Leading Learning Podcast

As professor emeritus and senior fellow at the University of Illinois Springfield and senior fellow at the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), Ray Schroede is a leading expert in higher education and online learning. With decades of experience teaching, leading, curating, and writing, Ray brings unmatched knowledge and passion to the conversation around emerging t...

The turning of a calendar from one year to the next is a natural time for reflection and preparation. In the previous episode , we looked back at the year that was for learning businesses. In this episode we turn forward to focus on the year that is. Drawing on data collected at the end of 2021, we uncover the top areas that learning businesses are prioritizing in the new year. We also reveal thre...

As we just said goodbye to 2021 and rang in a new year, it feels only natural to pause and take a moment—or, in this case, an episode—to reflect. And, as learning business leaders, we know what a profound impact reflection can have on learning. That’s why in this first new episode of 2022, we’re looking back at the broader learning landscape and larger trends that shaped the previous year, includi...

We’ve covered a lot of ground in the first six “courses” in the series for our mythical learning business MBA, and we’ve mostly focused on what —identifying the key skills and knowledge learning businesses need to survive and thrive. The what is important, but so too is the who —finding people with the key skills and knowledge and cultivating those skills and knowledge in your team. This includes...

We've reached our next-to-last installment in our learning business MBA series, where we're continuing to explore the question "What kinds of skills, knowledge, and behaviors do learning businesses need to be successful?" A common theme has emerged as an answer. (1) You have to know your market and audience, and (2) you have to get product development right. But there's another...

Steven Schragis is founder and director of One Day University, an adult education program that brings the best and most popular professors from all over the country to develop fun and engaging talks that inform and inspire adult “students-for-a-day.” At One Day U, learning isn’t driven by career advancement goals or earning a degree; it’s for people who simply want to engage in the pure joy of lif...

Jim Obsitnik is the chief executive officer at Cadmium , a software-as-a-service provider that brings events and education technology together. He believes in the higher social calling of learning and education and has spent many years in the learning space. Jim also holds an MBA from the Wharton School with a focus in marketing, which makes him an excellent guest lecturer in our learning business...

This podcast series is our attempt to offer a theoretical learning business MBA program, and we invite you to play along. Imagine you’re in business school and about to hear a guest lecture by Mary Byers , a speaker, facilitator, consultant, and author of several books, including Race for Relevance: Five Radical Changes for Associations . She’s also host of the Successful Associations Today Podcas...

Both marketing and strategy are fundamental to the health and success of a learning business, which is why we knew we had to address them in the context of the learning business MBA.  Of course, the learning business MBA doesn’t exist yet, rather, we’re using it as shorthand for the key skills, knowledge, and behaviors needed by those working in market-facing learning businesses so they can ensure...

Chances are, if you’re in the learning business, you probably didn’t go to school knowing this is where your career would take you. Some of you may a have strong background on the learning or education side, while others may have it on the business side—but likely, you don’t have an equally strong background when it comes to both, and it may be difficult to combine the two. And because we want you...

This is the last installment in our seven-episode series on learning science’s role in a learning business , and we’ve covered a variety of interesting topics. But we want learning science to be more than interesting. We want you to apply it so you can elevate the success and impact of your learning business, as well as the success and impact of the learners you serve. In this episode, we revisit...

Learning science uses evidence-based practice to support learning, and evaluation plays a critical role in providing that evidence by revealing learning’s true impact. To help us unpack how evaluations should inform decisions about learning, we spoke with Dr. Robert Brinkerhoff and Dr. Daniela Schroeter, co-directors of the Brinkerhoff Evaluation Institute (BEI). Rob is an internationally recogniz...

Practice and feedback are essential to effective learning, yet all too often they aren’t given the time and attention they deserve by learning businesses. Practice and feedback are powerful tools for moving a learning experience away from pure theory and content and towards deeper learning and application in the real world. In this fifth episode in our seven-part series on learning science’s role...

Both Ruth Colvin Clark and Myra Roldan are evidence-based learning designers who combine a nuanced understanding of learning theory with years of hands-on experience developing solutions. Ruth is principal and president of Clark Training & Consulting and has spent her career as an instructional psychologist, working with diverse organizations. She’s the author of many articles and books, inclu...

Learner needs are important—but, in the context of learning businesses, learner wants are just as important. Correctly satisfying these needs and wants requires figuring out what to offer—not by assuming or guessing what’s needed in the market but by following processes and systems that yield the data to prove it. In this third installment in our seven-part series focused on learning science for l...

Dr. Megan Sumeracki is an associate professor of psychology at Rhode Island College and co-founder of  The Learning Scientists , a group of cognitive psychological scientists aiming to make scientific research on learning more accessible to students, teachers, and other educators. Her area of expertise is in human learning and memory, and in applying the science of learning in different contexts....

For any organization offering learning, learning science is important. But it’s arguably even more important for learning businesses because of the far-reaching impact that can be achieved from effectively applying it. In this first installment in our "Learning Science for Learning Businesses" new seven-part series, we take a broad look at the science of learning, including related practic...

As we close out our seven-part series on the frontiers of learntech , we want to help you make sense of what the wide-ranging topics that emerged mean for the future of your learning business. Through the interviews with Ashish Rangnekar , Sam Sannandeji , Sae Schatz , and Donald Clark and our own reflective episodes, we’ve had the chance to touch on many different aspects of learntech. We covered...

Ashish Rangnekar, a self-described lifelong learner, is co-founder and CEO of BenchPrep , where he’s focused on helping organizations digitally transform their learning offerings in the new digital world order. BenchPrep elevates and empowers learning businesses through their full-stack learning platform, aimed at delivering the best digital experience to drive outcomes and increase revenue. In th...

Recognized as a leader in extended reality (XR) learning, Sam Sannandeji is founder and CEO of  Modest Tree , a Canadian company providing immersive software to empower non-technical people to create and maintain their own augmented reality and virtual reality training. He brings both a technical, hands-on expertise of how XR works with an understanding of the needs and pain points immersive techn...

This marks the halfway point in our series on the frontiers of learntech . Our hope is that you have already begun to consider the implications this inevitable explosion in learning technology will have on your learning business.  And when it comes to implications we want to focus on some of the major themes that emerged from our earlier conversations with Donald Clark and Sae Schatz —particularly...

Throughout her career, Sae Schatz has been deeply immersed in the application and advancement of learntech. She currently serves as director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative , a government program for science, technology, and policy related to distributed learning. She's also an editor of and contributor to the e-book Modernizing Learning: Building the Future Learning Ecos...

With an unmatched passion, knowledge, and optimism related to advances in learntech, Donald Clark has over three decades of experience at the intersection of technology and learning. He is CEO of  WildFire , an AI content creation company, and a professor, researcher, speaker, and l earntech blogger (he's written a series of posts on 100 learning theorists who have shaped the world of learning...

Learning technology is on the cusp of a renaissance. It’s poised to explode, proving to be essential to the smooth functioning of society and the daily life of billions of people worldwide. So it just made sense to choose it as the focus of our next seven-part series. In this first episode exploring the frontiers of learntech, we discuss what the topic means to us, key reasons that learning techno...

We’ve reached the final installment in our seven-part series on the third sector of education—the sector serving the millions of adults who continue to learn and grow in the decades following their secondary and post-secondary education—so we’re breaking down what we’ve learned along the way, and most importantly, what it all means for your learning business.   In this final episode, we reflect on...