The Learning Development Accelerator

Learning Science Conference 2026: there is still time to take advantage of the Early Bird price! Register before June 1 and get 10% off! Join a 6-week hybrid experience that brings learning professionals together to examine the science behind how people learn and what that means for the decisions we make as designers, facilitators, leaders, and practitioners. Across the conference, you’ll explore: ✅ 5 weeks of asynchronous learning ✅ 1 week of live sessions and discussion ✅ 9 practical topics ✅ 6 special sessions ✅ Expert speakers and panelists, including Paul A. Kirschner, Nidhi Sachdeva, PhD, Kat Koppett, Elham Arabi, John Sweller, Clark Quinn, Matthew Richter, and more! 📅 November 2–December 11, 2026 Live week: December 7–11 Join us for LDA’s signature event and strengthen the foundation behind your learning design practice. ➡️ Register now. Early bird registration available until June 1. https://lnkd.in/gcKHmYex

Is today’s e-learning everything it could be? Most of us who design, build, or support digital learning know the answer is: not always. E-learning has incredible potential, but too often it becomes content delivery rather than meaningful learning, practice, performance support, or behavior change. That’s why we’re excited to welcome Dr. Michael Allen to LDA for a Meet the Author session on his recent book, Rethinking eLearning. Drawing on more than 55 years of experience in teaching, developing, and shaping interactive learning and performance support systems, Michael will join us for a conversation about what works, what doesn’t, and what may be missing in the way we design e-learning today. Join us on July 9 at 2:00 PM ET for a thoughtful conversation about how we can move closer to e-learning that truly supports learning and performance. It’s free to attend! You can find more details and RSVP here: https://lnkd.in/gnJNBVrd

Microlearning had its shiny-object moment. Now it’s time to make it work. For years, microlearning has promised efficiency, flexibility, and just-in-time support. But too often, it becomes a collection of disconnected tips, videos, or short modules that learners quickly forget. The real question is not whether learning can be short. It’s whether short learning experiences can be designed in a way that supports retention, transfer, and performance on the job. That’s why LDA is excited to welcome Nidhi Sachdeva, PhD, for a live, online workshop: Designing Microlearning That Actually Works: Applying Cognitive Science to Workplace Learning 📅 October 7 In this hands-on session, Nidhi will explore how research from cognitive psychology and instructional science can help learning professionals move beyond bite-sized content and design microlearning that actually supports lasting learning. Join us to move beyond quick content delivery and into microlearning that truly supports performance. Learn more and register here: https://lnkd.in/gDRWcMxZ

What does it really take to design learning that works? LDA designed the Learning Science Conference 2026, our signature event, to explore exactly that question. Our 6-week hybrid experience brings learning professionals together to examine the science behind how people learn and what that means for the decisions we make as designers, facilitators, leaders, and practitioners. Across the conference, you’ll explore: ✅ 5 weeks of asynchronous learning ✅ 1 week of live sessions and discussion ✅ 9 practical topics ✅ 6 special sessions ✅ Expert speakers and panelists, including Nidhi Sachdeva, PhD, Kat Koppett, Paul A. Kirschner, Elham Arabi, John Sweller, Clark Quinn, Matthew Richter, and more! Together, we’ll look at memory, retrieval, cognitive load, motivation, feedback, assessment, emotion, multimedia learning, social learning, and more—not as abstract theory, but as practical insight you can use to design learning experiences that truly stick. 📅 November 2–December 11, 2026 Asynchronous experience: November 2–December 6 Live week: December 7–11 Join us for LDA’s signature event and strengthen the foundation behind your learning design practice. Register now: https://lnkd.in/gcKHmYex

Outcomes, outcomes, outcomes. In L&D, we talk about outcomes all the time. But are we always clear on what kind of outcome we’re actually seeing? Is it access to information? Knowledge? Performance in a supported environment? Durable skill? Impact in the real system? And maybe the bigger question: are we even solving the right problem? Join Matthew Richter and Clark Quinn for a free LDA webinar: Learning-Performance-Impact Chain, a practical exploration of how to diagnose learning and performance challenges with more clarity. Together, they’ll unpack the nine links in the Chain and explore why performance is not the same as learning, how to recognize when capability truly exists, and how to avoid attributing impact to training when system barriers may be getting in the way. 📅 Date & Time: May 14 at 10:00 am ET The webinar is free. You’ll just need to register in the LDA community to access the RSVP link. Use the link in the comments to register, we would love to see you join!

