5 Tips for Successfuly Implementing Academic-Style Learning

Alright. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining today's webinar, five tips for successfully implementing academic style learning. I'm Jess Thompson, content producer on behalf of ATD, and I will be your moderator for today. I'd like to take a moment to to thank today's sponsor, Canvas by Instructure, your trusted partner in delivering impactful learning experiences. If you'd like to submit your comments and questions throughout today's presentation, you can do so via the chat box. Please make sure to select everyone in the drop down menu.

Let's practice right now. Please share where you're joining us from today. Alright. And I see some of those responses rolling in. Welcome.

Welcome, everyone. We have folks joining us from all over. Thank you for being here today. Alright. And now I'm very pleased to introduce today's presenter.

Matthew Patinsky is the CEO of Parchment and cofounder and former CEO and executive chairman of Blackboard Inc. He serves on the boards of American University and new classrooms with past roles on various other boards and nonprofits. Matthew is a frequent speaker and writer on education technology and entrepreneurship and is the editor of the Wired Tower. And now without further ado, Matthew. Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure, to be here. And as was mentioned, as we go through the presentation, please put questions into the chat, and Jess and I will collaborate, ask, and address them as we as we, move through. So at this point, I am going to use the power of Zoom to replace the current share, and I am going to bring up, my slides. And as you can tell, we've had a little bit of fun with Halloween coming up in in just a week or two. I am zooming from Phoenix, one of the most, sad parts of living in Phoenix, if you're from the East Coast, is, trick or treating with children who smell like sunscreen lotion and are picking up pumpkins, in the middle of the desert next to cacti because that's where the pumpkins have been dropped.

But other than that, it is an absolutely beautiful place to live. That is not why we are here. We are here to talk about five tips for successfully implementing academic style, learning. And, thank you for the introduction. And I'll just wanna double click a little bit more on my background because in many ways, it sets up the context for this topic and why I was particularly excited to have the opportunity to address it.

So as was mentioned, I've kinda worn two hats in my life. Life. One is as an academic. I was an aspiring social studies teacher as an undergrad, went through the teacher prep program, learned about instructional design, learning objectives, all the great research and science behind teaching that a typical graduate of a school of education will benefit from these days. And then eventually got my PhD in sociology of education and was a tenure track assistant professor at Arizona State University teaching aspiring teachers as well as sociology majors and using a academic LMS in, the university.

At the same time, I've had this education technology background. So in nineteen ninety seven, I cofounded the software company Blackboard, which was one of the early, pioneers of the learning management system category. And then later, help build, parchment, which you may know from the world of credentialing. So digital badges and transcripts and certificates and diplomas, both academic as well as professional credentials, and the ability of learners to be able to earn those credentials throughout their academic and professional careers. And it's that combination and and Parchment, sorry, was recently acquired, by Instructure, which is how I come to be at Instructure, and very happy to be back inside of a learning management system, company again.

And I think this history is relevant in a few ways that we'll talk about. But one in particular is that if I close my eyes and more specifically read a chapter of the book that was mentioned, The Wire Tower, I can go back to nineteen ninety, really not ninety seven, but ninety nine, two thousand. And it was a time when people really thought in in distinct terms, in dichotomies, in either ors. So we would talk about learning management systems and elearning more generally in the context of is it in person or is it online? So are you still meeting twice a week, at at at a company or inside of a school or university, and this is adding a third dimension to that learning experience, or is it being delivered purely online? Is it self paced where the learner is kinda driving the experience completely on their own, or is it instructor led and you're part of this more social experience with a human acting as a facilitator? Similarly, was it synchronous or asynchronous? Is this about learning that's delivered in real time where we come together as a as a as a group? Or is it learning sort of related to self paced that's more asynchronous, and you have the opportunity to kinda consume it on your own? Although, of course, you can have social experiences asynchronous as well. And one of those other either ors was, is this about corporate learning, or is it about academic learning? Now we know, I think, in twenty twenty four, that at least those first three either ors were a bit more blockages of our own mind as opposed to the reality of how learning management systems and e learning would develop.

