked businesses must contend with unprecedented levels of complexity and variety. Business simulations provide active, dynamic learning solutions where learners can replicate realistic business environments as safe-to-fail spaces, so learners can authentically model complex, long-term challenges and improve their performance without any real risk. Managing the conceptual and technical load of creating gamified simulations can be its own challenge—but this session will show you how it’s done.
Read MoreAs expectations rise for the impact you create, but the timeline for creating impact becomes shorter, it can feel like you’re scrambling to find newer and better approaches to design. From waterfall to agile to design thinking, there’s no shortage of methodologies to choose from, but how do you know which is right? Is waterfall bad? Does agile equate to speed and design thinking to engagement? Does it matter?
Read More303 Microlearning, Workplace Performance, and Compliance: Having It All
Concurrent Session
In order to meet compliance training requirements, many organizations subject their workforce to isolated training events. Organizations choose this approach based on regulations that mandate training in specific topics, but this does not translate into the workforce understanding the mandated behavior associated with these topics. This approach persists because training engagements are easy to track and serve as evidence for compliance even though they are not viewed as particularly effective.
Read MoreHave you ever been offered unsolicited advice? If so, you know that advice received before you’re ready falls on deaf ears. The same thing happens at work when training is offered before the need is clear. The need for change is like a journey that your reluctant heroes face. Knowing the phases of this journey helps you plan for guidance at the right time. Everyone knows that the Hero’s Journey is a tool for writing good fiction stories, but what if it could be modified to accommodate common models of conflict resolution?
Read More402 Wonder Woman, Wakanda, and Work: Make Your eLearning Representative
Concurrent Session
You know that most media—including eLearning—is failing at representation. You see it every day. And not only is it leaving people out of the picture, it’s less effective as a result. Maybe you’ve tried to make your work more inclusive but haven’t been able to find great media, haven’t been able to convince your stakeholders, or simply aren’t confident in navigating how to respectfully represent different genders, ethnicities, orientations, and abilities.
Read More403 Wired, Not Tired: Is Curation the Cure for What Ails L&D?
Concurrent Session
Content curation is rapidly becoming an essential skill for learning professionals, but many have yet to take the step of putting it into practice. This session will arm you with an understanding of how curation helps both you and your organization, along with the tools and techniques you’ll need to craft your own personalized curation system. It’s time to make curation a central part of your digital learning toolkit.
Read MoreeLearning and instructor-led classroom training both have inherent strengths and weaknesses. Why not take advantage of the best of both worlds?
Read MoreSubject matter experts (SMEs) are the keepers of knowledge and know-how, but working with them can be a challenging experience. How do you get the SME to share their knowledge and know-how with you? What should you do if the SME provides too much information—or not enough?
Read MoreMost L&D teams are keenly interested in exploring ways to combine their macrolearning needs—traditional ILT classes and VILT sessions, tracked online learning, and structured compliance programs—with microlearning initiatives leveraging mobile, game mechanics, and social interactions. While most legacy LMS platforms have yet to include compelling microlearning features, there are ways to design and integrate legacy macrolearning platforms with modern microlearning solutions to achieve tech-enhanced learning success.
Read More502 Ukulele Learning: Exploring the Relationships Between Music and Learning
Concurrent Session
A large amount of research in recent years has explored the value that music has for the brain and learning. Everyone has experienced it in some way, be it from listening to music while studying, learning something from a catchy song, or learning to play an instrument.
Read MoreEach day, you are exposed to various forms of media, marketing, and design all geared to grab your attention. Specific techniques are used in almost everything you interact with to draw you to the next item, scroll down, click here or there, and to make that purchase, watch that video, look at that picture. Adopting these techniques and implementing them into your eLearning designs can have a similar engaging impact on learners.
Read MoreAs an instructional designer or developer, do you have skills that you don’t use in your nine-to-five job? Do you want to try something new, but feel stuck in the day-to-day grind? You want to be your own boss, choose your own projects, set your own hours, and remove the daily commute, but you’re not sure how to make the leap, or you worry about how you’ll make ends meet. Sound like you?
