Whether or not these are considered confessions might depend on your definition. However, I did interview Dr. Elham Arabi, Global Learning Consultant, Northeastern University, about the challenges her university clients are currently facing, her thoughts on AI replacing instructional designers, and the perspectives she’ll bring to the Learning Leadership Conference:
Q: How did you get started in learning and development?
A: I transitioned from teaching. I used to be a language teacher, and observing how my students were struggling with a one-size-fits-all approach triggered me. The demands and mandatory requirements of the administration, such as saying that you just have to stick to a syllabus regardless of the needs of the students, triggered me to pursue formal education.
I did my masters in instructional technology, which gave me valuable insights and a strong foundation. And hands-on work experience really helped me grow in my career. So, the master’s degrees I did in instructional technology really helped in terms of building foundations, but then the work experience, as I worked in different organizations and different countries, really expanded my insight and experience.
I decided to eventually shift to fully to learning and development and strategizing, and for that I pursued my PhD where again my work experience somehow coupled with my education.
Q: What current work are you doing in learning and development?
A: I am in the strategic side of consulting within the organization. I’m with Northeastern University at the moment, but I have also been a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO).
I have been advising Northeastern University on their strategic decisions in terms of choosing a solution for learning, and currently, something that I am using a lot is actually doing industry research to have a better understanding of where the needs are before just jumping into coming up with a new course or a graduate certificate, or even a full training course.
I try to do my best to persuade the stakeholders to use research and form strategies, something which is really minimally considered whenever a training or a learning program is considered for learners. We want to tailor something to the needs of the students, specifically the skills that are required by their industry.
Q: What are the current challenges your clients within the university face?
A: They all have different views. They’re totally different in terms of how they view learning for students. So, there are a variety of challenges within the same organization.
One thing I am repeatedly experiencing is information overload and knowledge dump. People are giving more and more content to learners rather than using practice-based learning or project-based learning. Learning sciences don’t seem to be translated into the final product. It’s really the resistance or the lack of awareness of effective, impactful strategies that can help the learners not just retain what they learn but also use what they learn.
Q: Without giving too much of a spoiler, what can attendees expect from your Learning Leadership Conference session?
A: It reflects my personal experience of transitioning from a teacher to trainer, then to an instructional designer, followed by a learning professional, and finally an L&D consultant.
In addition to my personal experience, I’m also going to be sharing insights, tools, and strategies based on my formal education to transition from an order taker and grow in your career.
There is this hype about AI, and many people assume that the job of an instructional designer is going to be gone because they’re just going to get an AI to do that job. I personally do not really agree. If an instructional designer wants to still be an order taker who’s just converting a few PowerPoint slides into an eLearning course, then yes, maybe. But I want to share with my audience how to be a strategic advisor, not just an order taker. That way, we can gain a competitive advantage for ourselves and also for our organizations.
Even if AI weren’t there, I would have still shared this session. When I worked as an instructional designer, providing more training seemed to be viewed as the solution to build skills. But there is really more to it, and we, as instructional designers, need to be at the table when these decisions are actually being made. So, I could see a transition in my own career where I got involved in those conversations with leadership and how impactful it was to serve our learners and even the company.
Q: What perspective are you going to bring to your Leadership Insight Forum discussion at the Learning Leadership Conference?
A: Each of the speakers has a unique perspective in terms of using evaluation matrices for performance evaluation. I’ve started to feel that many of these measurements are actually fuzzy, both for an employee who’s being evaluated and their supervisors for evaluating them. So this is where I would like to share how we can use more diagnostic matrices and also what kind of approach we could use so that we not only get the buy-in from the leadership but also benefit the employees within the teams.