Because, ultimately, these are about modalities and pedagogical approaches that are matches to the program that you're trying to deliver as opposed to something hard and fast about how a learning management system should be. And I would argue, and really a premise of this entire session, is that the same is true for corporate and academic. Yes. It is true that there are learning management systems that we associate with the academic market, learning management systems that we associate with the corporate market. And there are differences between them in their degree of emphasis of those ideas above, as well as how they integrate with different systems, you know, whether it's an HRIS system or other systems, the kind of content libraries that they're used to, delivering through the learning management, environment.

But at the end of the day, just as those first three are ultimately about the nature of the learning program, I would argue so is that last one. That we need to move beyond the idea that there is a, a learning management system for academe and a learning management system for corporate and really ask the question, what's the nature of the learning programs that we're trying to deliver? What are the kinds of tools and capabilities we want to be able, to, deliver? And how does that then best match to the kind of learning management infrastructure we want for for those programs. And one really big reason is because the learner is not either or. The learner is not someone who solely exists in any one of those modalities, and the typical employee in the enterprise is someone who has gone through an experience with learning management as early as perhaps elementary school, but certainly middle school and high school and has continued that into the university experience. And, of course, the difference between a university experience and the experience within an enterprise, within a learning enterprise, corporate enterprise, they're not fixed because oftentimes, we have individuals who have one foot in the workplace and another foot inside a formal education, program.

So for all of these reasons, we think that there's much more to be gained working backward from the nature of the program and the kinds of infrastructure that work for those programs as there is to think about these fixed approaches. And coming from Instructure and coming from Canvas as a learning management system, we think and we use the term academic style learning is something that happens certainly within schools and universities, but equally happens, inside of corporate organizations as well. So what is academic style learning? And I should mention at this point that all of these slides will be available afterwards if they're helpful and we get into very specific concepts and definitions. But there are, I think, five characteristics, not exhaustive, but primary characteristics that really define what we mean by academic style learning. The first is it's typically social.

That social, again, can be asynchronous through discussion, although more often than not, it is synchronous. But academic style learning is social learning. It's cohort based learning. Learning is in its core, I would argue as a guess a sociologist, I'm biased, but a social process. A process that social not just in the peer of going through it with a cohort, but as well the role of instructor to help go deeper, to personalize, and to create greater meaning to the nature of the educational program.

Now there are plenty of corporate learning programs for which that instructor led social dynamic may not be relevant. We would argue though many it is, particularly higher order types of, content areas. It's conversational, and that conversation drives reflection. So there's an opportunity for someone to reflect back the nature of learning. It is assessed as part of that reflection, not just on a summative basis and outcomes, but also on a formative basis.

And I think a defining characteristic of academic style learning is it ultimately is tied to a credential, and it exists in the context of a program where there's this very active thinking about how each skill and competency and learning objective that we're working towards clusters around a particular concept or or topic area, which itself aggregates up to a program, and there's credentialing at different levels of of that aggregation. Again, that exists certainly within the corporate enterprise as well, but when we think about credentials, I think we more typically think about academic style, learning, and yet that is so relevant to employees inside of the enterprise who want the opportunity to translate the education that you're providing into credentials that are gonna advance them throughout their careers, and not just be trapped within whatever tracking system you're using to ensure compliance or to meet a particular HR or talent objective. So at this point, I'm gonna kinda switch gears and go from the macro and the very high level concepts to talk a little bit about the tips, the very specific characteristics of academic style learning. But before I do that, I would love to see if there have been because I can't see it in the way my screen is being shared. But, Jess, are there any questions that have come in or observations or violent disagreements in what I've shared so far that we can talk about? No questions so far, Matthew.

I do see some comment about l LMS systems, are interactive or inviting for every adult learner, corporate or whether corporate or academic. But no questions so far. Just more comments. Sounds good. So we'll pause after each of these, to take questions as well.

And then we've ultimately set this up to have the vast majority of time at the end for discussion. And having been an assistant professor, I'm very good with long pregnant pauses. So we will wait until we successfully engender them. So let's dive into the five tips for academic style learning. The first is emphasize learning objectives and outcomes.