At LDA, our Meet the Author sessions give participants a rare opportunity to hear directly from the people shaping the field of learning and development. Our participants get to hear what motivated the author to write the book, explore the ideas behind it, and ask questions directly. This summer, we have something especially exciting: two books in one session. We invited JD Dillon to join us for a special conversation about both of his books: 📘 The Modern Learning Ecosystem A practical guide for designing learning and performance ecosystems that align with business needs and reflect the realities of the modern workplace. 📗 The Frontline Enablement Playbook JD’s upcoming release focused on equipping deskless and frontline workers with the knowledge, tools, and support they need to perform consistently in fast-moving operational environments. Together, these books offer a practical and timely look at how L&D can move beyond one-off training and think more strategically about performance, enablement, and workplace support. Whether you’re already familiar with JD’s work or just curious about the future of learning in organizations, this will be a valuable opportunity to hear directly from the author and bring your own questions to the conversation. Join us this summer for this free Meet the Author session with JD Dillon! RSVP here : https://lnkd.in/gWTR8bji

LDE 2026 - Special Session Spotlight! In addition to featured sessions, our Spring conference also offers special sessions to spark reflection and expand your perspective, including a panel discussion facilitated by Clark Quinn. Topic of the panel discussion: What is the future of L&D? We see growing awareness of the need to change, and some internal adoption, but external factors are moving faster. We’re seeing measurement become more important, and of course, (generative) artificial intelligence has entered the fray. What should we be looking at, thinking about, and doing differently? In this panel, we’re inviting three of the most thoughtful folks in L&D to share their insights. David Kelly, previously CEO of the eLearning Guild, will share his recognized observations. Jane Bozarth will help us understand from the perspective of having been in the trenches and then researching the industry; she’s also written several books, including eLearning Solutions on a Shoestring, Social Media for Trainers, and Show Your Work: The Payoffs and How-To’s of Working Out Loud. The third member of the panel is Ingeborg Kroese dr. , whose trajectory includes moving through L&D roles before forming her own strategic consultancy and focusing on inclusion as an important component of success. 📍 Panel Discussion: The Future of L&D with Jane Bozarth, David Kelly, and Ingeborg Kroese, May 5 from 11 am to 12 pm ET, New York time. Learn more about LDE 2026 and register: https://lnkd.in/gkueG3Ad L&D as Ecosystem Conference - From April 13 to May 8, 2026 - Asynchronous and live, online sessions

LDA co-directors, Clark Quinn and Matthew Richter share more about our Spring conference: L&D as an Ecosystem (LDE). LDE is all about exploring what learning professionals can borrow from adjacent fields to improve their impact. We designed this event to support deep thinking, reflection, and application, not passive consumption. You’ll have time to think, question, revisit ideas, and connect theory to real-world challenges. So, if you’re ready to expand your thinking and ‘think like a…’ UX designer, improviser, philosopher, statistician, project manager, or marketer… consider joining us! 📍 L&D as Ecosystem Conference - From April 13 to May 8, 2026 - Asynchronous and live, online sessions All the asynchronous featured sessions are now available 🙂 there is still time to join! ➡️ Learn more and register here: https://lnkd.in/gkueG3Ad #learninganddevelopment

If you care about motivation at work and have ever thought, “This makes sense in theory, but gets complicated fast in practice,” this new LDA program is for you. Motivation Talks is a monthly, informal meetup for people who work with motivation in the real world. L&D practitioners, leaders, managers, consultants, HR professionals, and anyone else trying to apply Self-Determination Theory in environments full of deadlines, politics, systems, and human unpredictability. It is not a lecture series. It is not a book club. It is definitely not a workshop with a tidy takeaway slide. Motivation Talks is a working conversation space for practitioners who are actively trying to use SDT and discovering that its elegance often collides with real constraints. We talk openly about what supports autonomy, competence, and relatedness, what unintentionally undermines them, and the tradeoffs we make along the way. Bring an article that challenged you. Bring a project that stalled. Bring a design that did not land the way you hoped. Success stories are welcome. So are misfires, half-baked ideas, and unresolved questions. The series is co-hosted by the Learning Development Accelerator and the Center for Self-Determination Theory (CSDT), and brings together experienced SDT practitioners, newcomers, and the genuinely curious. If you value evidence, honest reflection, and learning with peers rather than performing expertise, pull up a chair. Motivation Talks is a free program; just join the LDA community to RSVP. ➡️ Next meetup: Monday, April 27, from 11h00 to 12h00 ET New York time. RSVP to one meetup, a few, or the full series! https://lnkd.in/g_PyxR-p #motivation #selfdeterminationtheory

We’re excited to welcome David Streight, author of the upcoming Moving Motivation Inside: Self-Determination Theory for Educators, and Parents, Too, for a conversation about motivation, volition, and what it really takes to help people genuinely want to engage, grow, and act. Written for educators and parents, David’s book makes Self-Determination Theory accessible, practical, and easy to apply. And while its primary audience may be outside the corporate learning world, the ideas at the heart of the book have a lot to offer L&D professionals too. If you're looking to move beyond compliance and build more meaningful, internally driven motivation, this conversation will offer valuable insights. It may also resonate on a personal level for those who are parents themselves. Drawing on his experience as a teacher, school psychologist, and leader in social-emotional learning and character development, David brings both depth and clarity to this work. Join us to explore what inspired the book, why this theory matters, and what L&D practitioners can learn from it. 📍Meet the Author: David Streight 📆 May 21, 2026, at 11 am ET (New York time) ▶️ Free event - RSVP here https://lnkd.in/gDFUd4KX ---------- 👋 The Learning Development Accelerator (LDA) is a global community of learning and development professionals committed to translating research into real workplace impact.