Learning consultancy

Learning

Trauma-informed Practice for Learning Design

This is both a wellbeing issue and a learning design issue. We must know our work is not harming people, and if our learners can’t engage, we aren’t being effective.

Conference Sessions and Seminars

NZATD 2025: Finding Real Learning Impact

Robert O. Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Method (SCM) offers a practical way to uncover the real impact of learning. It helps you focus on what drives success and what gets in the way.

Learning

What is ‘learning design’?

I see learning design as sitting in the midst of a range of allied skillsets and jobs: learning science, cognitive science, neuropsychology, user experience design, design thinking…

Learning consultancy

Ethics of learning design

“What makes teaching a moral endeavor is that it is, quite centrally, human action undertaken in regard to other human beings. Thus, matters of what is fair, right, just, and virtuous are always present.” Fenstermacher, G. D. (1990).

Learning

Establishing context

When people ask me to design a learning intervention, they often already have a solution in mind. It’s generally a fairly simple one: a workshop or an e-learning module. Sometimes they ask for blended learning, but if so, it is usually one particular format: an e-learning module followed by

A drawing of two dead brushtail possums on a grey background.

Learning

Creative solutions and feedback

My most creative work is usually the result of unusually challenging sets of constraints. It’s digging in, and really understanding all the requirements, that make space to come up with something unique.

Learning

Subject matter experts, survivorship bias and learning design

If the only people to make it to SME level are the ones who throw themselves in and have excellent knowledge retention, and they are rare, then even if the SMEs have an excellent understanding of the types of learner they were in the past, they will naturally fail to connect.

Learning

Why do demonstrable learning objectives matter?

The importance of the learner being able to demonstrate their learning seems obvious. We’re not psychic: we can only base our assessments of others’ abilities on what they do or say, not what’s going on inside their minds.