Read MoreWhen you’re getting started designing an eLearning experience, it’s easy to get stalled at this stage by the sheer volume of possibilities for what you can create, especially if you don’t feel visual design is a strength. But a humble sketch on a whiteboard with a red marker can still become a brilliant eLearning interaction. At its heart, eLearning is a visual medium, so starting with drawing will result in an entirely different outcome.
Read MoreDo you find yourself getting stuck using the same patterns of delivery without thinking about whether it is helping your audience or whether it’s the best fit for a challenge?
Read MoreTraditional eLearning receives very little employee attention. In fact, extremely low (2 – 20 percent) completion rates for ongoing training are common in the industry. Learners often dislike eLearning and avoid it as much as they can. It is clear that a fundamental shift in eLearning is needed to increase employee engagement, enhance learning, and improve performance.
Read MoreThe cost of copyright confusion can affect every stage of the development and delivery process. Copyright law can be intimidating, even though its intent is to encourage creativity. Break down the walls that prevent you or your organization from using fabulous free resources because you aren’t sure whether your use will infringe someone else’s rights. Make fair use your friend. Access thousands of free photos, videos, music, and motion graphics.
Read MoreA lot is known about how people learn and develop skills. Cognitive science research on learning, behavior change, and development of expertise has provided a wealth of information. Unfortunately, much of that wisdom is locked in journal articles and dense books, so designers of learning experiences often rely on traditional methods that may or may not be supported by science.
Read More603 Email Course Design: Using Digital Marketing as a Learning Strategy
Concurrent Session
Throughout the history of training, learning something new has often been treated as an event rather than a process. However, practitioners now know that eLearning, videos, and instructor-led training are only the beginning. To be effective, you need ways to support your workforce over time, building their competence through multiple approaches.
Read More701 Transforming Skills Development Through Communities of Practice
Concurrent Session
Communities of practice have been around since humans started using stories to share knowledge and information. People instinctively rely on the expertise of their social and professional networks to solve problems and learn new things—it’s practically in our collective DNA. Why, then, do countless attempts to create and cultivate communities of practice in the workplace either lose momentum or fail to get off the ground altogether?
Read MoreToo much of instructional design is about what to do, rather than why. And there’s the small problem that when push comes to shove—when the answers aren’t obvious, or when recommendations collide—you need a basis for deciding. That basis is a deeper understanding of the cognitive science behind learning. It’s not rocket science, but it is more complex than “post content and ask quiz questions.”
Read More703 Interact and Engage! Activities for Spectacular Live Online Events
Concurrent Session
Whether it’s an online meeting, a presentation via webinar, or live online training, engagement is the main question on everyone’s mind. Interaction is the answer to engagement, and leveraging the features of the platform you use is the answer to interaction. However, the features alone do not engage participants. It is what you choose to do with those features that will make the difference in your next virtual training, webinar, or meeting.
Read MoreMicrolearning! It’s the most popular word in corporate learning today. It is also the most controversial. While some claim microlearning to be a transformational concept, others see it as nothing but smoke and mirrors. To really find the value, you have to get past the noise and focus on the fundamentals that created the microlearning hype. To really see the benefit of microlearning, you have to end it.
Read MoreIf they’re going to work in a virtual classroom, your traditional learning methodologies need a makeover. A virtual session is more than lecture and uploaded PowerPoints. Unique techniques must be used to engage learners throughout the session. A common pitfall is to focus on the technology and forget about the design—often resulting in unengaging sessions focused on using the tools and not meeting the needs of the learners.
Read More803 Level Up: Moving from Instructional Design to Learning Experience Design
Concurrent Session
Rapid UX models like agile, lean, and design sprint are the centerpiece of software, web application, and product design. Yet today’s L&D teams still use unresponsive and archaic instructional design models that follow an outdated waterfall paradigm. The rapid pace and demands of today’s business environment require that IDs utilize emerging UX design techniques to produce immediate results and learner performance.
Read More811 When Your Client Won’t Budge: Tips for Avoiding the Information Dump
Concurrent Session
Your client provides a lengthy slide deck and asks you to create an engaging and fun course. You roll up your instructional design sleeves and start slashing unnecessary content and preparing a learner-focused design where learners practice scenario-based decision-making. But what do you do when your client rejects your design and demands a locked-navigation course that uses every word from their lengthy slide deck?
Read More