About Guild Articles
Find practical, solution-oriented information—on design, development, management, technology, and executive matters—that you can use to make well-informed business decisions to ensure your organization’s success with learning.
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The Power of Storytelling in eLearning: Techniques to Try
Human connection is anchored in storytelling. Whether we are entertaining ourselves with books, television, and movies or connecting with each other in conversation, storytelling is a powerful component of what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s how we make sense of the world, share experiences, and build relationships. Let’s explore how this same power can be harnessed in learning design to create more engaging and effective educational experiences. Why storytelling works Incorporating storytelling into your learning strategy can elevate the learning experience and improve learning outcomes. Stories have the unique ability to appeal to a…
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Human-First: Designing Learning Journeys in the AI Era
The learning world is changing a lot because of AI. It’s been three years since we started experimenting with this technology, first cautiously and without seeing much promise. Now, it seems almost inevitable that AI will be used at all stages of creating a learning solution. The biggest benefit it has brought so far has been an efficiency boost. Many of us have learned to do our work faster. Theoretically, this means there’s more time for deeper, more creative work. But is that really happening? The AI efficiency paradox in learning design AI speeds up many tasks, especially around content…
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Turbocharge Your Professional Development with AI
You’ve just mastered a few new eLearning authoring tools, and now AI is knocking on the door, offering to do your job faster, smarter, and without needing coffee breaks. Should you be worried? Or excited? If you’re a Learning and Development (L&D) professional today, AI is more than just a buzzword—it’s transforming the way we design, deliver, and measure corporate training. But here’s the good news: AI isn’t here to replace you. It’s here to make you better at what you do. The challenge is to harness its potential to build digital-ready talent, not just within your organization but within…
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Adding AI to Every Step in Your eLearning Design Workflow
We know that eLearning is a staple of training and development. The expectations of the learners are higher than ever: They expect a dynamic, interactive, and personalized learning experience. As instructional designers, we are tasked with meeting these expectations by creating engaging and effective learning solutions. The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our eLearning design process is a game-changer that can significantly enhance the quality and efficiency of our work. No matter if you use ADDIE or rapid prototyping, AI has a fit in every aspect of your workflow. By integrating AI, you can ensure a more efficient and…
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Bridging the Digital Divide: Why Accessibility in Virtual Environments Matters More Than Ever
The shift to virtual learning highlights accessibility gaps. Simply having features isn’t enough; we need to master their use. The Learning Guild’s checklist helps L&D pros audit platforms & skills, ensuring inclusive design.
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Create Engaging Learning—While Staying Compliant
Creating engaging and compliant learning content can often feel like walking a tightrope. You want your training to capture attention, spark curiosity, and leave a lasting impact, all while navigating a complex maze of regulations and standards. This balancing act can seem daunting, but it’s also an opportunity to innovate and push boundaries. When approached thoughtfully, compliance can become a powerful tool—enhancing trust, fostering creativity, and unlocking new possibilities for impactful learning design. Yet, compliance often gets a bad reputation for stifling creativity. The need to follow strict regulations can lead to training materials that feel overly cautious, uninspiring, and…
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Investigating Informal Learning with Technology
Informal learning is having a moment right now, and it’s about time. As learning professionals, we can often get caught up in designing, developing, and implementing formal learning experiences, which can cause informal learning to fall to the wayside and easily be overlooked. However, informal learning experiences can have major, long-term effects on learning and business outcomes, so finding creative ways to track them can be valuable for L&D departments. What is informal learning? Informal learning is learning that is unstructured and self-directed. This is a broad definition, and there are different types of informal learning, but for our contexts,…
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Why On-the-Job Learning Boosts Active Listening & Engagement
When employees are disengaged it costs you, whether in turnover over lack of productivity. Better feedback is proven to help both retention & engagement, shaping the culture and impacting the bottom line of the business. You likely know this. But what sets apart those who are great at providing feedback? And how do you then train others to change their behaviors and improve at giving and receiving feedback? Great feedback providers have a network of behaviors and skills operating together—skills like active listening, clear communication, timeliness & consistency, and emotional intelligence (EI). We’ll focus on active listening here, unpacking what…
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AI as a Collaborative Partner: Redefining Roles in the Workplace
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept; it is a transformative force reshaping industries and the way we work. As AI continues to evolve, it is redefining job roles and responsibilities, enabling humans to focus on higher-level tasks and decision-making. This shift is creating a new paradigm where AI and humans collaborate to achieve greater efficiency, innovation, and productivity. The evolution of job roles AI is transforming job roles by automating repetitive, manual, and data-driven tasks. This automation allows human workers to concentrate on more complex and creative responsibilities. For example, in industries such as manufacturing, customer service,…
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The Journey Within: How Self-Awareness Ignites Skill Development
Imagine setting aside time to learn a new skill, only to realize the biggest barrier is not the complexity of the material—but your own self-perception. Research indicates that while 95% of people think they are self-aware, only 10% to 15% truly are. For us as learning and development (L&D) professionals, this gap represents not just a challenge, but an exciting opportunity: to design learning experiences that don’t simply teach skills but ignite personal transformation. Self-awareness is more than the latest leadership buzzword: It is the heartbeat of effective learning and skill development, yet it is often an untapped avenue when…