Start with the end in mind, and we'll talk a little bit more about that. Second, leverage active learning techniques. Clearly, that's an emphasis when we talk about instructor lab. We talk about social learning, but it goes even deeper in terms of the concept of active learning. Third, incorporate formative assessments, not just summative assessments at the end, but formative assessments that help.

And this includes the notion of reflections, but the opportunity to understand how folks are progressing towards that end and use that to ultimately drive, higher achievement. Fourth, foster a collaborative learning environment. Think about how that learning experience can be social, can be cohort based, and can create connections that live beyond just that particular program. And then finally, maybe this is a bias that comes from the parchment side of things, but credential you're learning. Think about learning as not only something that happens in the context of the enterprise against whatever data model or tracking systems that you manage for your people, but also a credential that has market value to the learner outside of the enterprise as well.

So with no further ado, we'll talk a little bit more about each of these five. And if there are others you'd love to suggest, please do that as well. So we'll start with tip number one. And I think right after after classroom management, and the fear that every new teacher has about standing in front of the room and being able to fill the time and manage the discipline, so to speak, the second thing that you learn in a teacher program or a teacher ed program is learning objectives, and outcomes, and starting with that end in mind, and designing the programs and the assessments with very clear learning objectives. These learning objectives will tie later to the tip around credentialing.

Because the better that we articulate the learning objectives, the skills and competencies that we are expecting, from someone who completes this program successfully, and the criteria associated with successful completion, the more we're building out, a deeper data model and a deeper representation of the learning that can ultimately be reflected in those credentials. When I look at a badge and what it means to have completed that program, what I'm ultimately looking at is what were the learning objectives and what were the criteria for achieving those learning objectives. There's the acronym SMART that you want learning objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time limited or time bound or or or time aware. There's a lot more to creating great learning objectives than just that acronym, but I think it gives a good flavor. And you can see some of the examples on the right hand side that apply.

Now I think we're at a point where a lot of the learnings from teacher from pedagogical research and the learning sciences certainly are part and parcel of good practice within corporate learning. But assuming that we've got a group of folks from a wide variety of backgrounds, I think it's always best to start with the importance of a really well defined learning objective. And, again, the criteria for achieving it and the representation of those learning objectives, ultimately, to credentials. A great example is, general assembly. And general assembly, if you're not familiar, has a a wide range of programs now, but the core of what they do is help, graduates of academic programs who may have social sciences and humanity degrees, as well as more vocationally oriented degrees, develop that extra level of skills that are clearly associated with the most in demand, jobs in our economy.

And so for that reason, everything that they do is outcomes based, skills based through very clearly articulated learning objectives. The assessments, the curriculums, the credentials, all of it is associated with those learning objectives. And a lot of the time that they spend with employers and industry is around reviewing and iterating those learning objectives in the context of their broader program design, and program assessment work. So tip number one is really think deeply about your learning objectives, both the articulation, the assessment, and ultimately, the credentialing. Okay.

Tip number two. Tip number two is act leverage active learning techniques. I think this is true if you think about a typical academic environment, the Ferris Bueller world of Bueller Bueller just sitting in a room watching a sage on the stage lecture. It is certainly true within the corporate learning environment, particularly in the age of Zoom, folks working from home, and the live experience of learning feeling so much like the everyday experience. And, again, I know we've got a range of attendees and a range of work sites that, attendees represent.

But we know from the learning sciences that the more that learning is active, where I'm writing and I'm presenting and I'm discussing and I'm creating and engaging, and there are artifacts that I'm producing as part of the program as opposed to just passively consuming. That can work maybe, arguably, for something compliance oriented. Think about cybersecurity compliance, and we wanna make sure everybody knows what phishing is, and they ask five questions at the end asking a bunch of videos. But I would argue that doesn't work for a lot of the deeper skills development that we want to impart in many of the programs that we are, delivering. So active learning, the more that, an individual is doing as part of the learning process, the deeper they're gonna internalize what it is that they're learning.

