Understanding Learners and the Business
Designing With the Science of Learning: From Intuition to Intention
Is it time to challenge what you think you know about how learning happens? Join Nidhi Sachdeva—chair of ResearchED Toronto 2025 and educational technology researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto—for this inspiring and empowering session. You’ll gain proven techniques to align instruction with how the brain learns best, evidence-based methods to minimize learning loss, and actionable strategies to boost engagement and retention—helping you evolve into a truly intentional and effective educator.
Keynote Speaker: Nidhi Sachdeva, Speaker, EdTech Researcher, Educator, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Can’t Get You Out of My Head: Unforgettable Learning
Why do some messages stick while others fade? Many training programs fail to leave a lasting impact. However, there’s a related field that has mastered the art of making content memorable: marketing. So, what do they know about capturing and maintaining people’s attention that we can apply in learning and development?
In this session, you’ll dive into four key strategies that marketers use to make content more memorable. Drawing from real-world marketing and talent development examples, we’ll break down how these techniques enhance retention and drive behavioral change.
You’ll explore:
- Message Depiction Through Visuals – How compelling imagery and metaphors enhance memory and understanding
- Emotions & Impact – Why emotional connections drive retention and how to embed them in training
- Concise, Powerful Messaging – How to distill key takeaways into language that learners remember
- Humor & Surprise – How unexpected elements make learning more engaging and effective
Leave with practical strategies to ensure your training is as effective and unforgettable as the best marketing campaigns.
Speaker: Danielle Wallace, Chief Learning Strategist, Beyond the Sky: Custom Learning
Designing for Measurable Impact: Planning, Blueprinting, and Building Instruction for Performance
How can instructional designers ensure that learning solutions lead to measurable performance results? It starts with planning for impact at the beginning, not after training is delivered.
In this session, Kevin M. Yates, known as the L&D Detective®, shares a practical, evidence-based approach for integrating measurement and performance planning into instructional design. Using frameworks from the L&D Detective Kit for Investigating Performance Impact, you’ll explore how to connect design decisions to business and human performance goals through three investigative tools:
- The Workplace Performance Investigation Framework for uncovering the facts, clues, and evidence that inform design
- The Performance Impact Blueprint for translating investigation results into a measurable plan for impact
- The Instructional Design for Performance Framework for designing learning experiences that activate measurable performance outcomes
By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:
- Apply a performance-first mindset to instructional design that starts with evidence, not assumptions.
- Use the Workplace Performance Investigation Framework to uncover business and human performance requirements before design begins.
- Translate investigative findings into a measurable plan using the Performance Impact Blueprint.
- Design for measurable outcomes using the Instructional Design for Performance Framework.
- Strengthen stakeholder alignment and credibility with a Facts and Findings Report that tells the complete story of impact.
Speaker: Kevin M. Yates, L&D Detective® Impact Investigator and Author, Founder, KevinMYates.com
Join us for an engaging and practical webinar that explores the Talent Development Capability Model—the global standard for what talent development professionals need to know and do to thrive in today’s dynamic workplace. Whether you’re new to the field or a seasoned leader, this session will guide you through the Capability Model’s interactive self-assessment process, helping you identify your strengths and uncover growth opportunities.
Discover how to interpret your personal gap assessment and transform it into a customized learning plan using ATD’s rich library of resources. You’ll leave with a clear roadmap for professional development, aligned with your career goals and organizational needs.
- Understand the structure and purpose of the Talent Development Capability Model
- Learn how to conduct a self-assessment and analyze your results
- Build a personalized learning plan to support your growth and success
- Empower your journey in talent development—start building your blueprint for success today!
The First Few Days: Friendly Starts for Successful Finishes
The first few days of a new project can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re working with a new group of project partners. This session is designed to help instructional designers establish relationships and identify critical information about the learning context so they can design effective learning solutions.
Come to the session prepared to get hands-on applying proven practices. We’ll analyze, discuss, and reflect together.
This session will provide you with the tools to:
- Assess the affective atmosphere surrounding the project.
- Take small actions to set a foundation for trust-building between you and project partners.
- Identify key intake questions that make you look like the learning expert you are while helping you collect critical insights.
