Create More Effective Learning with Evidence-Based Strategies
October 14 & 15, 2026 • All Online
Every learning experience is shaped by hundreds of design decisions. What should learners practice? How much content is enough? When should they reflect? What kind of feedback helps them improve?
Research offers valuable guidance, but applying that evidence in everyday design work isn’t always straightforward. This event explores practical ways to turn science into better design decisions.
In this online conference, you’ll explore practical, evidence-informed approaches to learning design that help improve retention, reduce unnecessary cognitive load, build expertise, and support transfer to the workplace. Through real-world examples, proven frameworks, and hands-on activities, you’ll discover strategies you can immediately apply to your own learning experiences.
You’ll walk away with strategies for:
- Reducing cognitive overload and improving recall
- Designing practice, reflection, and reinforcement to support learning transfer
- Approaches that sustain learner attention and motivation
- Using media elements intentionally to support learning outcomes
- Designing for learners with diverse needs, backgrounds, and experiences
Connect and exchange ideas with other attendees! At the end of each day, you’ll be invited to gather in small groups in our ThinkSpaces to reflect on key ideas from the sessions, share perspectives, and explore how you’ll apply what you’ve learned.
Program
DAY 1: October 14
101: Weave Reflection into Learning to Improve Retention
11:25 AM – 12:30 PM ET / 8:25 AM – 9:30 AM PT
What if everything you know about reflection is backwards? Most of us save reflection for the end of training, but by then much of the learning has already faded. When reflection is woven throughout the learning experience, people retain more, apply learning faster, and remember what matters.
Learn more.
201: Cut the Clutter to Reduce Extraneous Load
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT
Most extraneous load isn’t a content problem—it’s a design problem. Decorative images compete for attention, narration repeats on-screen text, visual hierarchy is unclear, and learners struggle to identify what actually matters. The content may be accurate and approved, yet post-training performance still falls short.
Learn more.
301: Build Expert Performance—Online—with Deliberate Practice
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM PT
Online learning is good at delivering information. Building expertise online is a different challenge.
Learn more.
DAY 2: October 15
401: Move from Training to Transfer with Performance-Led Design
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM ET / 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM PT
Many learning solutions begin with content: what needs to be covered, explained, presented, or uploaded. The result is familiar. Learners are expected to remember too much, learning experiences become overloaded, and transfer is left to chance once people return to work.
Learn more.
501: Write Clear, Effective Narration That Supports Learning
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT
Voice-over is often the weakest element in otherwise well-designed eLearning. Visuals may be polished and interactions thoughtfully designed, yet dense, text-heavy narration increases cognitive load, causes learners to disengage, and weakens retention. The problem is rarely audio quality—it is how narration is written for listening.
Learn more.
601: Transform Feedback into a Powerful Learning Tool
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM PT
Feedback has always been an essential element of effective learning. Robert Mager emphasized the importance of constructive feedback for improving performance, and that principle remains relevant, even as organizations increasingly rely on asynchronous eLearning. Feedback must do more than confirm whether an answer is right or wrong; online, it must serve as a stand-in for the instructor, guiding learners toward mastery without real-time facilitation
Learn more.
101: Weave Reflection into Learning to Improve Retention
11:25 AM – 12:30 PM ET / 8:25 AM – 9:30 AM PT Wednesday, October 14
This session explores how to incorporate reflection before learning begins, during the learning experience, and after training to strengthen retention and application. You’ll discover why when you reflect matters just as much as how you reflect.
Through practical activities, you’ll explore techniques such as pre-flection, retrieval practice, Four Corners, spaced reflection, and structured follow-up, identifying where each works best within your own learning experiences.
You’ll leave with a practical guide organized by learning outcome and a collection of proven reflection strategies you can immediately apply to make learning stick.
201: Cut the Clutter to Reduce Extraneous Load
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT Wednesday, October 14
This session introduces a four-question audit framework grounded in Mayer’s coherence, signaling, redundancy, and segmenting principles. We’ll also explore why extraneous load matters and why its impact can be especially significant for neurodivergent learners.
Using a before-and-after case study, we’ll examine four common design violations and show you how to make meaningful improvements without rebuilding the learning. You’ll then apply the same framework to a module, slide deck, or job aid you bring, scoring each screen against the four principles and identifying practical improvements.
You’ll leave with a completed self-audit, a one-page audit rubric, a practical case study, and an evidence brief you can use to improve future learning designs.
301: Build Expert Performance—Online—with Deliberate Practice
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM PT Wednesday, October 14
Expert performance doesn’t come from exposure to content alone. It comes from deliberate practice—clear targets, focused effort, immediate feedback, and repetition.
In this session, you’ll learn how we redesigned an instructor-led, hands-on technical certification into a fully asynchronous experience without sacrificing repetition, feedback, or authentic practice. Using a real-world example, you’ll see how learners repeatedly rebuilt their work, received automated feedback through the “Gremlin Hunter,” and demonstrated their skills using randomized certification scenarios.
You won’t just hear about deliberate practice—you’ll experience it. Through a hands-on exercise, you’ll move from guided instruction to independent performance, receive peer feedback, and apply the same structure to one of your own learning activities.
You’ll leave with a practical framework for recognizing whether your training truly includes deliberate practice, redesigning learning activities to build expertise, and identifying where your assessments measure memory instead of skill.
401: Move from Training to Transfer with Performance-Led Design
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM ET / 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM PT Thursday, October 15
This session explores how evidence-informed design decisions can shift learning from content coverage to performance, practice, and application. Drawing on examples from workplace learning, leadership development, and capability-building, I’ll share a practical approach for identifying what learners need to understand, what they need to practice, what they need to recall, and the conditions that support transfer into the workplace.
Together we’ll work through a simple diagnostic for moving from a training request to a performance-led design brief, methods for separating essential content from useful context, and practical ways to design practice, reflection, and reinforcement around real work.
You’ll leave with a transfer checklist, a simple design canvas, and a practical framework for creating learning experiences that prioritize performance instead of content coverage.
501: Write Clear, Effective Narration That Supports Learning
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT Thursday, October 15
This session explores how to design narration that strengthens comprehension instead of increasing cognitive load. Using a practical framework, we’ll examine sentence compression, emphasis mapping, narration chunking, the deliberate use of silence, and techniques for aligning voice pacing with on-screen visuals to reduce split attention and eliminate redundant narration.
Through before-and-after examples from real training, you’ll identify what improves clarity and what creates overload. A guided rewrite activity will allow you to immediately apply the framework by restructuring a dense script for clearer pacing, stronger emphasis, and better learner processing.
You’ll leave with a repeatable approach for writing narration that is easier to follow, supports learning, and improves the effectiveness of video and eLearning.
601: Transform Feedback into a Powerful Learning Tool
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM PT Thursday, October 15
This session explores how to transform question remediation from a passive checkpoint into an active learning tool. Using the PASS Feedback Model, we’ll examine practical, time-efficient strategies for designing knowledge-check feedback that supports retention, strengthens learner confidence, and encourages application. We’ll also explore why simple correct/incorrect responses often fail to address misconceptions or build lasting capability and how more intentional feedback can help reduce retraining costs, compliance failures, and knowledge gaps.