And that obviously has implications for the LMS because LMSs are better and worse at the ability to integrate the content and the learning applications and the community of practice, and reusable learning resources that really foster active, foster active learning. And I think it's many of the academic oriented LMS infrastructures that tend to have that particular, strength, not surprising. And so what's a great example of that would be Compass, which has built, most of their learning programs around the world notion of real world scenarios, and there are immersive discussions and assessments that are part of the program. And there's a lot of peer to peer learning as part of that real world scenarios because much of what's being learned is things that you're going to do in the workplace that you're going to do with other people, that you're gonna do in the context of your manager, in the context of your peers. And so to learn and demonstrate those skills outside that context is obviously a lot less rich and lower fidelity than doing it with those peers.

So, real world scenarios are just one type of active learning, but it's a great example in what Compass, is is doing. So let me pause here and see, Jess, if so far there are some comments or questions that have come in before we move on to, tip number three. Sure. So we do have a comment here. Sometimes I feel the credentialing market has been hijacked by capitalism because, I meet people with many acronyms, the, ability get ability to demonstrate those skills, which gives me doubt in credentialing.

Public schools are teaching for test prep rather than real world scenarios. And then another comment, active learning sometimes requires more time and therefore is devalued. So on the latter comment first, I I've I could understand why more time makes it more difficult. It can often be more expensive. It can be more bespoke because you're really thinking a little bit more deeply about what it is that you are delivering, and and maybe are creating things that enable the active learning that's most real world to your particular context.

I would hope that would make it devalued. I can understand why that makes it harder to do sometimes, and you really have to tie that to the learning outcomes and to the, learner's own experience. Because, obviously, they're I I think it's fair to say that, typically, they're going to ultimately review and assess and report back a better experience, in a more active learning model. But, hopefully, that does make it devalued, but I could see how that makes it, more expensive and takes more time to, to to deliver. On the credentialing side, gosh, there's so much to unpack there.

So first, the comment about how do we make sense of academic credentials today when grade inflation is rampant. And, unfortunately, learning is often about the grade, and it's about the credential as opposed to about the growth. And when learning becomes simply about a letter grade and not about the growth, that creates an environment in which kinda cheating and just there's a lot of stuff that kinda flows from that. There's a fantastic this is a little bit off topic, but you could tell something that I'm, personally very interested in. There's a wonderful book called How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning by a sociologist named David Lavery, and I would recommend that book if this is a topic that interests you.

When it gets into the world of corporate learning and corporate credentialing, we are in a world of expansion that I think will ultimately contract again. Right? If we think about something like project management and the PMP from the Project Management Institute. Right? That is a well valued, well recognized credential that that profession understands what it means, understands the levels. And so the evolution of it into a digital credential environment is a natural continuation. But there's other types of credentialing that flows from the education programs that a lot of organizations have done historically, but they didn't put their brand behind it.

And they didn't publish their learning objectives. And they didn't give their completers the credential when they left the company to be able to represent it in the hiring process. And these are emerging now. And I think it's going to be an interesting period of time where as candidates come forward to our hiring, processes with these credentials, as applicant tracking systems begin to record them better, as we can filter and discover talent and part on these credentials, I think we will begin to learn whether company a's leadership mastery credential, which is a badging program that has three levels. And I know that company, and I respect its brand.

Do I give that credence in the hiring process? Or is it just part of noise that's out there? So I wanna acknowledge that we are in that period of time of expansion where candidates are presenting themselves, which are much more diverse set of credentials. I think we will see contraction. We will start to value the credentials that we recognize based on the frequency that we see those candidates because they tend to be produced by folks who are in our industry or folks who are recognized that developing great leaders or great project managers. I think the industry associations are going to play critical roles here. We also have to turn those learning objectives into skill and competency frameworks and taxonomies, and we're seeing those taxonomies become steward did did by these associations.

So there's a whole bunch of stuff that has to get fostered for this to ultimately become meaningful. But I am very convinced that on the other side, we as talent managers and hires will be able to benefit from more than just the degree as a signal of skills and competencies, and we will have a higher fidelity learning record that we will be able to make recruiting and talent decisions based on, and that we will be able to bring value to our employees through our talent programs, not in a selfish way about what it does for me as the employer in the organization, but also as a value added way that for your time at my company, you are going to leave with a richer skills framework, with a richer learning record that's going to advantage you whenever that time comes to move on to the next stage of your career. So hopefully, that's a responsive philosophy on on that topic. Okay. So let's move to tip number three, incorporating formative assessments.