- Leverage resources, including AI tools, to prepare for efficient use of partner time.
Speaker: Nicole Papaioannou Lugara, PhD, Founder & Learning Strategist, Your Instructional Designer
Making the Case for Great Learning: A Consultative Toolkit
It’s not uncommon for stakeholders, clients, and SMEs to come to us with a training solution in mind without giving us a chance to explore what’s right for the situation and audience. That can lead to training that isn’t what our learners actually need. Pushing back productively requires key consultative skills, which is what you’ll learn about in this session.
You’ll explore how to advocate for learners, and partner with SMEs and stakeholders to recommend sound design, development, and implementation choices that drive successful learning outcomes. You’ll explore evidence-based design, accessibility, and UX/UI best practices, then practice incorporating them into conversations to make the case for great learning.
In this session, you’ll learn how to:
- Implement a conversation methodology—LALBE—to create allies and advocate for learners.
- Apply best practices to design and deliver content and media for learning based on research/evidence-based practices.
- Make several simple design and development choices to make your learning more accessible.
- Integrate UI/UX design heuristic standards into your learning design process to ensure an intuitive user experience.
- Integrate key principles of evidence-based learning, UI/UX design, and accessibility into learner advocacy conversations.
Speaker: Jill Stanton, Director of Communities, Connection, and Marketing, Fredrickson Learning
Say It So They Hear It: Speaking the Language of the Business
You’re not just an instructional designer. You’re a business partner who creates experiences that equip and empower people to do their best work, ultimately improving the organization overall. But does the rest of the business see it that way?
Too often, learning professionals get boxed in as “the training team,” when our real value lies in helping the business reach its goals. The key to changing that perception is learning to speak the language of the business.
In this session, you’ll learn how to translate your ideas, projects, and priorities into terms that resonate with your stakeholders. You’ll discover practical ways to frame your work so it connects to what matters most to them, without needing an MBA or a finance degree. You’ll leave ready to communicate with clarity and confidence and to help others see your work for what it truly is: essential to the success of the business.
You’ll walk away knowing how to:
- Hear what stakeholders are really saying by listening to their words through a business lens (not a learning lens).
- Translate your ideas and projects into business language so that it resonates clearly with stakeholders.
- Communicate with clarity and confidence so stakeholders see the true value and impact of your work on the business.
Speaker: Jess Almlie, Learning & Performance Strategist, Owner, Almlie Consulting
Stop Throwing Facts on Slides
“Information is power!”
“Content is king!”
You’ve likely heard these phrases before, but they can be dangerous when designing training.
It’s time to confront some painful truths:
- Your learners aren’t just looking for more information. They want help dealing with the situations they are likely to face and would otherwise struggle with.
- Stakeholders don’t want you to make learners smarter. They want you to help learners get better at their jobs.
- Anyone can throw facts on slides–in fact, AI can now do it instead of you.
Most people enter the training and development field because they want to help others learn. But subject-matter expertise and good intentions are not enough to design effective training. Information doesn’t equal action. A wall of bullet points won’t get people to care. And fancy animation effects won’t save content that’s bloated and inherently unhelpful.
A strong needs assessment can help with these issues. During this phase, you can make the learner your primary focus (instead of the content), and you can home in on where they need help doing their job better. Then everything you create can be in service of those goals. The rest needs to go!
In this session, you’ll begin to shift your paradigm away from a focus on expertise to a focus on helping people perform well in situations they are likely to face. You’ll take away specific action items that will make your needs assessment—and therefore your training—more meaningful, even if you don’t have a lot of time and even if your subject-matter experts insist you need to include everything!
Let’s face it! You’re too busy to spend your time creating training that won’t have a positive impact.
Objectives
- Challenge deeply embedded habits and beliefs that lead to “info dump” training.
- Set a laser focus on what will be most helpful for learners.
- Ruthlessly cut anything that doesn’t help learners do their jobs better.
Speaker: Diane Elkins, Co-Founder, Artisan Learning
Share your insights from the day, ponder your biggest industry questions, and connect with other instructional designers in this fast-paced networking activity.
Designing Learning
Creative Without Compromise: When Exciting Design Actually Works
We’ve all been there: a stakeholder asks for “something more engaging.” However, as evidence-based practitioners, we know that excitement doesn’t automatically equal effectiveness. So how do we balance creative, memorable design with learning that actually sticks?
This session tackles the tension between “exciting” and “effective” head-on. You’ll learn a practical framework for evaluating when creative design choices enhance learning and when they create unnecessary barriers.
Drawing on schema theory, cognitive load research, and real-world examples, you’ll leave this session with practical strategies to make learning experiences that are genuinely engaging AND genuinely effective. Because the best instructional design doesn’t have to choose between the two.
Speaker: Jonathan Hill, Assoc CIPD
Keep Their Attention: Designing an Engaging Virtual Class
Are your learners actively engaged in your online classes, or do they passively listen while multitasking? Have you designed an engaging program that uses your platform’s robust toolset to capture attention, and more importantly, keep learners involved?
In this session, you’ll learn what every instructional designer needs to know about how to create an engaging online class that captures and keeps learner attention. You’ll discover five key components to include when designing an interactive virtual program. You’ll learn how to set the stage for interaction, how to open a virtual class in a way that immediately captures attention, and how to keep attention throughout. You’ll walk away with a practical design blueprint to immediately use for your next virtual class!
In this session, you will learn to:
- Apply the five principles of engaging design to each virtual class.
- Craft the opening of a virtual class with immediate activity to capture attention.
- Select appropriate activities for maximum participant engagement.
Speaker: Cindy Huggett, Principal/CEO, Cindy Huggett Consulting, LLC
Purposeful Play: Deconstructing Games to Construct Better Learning Experiences
In today’s dynamic learning landscape, engagement is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s essential to drive performance, retention, and real behavior change. Gameful design offers powerful ways to transform even the most standard workplace learning experiences into meaningful, motivating journeys. In this fully gamified experience, participants will learn how to think like a game designer—breaking down the elements that make games effective and discovering how to use those principles to enhance their own programs.
Whether you design for in-person workshops, virtual sessions, or e-learning programs, this session will help you unlock new approaches to spark curiosity, sustain motivation, and create lasting impact without requiring expensive technologies or complex tools. You’ll leave with practical strategies, ready-to-use resources, and plenty of fresh inspiration to reimagine your next project.
In this session, you’ll:
- Experience how small “gameful” moments can elevate engagement and improve learning outcomes.
- Identify key game elements and motivational drivers that can enhance learner engagement and encourage learner-focused design choices.
- Explore a toolkit of low- and no-cost resources for building escape rooms, branching scenarios, and immersive learning spaces—no coding required.
- Discover how to repurpose existing tools and learning platforms in new, creative ways to add elements of play, challenge, and collaboration.
- Gain inspiration from real-world case studies showing how game-inspired thinking can increase learner motivation, retention, and transfer of skills.
- Gather additional resources and handouts to help you continue your gameful adventures.
Speaker: Valary Oleinik, Owner and Chief Disruptor, DandeLearn
Beyond Clicks and Videos: Integrating Technology for Engaging Blended Learning
Too often, blended learning is just a mix of slides, videos, and ILT sessions, but this approach often fails to create real engagement. How can we move beyond static content and design blended learning that truly enhances knowledge retention and learner performance? One solution worth considering is taking a blended approach to learning.
Blended learning combines multiple learning modalities—such as e-learning, instructor-led training (ILT), virtual environments, and scenario-based learning—to create a more adaptable and effective learning experience. In this session, you’ll discover how to seamlessly integrate technologies into your blended learning programs, including e-learning, virtual environments, and scenario-based learning. Through real-world examples and collaborative discussions, you’ll explore strategies for designing immersive, process-driven training, tackling common implementation challenges, and ensuring learners stay engaged. Walk away with practical tools and a clear roadmap to create blended learning solutions that work—whether you’re training employees, upskilling teams, or designing programs for large organizations.
By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:
- Apply a framework to design immersive blended learning experiences that integrate e-learning, virtual environments, and instructor-led training for enhanced learner engagement.