So just as a reminder, summative assessments or assessments that are as the name sounds, towards the end, they're ultimately about have you met the learning objectives of this program, in a way that is, you know, that reflects kinda completion and mastery of the total objectives of that, program. So it's our upper well, that wasn't a very good definition. I apologize. For those who know this a little bit deeper than me, please give me a little bit of grace. But, formative assessments are more about the developmental process of learning as opposed to the assessment of mastery at the end, I guess, is a better way of thinking about it.

It gives us rich insights. It allows us to personalize learning a little bit better. It allows us to, to, you know, ultimately help that, individual get to the mastery that the summative assessment is meant to, is meant to, assess and document. Learning management systems are have various strengths and weaknesses when it comes to formative assessments. The ability to develop to have assessment banks, test banks, to be able to develop these formative assessments, to deliver them in line with the learning experience.

The ability to do it not just through multiple choice, but to do it through portfolios and other ways of assessing, particularly if you're doing active learning. There's a whole bunch of stuff that we can begin to unpack and becomes evaluation criteria based on the idea of doing richer formative assessments. And you can see the def well, I could have teed off of these bullets in my ad hoc description in terms of assessment that's happening during the learning process and allowing you to pivot along the way to optimize outcomes, and to also understand after the program is over where these pitfalls happened to be able to and blocks happened in order to, better improve the program, overall. And a great example of it may not be an obvious example, but it would be, the PGA, the golf organization, which uses, interactive quizzes and activities constantly. So it's the active learning that we talked about, but it's doing it not only for a more engaging learning experience and by the nature of what's being taught, but also to, demonstrate that type to deliver the value of that, formative assessments and help improve the programs and provide timely feedback throughout.

And because this is so important, uses exam proctoring to ensure the integrity of both the formative as well as summative assessments that are, that are being delivered. So, let's do the last two tips, and then we'll move into kind of an open general discussion. Tip number four is foster a collaborative learning environment. This gets back to the idea that education is a social process. It's a social process peer to peer as well as it's a social process with the instructor.

There are really profound peer effects in education. We think about learning as being about the quality of the curriculum, about the capabilities of the learner, about the effectiveness of the instructor. We sometimes forget the fact that with whom we learn matters and that our peers are equally an input to the learning process. We also, from an employer perspective, can benefit from creating a sense of cohorts and learning communities that go beyond the particular moments where we're pulling you out of your tip of your work experience to go through a particular program, or we expect you to carve out time throughout the day or on the weekend, to create a sense of community that's going to be another vector of pure relationships inside the company than just who you work with based on your work responsibilities or based on other, you know, cohorts that you might be in. It's a fancy way of saying, why not use the learning process as a way to build teams and another way to create connection between employees inside of the enterprise? And you can see some of the examples of how collaborative learning can make things, richer.

A great example of that is Southwest Management School, a credentialing organization. And, they have some of what we typically associate with corporate learning models in terms of bite sized learning modules, but there's a lot of peer interaction that then wraps around those learning modules through discussion boards and collaborative activities. And then the alumni are, embedded within cohorts and serve as ambassadors with new cohorts that, helps bring life to the program and evangelize the program as well. Okay. Tip number five is credential your learning.

We've already talked about this a little bit in the context of the learning objectives, but a typical employee will go through a lot of different, educational programs provided by their employers. And sometimes it's compliance related. Sometimes it's very skills oriented to a particular role or task as part of onboarding. Sometimes it's part of career progression and the idea that we're developing you as a people manager. There are lots of ways into how these are, developed.

More often than not, they are recorded within an HRIS system or within a a within a learning management system, but therein they lie, and they are disconnected from each other. So as an employee, I don't necessarily see the forest. I just see the trees. I don't necessarily see how they build on each other towards higher and higher order, of, capabilities. And I don't necessarily have and, therefore, I don't have the ability to take the learning that you've provided me and the mastery that I've demonstrated of that learning and take it outside of this particular employer's context and use it to promote my professional identity, as well to find that next opportunity and advance my career.