- Analyze and implement scenario-based learning strategies to improve decision-making skills and knowledge retention in training programs.
- Evaluate and adapt blended learning programs using measurable performance indicators to assess their impact and effectiveness.
Speaker: Toni Kallungal, Instructional Designer, Team b. Strategy
Tire production. Money laundering. Home renovations. Biohazard handling. When you work as an instructional designer, you become an accidental expert in all sorts of unexpected topics. On the plus side, it makes for great conversations! So, check out this collection of mini sessions where speakers share the weirdest facts they’ve inadvertently learned from their time in the field.
Speakers: Lisa Crockett, Director of Education & Organizational Effectiveness, Merchant Advisory Group; Diane Elkins, Co-Founder, Artisan Learning; David Kelly, L&D Executive, Advisor, Speaker, & Author; David Kolmer, Instructional Design Project Manager, NAED; Mark Sheppard, Founder and Principal Consultant, 2Sphynx Innovations, Inc.
20 Ways to Use Microlearning—and Design Tips for Success
Would you like to use microlearning for training—or figure out how to use it more effectively? If the term microlearning feels unclear or unfamiliar, you’re not alone. Microlearning is one of the least understood trends in our industry. But don’t worry; determining when microlearning is the best fit and learning how to effectively craft it is easier than you might think.
In this session, you’ll learn four primary use cases for microlearning and five different common formats to provide microlearning content. Then, you’ll discover how that enables us to identify 20 ways you can use microlearning. You’ll also explore five design strategies that make microlearning successful, exemplified by real-world examples, so you can use similar approaches. You’ll gain practical tools and confidence to use microlearning successfully in your work.
In this session, you’ll learn how to:
- Identify four use cases and five formats for microlearning.
- Capitalize on twenty ways you can use microlearning.
- Use five design strategies that make all kinds of microlearning successful.
- Use microlearning to make the greatest difference for your learners and your organization.
Speaker: Carla Torgerson, Solution Architect, SweetRush
Boring In-Class Training? Not On My Watch!
Want to create in-class training plans that help both your learners and facilitators succeed? This session will serve as your blueprint for elevating your training design to the next level, enabling you to craft engaging, high-impact learning experiences that empower your facilitators to deliver.
You’ll start by self-assessing your current facilitator profile using a simple knowledge/ability matrix to identify both strengths and gaps. Then, you’ll dive into a practical four-step training design model that guides you through structuring sessions for maximum engagement and retention every time, blending instructional theory with real-world application.
You’ll leave with the skill to instantly diversify your delivery by learning to evaluate and deploy several effective, versatile training activities across different contexts. Best of all, you’ll receive a “Training Activity Cookbook”—a tangible resource filled with 86 “recipes” to immediately refresh your content and make your training design engaging, so that it leads to concrete behavior change.
By the end of this session, you’ll be able to:
- Identify what kind of trainer you and your facilitators are using a knowledge/ability matrix.
- Use a four-step training design model to design training that goes beyond lecture.
- Use a Training Activity Cookbook to diversify the activities you typically use when designing training.
Speaker: Brian Washburn, Co-founder and Principal, Endurance Learning
Steal These Tools: Fast, Free Fixes for Better Training Results
Most training teams unintentionally follow the same tired playbook—calendar invites nobody reads, announcement emails that land with a thud, and workshops that feel like reruns. But there’s another way.
This session is about breaking the routine with tools and techniques you probably haven’t tried yet. My rule of thumb: They have to be easy, affordable (often free), and make your programs better. Together, we’ll look at clever ways to spark attention, automate the dull stuff, and weave in video and interactivity that keeps learners leaning in.
You’ll walk away knowing how to:
- Turn boring invites into mini experiences that spark anticipation.
- Create digital pieces that people actually want to open and share.
- Communicate beyond the “training announcement” template.
- Use simple automations that free up your time (and brainpower).
- Tap into lesser-known video and multimedia platforms that engage.
- Connect the dots to build learning journeys that actually stick.
You’ll leave with a practical, plug-and-play toolkit to make your training more dynamic, more memorable, and a lot more fun—without breaking your budget or burning extra hours.
Speaker: Mike Taylor, Learning Consultant, Nationwide
Enhance Training Design With Empathy Mapping: A Learner-Centric Approach
When designing training, we often focus solely on content delivery, relying on text-heavy materials and SMEs focused only on content. This approach often overlooks learner engagement and motivation, resulting in courses that fall short of their objectives.
Empathy mapping provides a framework for considering the learner’s perspective, training goals, and how learners perceive their environment. By using this technique, you can create more engaging content and guide management and SMEs toward a holistic understanding of the learner.
In this session, you’ll learn the basics of empathy mapping, how to better understand your learners, and accurately gauge their engagement with different learning situations. We’ll discuss myths that hinder empathy mapping and provide examples of its application in developing in-person and e-learning courses. You will be provided a mapping diagram to guide and focus empathy mapping exercises.
In this session, you’ll learn how to:
- Avoid training that focuses on content but misses the learner perspective.
- Consider what a learner sees, says, hears, and does in response to the learning environment to enhance learner engagement.
- Guide SMEs and management to recognize the benefit of the empathy mapping approach.
- Apply empathy mapping to a variety of learning situations.
Speaker: Deanna Criddle, Training Specialist, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS)
Discover some of the most useful learning and development tools, resources, books, videos, and more in this quick share activity. Tell everyone about your favorites and uncover a wealth of new ones from the crowd.
Real World ID
Want to know more about what’s really happening with artificial intelligence (AI) in our field? Check out this session, where ATD Research will dig into the data and findings of their latest research study, AI in Instructional Design: Transforming Workflows and Content Creation.
In this session, you’ll learn more about how instructional designers use AI tools for day-to-day tasks, content creation, and the development of multimedia assets. You’ll also explore the types of AI tools instructional designers use, how those tools affect course quality, and the time it takes to create them.
Learn more about what the research says about key findings, including:
- 80 percent of instructional designers use AI tools.
- 65 percent began using AI tools within the last year.
- 96 percent are concerned about copyright and intellectual property rights of AI-generated content.
- 43 percent always or often use AI tools to develop training materials.
- 54 percent always or often use AI tools to develop voiceovers and narration.
Speakers: Rocki Basel, Director of Research, ATD; Josh Cavalier, Founder, JoshCavalier.ai
In Praise of Maintenance—Building Longevity in Your Learning
How often do you find yourself caught in the endless loop of updating courses, whether it’s to reflect a minor policy change or a significant shift in organizational priorities? Maintenance can be a major pain point for learning teams, especially when it involves compliance, technical training, or simulations—topics that are prone to frequent updates.
In this session, we’ll explore why designing for longevity is critical, not just for reducing rework but also for ensuring that your learning programs remain effective and engaging over time. Attendees will gain insights into how thoughtful planning and instructional design can reduce the maintenance burden, allowing them to focus on creating effective learning experiences.
This session will provide actionable strategies for building courses that are robust, adaptable, and easier to update when needed. You’ll learn how to design with flexibility in mind—anticipating changes and creating content that can evolve with minimal disruption. Whether you’re designing technical training, compliance modules, or immersive simulations, this session will arm you with the knowledge to make updates less painful while keeping your courses relevant and aligned with organizational goals.
In this session, you’ll learn how to:
- Plan and structure learning programs that remain relevant over time, minimizing the need for frequent updates.
- Create flexible content that can easily accommodate changes in compliance requirements, technical updates, or organizational shifts.
- Make updates efficient and straightforward, reducing time and effort spent on reworking existing courses.
Speaker: Garima Gupta, Founder-CEO, Artha Learning Inc.
Designing With the End in Mind: The Afterburn Effect
Most instructional designers focus on getting learners to the finish line—but what happens after the course ends? In workplaces that are constantly evolving, even the best-designed programs lose impact without a clear plan for reinforcement and application.
In this session, you’ll be introduced to the Afterburn Toolkit, a practical framework that helps instructional designers extend the life of learning long after delivery. You’ll explore how to intentionally design with the end in mind, creating reinforcement strategies that drive retention, support transfer, and inspire behavior change. Using real-world examples from corporate, government, and nonprofit settings. This session will also show you how to integrate reinforcement touchpoints into your design process, partner with leaders to sustain learning, and measure what truly matters—performance on the job. You’ll walk away with tools you can apply immediately to make your learning solutions not just memorable—but maintainable.