And there's a natural tension there. Right? We're developing our people in part because we think it will drive retention, and we're investing in their skills because we want a payback from that investment. But I think, at this point, the research behind the notion of a tour of duty, the idea that people are eventually going to leave our organization, the idea that the best way to keep people is to recognize that and invest in them, not in a closed way, but in an open way. There's all sorts of, I think, well worn, research and experience that tells us that this kind of an open view actually can drive many of those, you know, quote, unquote, self interested reasons for doing these programs as well as advantage the learner over the time of their career. Then it's just, I think, a better way to run a railroad.

So, credentialing your learning is about the idea of defining those learning objectives, assessing them, representing them in credentials, having those credentials have clear titles and kind of, clusters of skills, having those stack as part of a program that gets you to higher and higher levels of mastery within a program, as well as working across different types of dimensions, and then ultimately, you know, doing that through an open credentialing platform like Canvas credentials or others that, are portable for the individual. And a great example of that is New Energy New York, which takes the rubrics from the industry standards within their fields, use that as the basis of learning objectives as well as the stacking and the program definition, provides a lot of, again, that hands on learning or experiential learning, and then ultimately issues micro credentials. There's another piece to this that again ties back to, the academy, which is increasingly universities are providing credit for prior learning. And, folks going into certificate programs at community colleges, at four year institutions, going on to graduate school, they're looking to get credit from the programs that you're delivering. And so another benefit of micro credentialing is that it allows individuals to then be able to formally present their qualifications to academic organizations and hopefully get credit towards advanced certifications or degrees as as well.

And and it becomes a common lingua franca, particularly if you are working closely with an academic partner in some of your program delivery. So those are the five. I'll kinda jump back in the deck. I hope this doesn't make you nauseous to the summary at the beginning. Emphasize your learning objectives and outcomes.

We also introduced the idea of borrowing from frameworks and taxonomies that exist within industries, assessing against that and credentialing against that. Leverage active learning, drives deeper comprehension, incorporate formative assessments, allows you to understand more about your program design and where you can improve that design for greater throughput, also helps personalize and tailor the learning, foster a collaborative learning environment, look for the opportunities to build cohort and social connections, and then credential your learning, which has a few different dimensions in terms of how you partner with academic organizations, how you represent your learning with the data model that's produced from your learning objectives, ultimately, how you make it portable for the learner so it advances them in their career. Also can be used for record keeping, for compliance. There's a bunch of other ways in which, formal credentialing of learning creates, value. So with that, I am excited to stop and take some questions and engage in discussion.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Matt. This was wonderful. Do have some questions rolling in, so I'll go ahead and dive right in. So we have a question.

Why do you why do you feel some corporate HR professionals are detached from learning and development? Everything in h everything in an HR perspective seems so compliance based, dry, uninteresting. The energy around training incorporation seems to be I have to do it, or it's mandatory. How can we encourage employees to enjoy the learning process in corporate or departmental settings? So when you first started asking, I thought you were asking, why do you feel that way? And then I was thinking, oh my gosh. Did I just say all of those things? Because as you can tell, I'm not a very disciplined, presenter. So now I feel a little better that it's your own reflection.

And, of course, it varies. Right? Why do I think that? Well, first, I think the reality is there's a variety of, I think that is a caricature of a certain type of learning that I certainly have experienced. You know, the one I think of is cybersecurity, and Instructure is a publicly traded company. So there's a whole bunch of things that you do as a publicly traded company, with your employees about material nonpublic information and what's stock trading windows. Right? We think of those topics as comp very compliance driven.

And our motivation is not necessarily deeper understanding. Our motivation is compliance and to be able to say that we've done it. And to do that credibly, we have to do a little bit of assessment. But, otherwise, it's sort of a check mark exercise. So I think the answer is ultimately in the nature of professional learning that we're providing.

It's moving up that hierarchy from compliance driven to talent development. And the more that we're living in a compliance driven world, I think the more the incentives are towards what you've described. And that's a feature, not a bug because it's cost effective and it's fast. And, you know, it doesn't demand too much of the employee, and it doesn't demand too much of the organization. The more that we're focused on talent development, whether it's leadership or workplace skills and competency based, business knowledge, industry knowledge, then I think we have the opportunity to make the bigger investment to create that higher impact learning.