By the end of this session, you will be able to:
- Explain why post-training reinforcement is essential to long-term behavior change.
- Apply theAfterburn Toolkit to design learning that sticks and sustains performance.
- Identify simple, scalable reinforcement strategies that support application on the job.
- Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure accountability and follow-through after training.
Speaker: Dr. Michael Dorsey, Organizational Development Administrator, Maryland Department of Transportation
KADDIE: A Modern Kirkpatrick Blueprint for Designing Training That Drives Performance and Results
In today’s learning landscape, instructional designers are expected to create training that not only informs but also transforms performance and delivers measurable business results. This session introduces KADDIE, a modern instructional design system that integrates the Kirkpatrick Model directly into the instructional design process. Instead of viewing the Kirkpatrick Four Levels® as an evaluation tool used at the end, you’ll learn how to use them as a strategic compass from the very beginning of a project. Through practical examples and a guided design walkthrough, you’ll learn how to streamline decision making, strengthen alignment with stakeholders, and ensure every learning activity ladders up to on-the-job performance.
This session is for beginner and intermediate instructional designers who want a clearer, easier way to design with the end in mind. You’ll discover how to translate organizational goals into critical behaviors, turn those behaviors into targeted learning objectives, and design experiences that prepare learners to apply new skills on the job. By the end, you’ll have a simple, repeatable process, supported by the Kirkpatrick Model, that you can apply immediately to any training project, regardless of industry or modality.
In this session, you will:
- Understand how to use the Kirkpatrick Model as a design framework, not just an evaluation model.
- Learn the workflow for aligning business goals, behaviors, objectives, and activities.
- Map Level 4 and Level 3 requirements into practical instructional design decisions.
- Create learning objectives that directly support behavior change and measurable outcomes.
- Leave with a repeatable, performance-focused design process you can use immediately.
Speaker: Vanessa Milara Alzate, Owner/CEO, Kirkpatrick Partners
Stronger Together: How Agile Design Fuels Collaboration
Instructional design works best when everyone moves in the same direction. Agile design brings structure to that collaboration by creating a flexible, efficient process focused on results.
This session will explore how agile methods can save you time, reduce stress for your subject matter experts, and strengthen your relationships with stakeholders. You’ll leave with ideas you can apply immediately to build stronger partnerships and better learning outcomes.
In this session, you’ll learn practical ways to:
- Keep projects on track.
- Involve the right people at the right times.
- Create learning experiences that meet both business goals and learner needs.
Speaker: Allana C. Bowman, CPTD, Training and Development Specialist, Pharmacy Data Management (PDMI)
Practical Recovery Methods for Instructional Design Setbacks
Instructional design projects face unexpected disruptions all the time, and even seasoned project managers can’t anticipate every challenge. The real skill lies in recovery, which involves balancing time, scope, and budget while managing risks effectively.
This session explores strategies for bringing projects back on track through curated case studies and a project recovery model you can use. Discover how to reassess priorities, reallocate resources, and mitigate risks to preserve value. Gain practical insights to navigate setbacks and steer your projects toward success.
In this session, you’ll learn how to:
- Identify common causes for project disruption in instructional design projects.
- Preserve value in projects by reassessing priorities, reallocating resources, and mitigating risks.
- Use a project recovery model to bring instructional design projects back on track.
Speaker: Juan Mavo-Navarro, Instructional Designer & Learning Consultant, Threshold Concepts
Elevating Instructional Design by Asking Better Questions
Is it time to rethink how you approach instructional design? Join David Kelly, learning strategist and longtime advocate for innovation in L&D, for this thought-provoking and practical keynote exploring how better questions can elevate both your work and your career. You’ll discover how to challenge assumptions that limit design impact, adopt a curiosity-driven mindset that unlocks new opportunities, and ask questions that expand how you define your role, helping you grow as both a designer and a learning professional.
Keynote Speaker: David Kelly, L&D Executive, Advisor, Speaker, & Author