Because the payoff of that is not in bad things don't happen. It's in really good value is created. I don't know if that's responsive or not, but but I think it ultimately flows from the nature of the program. Yeah. Hey.

So the next question, how do you, quote, unquote, convince senior leadership that this is the best model and to get them to prioritize this type of learning? I think it's to experience it. I think it's to demonstrate with a cohort what you know, if you've got an old model, that's what is the current state of the art. You know, just let us let us reimagine it. Right? What other you know, aren't we constantly innovating and reimagining every part of our business? You wouldn't expect your support organization to not take a moment to reimagine, you know, what the interaction of customer to company looks like through chats and new capabilities through AI. You know? Why similarly, with new knowledge based capabilities, new affordances, new technologies, new capabilities allow us to reimagine these experiences.

So give us the opportunity with a defined cohort to accomplish a higher order learning objective, so to get more out of the program with a more active, social based, probably some degree of synchronous based learning experience, and then have clearly defined business impacts of that, both in the nearest terms in terms of self reported, folk folks went through it and how they self reported their experience, all the way through tracking against whatever business value that program is meant to create. I know that sounds easier said than done, but it's to demonstrate it, I think, on a smaller scale because, that's where I think the fidelity can be most clearly represented. Thank you. Alright. Now working backwards here, gonna jump back to another question.

So any suggestions for how to incorporate the collaborative learning social aspect when you have a very small in person class? Sometimes I only have one to two people in class. I saw folks kind of commenting a little bit on this, but wanted to get your thoughts on this, Matt. Yes. Well, this is also a good point for me to practice sincere humility, which is I don't do what you do. So a lot of these questions are really strong practitioner questions, which I would never present myself.

Sometimes it's helpful to have a reflection from the outside, and I do have pattern recognition with the opportunity to work with lots of different companies, schools, and universities, but I don't do the hard work that you do. And so I really hope and expect that the chat is filled with people answering questions better than I can for each other. I know what we do at Parchment now in structure is we wait. So this may not be an option, but we wait until we have that critical mass. So we say that this social learning experience is important enough that if it takes three months to get to a cohort that we think is the right size cohort for this program, then we'll do that.

So we're launching cohorts sometimes on a weekly basis, sometimes on a monthly basis, sometimes on a quarterly basis. That can mean that you've got people doing work longer than ideal in terms of whatever that program is meant to provide them, whether it's orientation or something, you know, beyond that. But we really think it's really important to go through it as a and so we'll do we'll do more often starts, and we'll do slower starts based on, the peer group. Otherwise, it's gonna be smarter people than me that can come up with strategies for how you have something social in a smaller group. You know, so let me stop there.

Yeah. Thank you. That was great. Alright. So what I'll do now is I'll throw it back to you, Matt, if you have any final thoughts or any news or information that you'd like to share while I go back through the chat just to see if we have any last comments or questions.

Well, I'll do another, I apologize, rush through these slides. They're all available offline, and I'll end here, which is, my email address. If I can ever, be a resource, I'm happy to be as best I can be. And it's just the spelling of my name at instructure dot com. And, as you saw at the beginning, Instructure Instructure, we are the makers of Canvas.

Canvas was a sponsor. So, hopefully, this was useful and also helped get you thinking about which learning management systems you use for which kinds of programs and consider the opportunity that even though Canvas is best known in the academic context, that it might fit this type of learning, modality, better. And with that, I am done. Thank you. Alright.

Thank you so much. K. As I look through, I see lots of great comments and interaction, from our attendees. So with that, I will go ahead and close this out. I don't see any other questions.

Thank you so Matt so much, Matt, for this wonderful presentation. And again, thank you to our sponsor today, Canvas by Instructure. Thank you so much for attending today's webinar, and everyone have a wonderful day. Bye bye. Have a great day.

Thank you. Alright. Perfect. This actually concludes today's webinar. Thank you all for attending. The recording will be available at webcast dot t d dot o r g, and we will send all registrants an email tomorrow with that link. Please visit our event calendar to sign up for future webcast.