Frankie Robinson, M. Ed.

The role of the instructional designer is constantly evolving. We're no longer just content creators; we're becoming learning experience architects, performance consultants, and even data analysts. 🚀 This dynamic nature of our field is what makes it so exciting! I've personally seen my responsibilities expand beyond simply designing courses to include strategizing on learning pathways, curating external resources, and measuring the impact of learning initiatives on business outcomes. This requires a broader skillset and a more strategic mindset. 🤔 To thrive in this evolving landscape, continuous learning and adaptability are crucial. We need to stay curious, embrace new technologies, and constantly refine our skills. What skills do you believe will be most critical for instructional designers in the coming years? #FutureOfID #LearningExperienceDesign #PerformanceConsulting #InstructionalDesignCareer

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Book Review!! "The Instructional Designer’s Guide to Project Management" by Dr. Guieswende Rouamba Ph.D. When I first started working in Instructional Design, I assumed project management was something separate from my role. As my responsibilities grew and I began leading more ID projects, I quickly realized how much I needed better systems for efficiency. Especially around streamlining workflows and providing more accurate time and priority estimates. This book came at the perfect time. The Instructional Designer’s Guide to Project Management served as a springboard, opening the door to project management concepts and methods that I’m now excited to explore more deeply. One of my favorite aspects of the book is how these concepts are presented through a storyline following an ID team at a university as they learn to incorporate project management tools into their workflows. This made the content approachable, practical, and easy to follow. I also appreciated the application suggestions at the end of each chapter, which made it simple to apply the ideas directly to my current work or plan for future projects. An added bonus: the book provides access to project management templates that I’m eager to start applying to my own instructional design projects. Having ready-to-use tools makes it even easier to move from theory to practice. I’m excited to continue using this book as a resource to sharpen my project management skills within instructional design. Highly recommend for any ID navigating increasing project complexity, timelines, and stakeholders. 👏 #InstructionalDesign #ProjectManagement #LearningAndDevelopment #IDCommunity #ProfessionalDevelopment #LXD

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Some hard truths every Instructional Designer eventually accepts…🥲 1. We rarely get to use all the principles of ADDIE or SAM. 2. Client requirements often override our best design intentions. 3. Tight deadlines don’t just test our creativity — they sometimes completely crush it. 4. The “need” that SMEs convey and the actual learning need are usually miles apart. 5. We spend more time aligning expectations than designing learning. 6. Feedback rounds can feel endless — yet somehow, the final version is due “yesterday.” Despite all this, we still manage to create experiences that engage, educate, and inspire learners.😌 Because at the end of the day, we’re not just following a model — we’re solving human learning problems under real-world constraints. What are your thoughts?🫠

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Most instructional designers are building courses. Very few are building learning systems. That’s the difference between training that’s completed… and learning that transforms performance. 🚀 High-performing organizations don’t treat instructional design as content production. They treat it as a structured, multi-layered learning system built on: 📚 Learning Theory (Constructivism, Behaviorism, Connectivism) 🏗 Learning Infrastructure 📊 Learning Analytics & Insights 🎯 Learning Experience Strategy 🧭 Governance & Learner-First Decisions When these layers align, you don’t just improve course completion rates — you drive performance outcomes, capability building, and business impact. If your learning strategy isn’t delivering measurable results, the issue isn’t engagement. It’s architecture. Instructional designers must think beyond modules and start thinking in systems — integrating learning strategy, learning analytics, learning governance, and performance design into one cohesive structure. That’s how you move from being a course creator to becoming a strategic learning leader. 💡 #instructionaldesign #learningstrategy #learninganddevelopment #learningexperience

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The last Learning Designers Community (LDC) meetup brought together 17 learning designers from ed tech, L&D, K12, and LX design to reflect on #CarlHendrick’s webinar on the Five Illusions of Learning. Like all LDC meetups, the focus was on practice in real learning contexts. As I co-facilitated for the first time, three things stood out for me. #Illusion1: engagement does not always mean learning. We ideated on how to look beyond visible cues, what deep learning means & how activities remain in memory & not learning! #Second, discovery learning may not work for novice learners. We spoke about sequencing content more carefully, providing clearer guidance to new leaners while amping up self-learning challenges for advanced ones. #Third, Small wins help retain continued motivation, especially among younger learners. Most of us were raking our brians on how to find the balance between designing for easy wins vs friction for deeper learning. This space helped access a sense of validation, engagement & fun! Big shout out to Shraddha Rawat Miriam Elnaggar #LDC #LandD #peerlearning #learningcommunity

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Hey Learning Designers! A week ago, I had the opportunity to share what I’ve been learning about instructional storytelling with the Learning Jam Club. 👽 We talked about how good storytelling is powerful for both ILT and eLearning. The approach is the same—but the execution looks a little different. 👉 In this 360° Coffee Shop sample, you’ll see a setup for a story in action. Can you spot it? To help you apply storytelling to ILT and eLearning, I put together a Free 1-pager Storytelling Handout with: - My favorite simple definition of a good story - The 4 essentials of instructional storytelling - 4 AI tools you can use to build stories faster 📩 Comment → “Storytelling” below and I’ll send it over! When it comes to building a standout ID portfolio, Storytelling is one feature. Others include: 1️⃣ Niche skillset (Immersive learning + AI, or your unique edge) 2️⃣ Design thinking (show your process with wireframes, storyboards, mockups, prototypes) 3️⃣ Personality (topics you care about + your authentic voice) ✨ If you’d like to explore how to bring all these features together in The 12-Hour Shortcut, you can book a call here to learn more → https://lnkd.in/ejjCiTAU

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Are you designing courses to educate or to create impact? When an Instructional Designer starts working on a course, they may receive a task from a client (internal or external) in one of two ways: 1.    "Here’s the material, it needs to be delivered in an engaging, fast, and effective way." 2.    "Here’s the target audience, we need to achieve a change in their behavior." These two approaches can be referred to as the "Content-Centered Approach" and the "Learner-Centered Approach." Key Differences: 🔹 Content-Centered Approach This approach is built around content. We already have all the necessary materials, and the task is to present them in a structured and accessible format. Main question: "What should be included in this course?" ➡ Suitable when completeness of information is crucial, such as in regulatory and technical training. 🔹 Challenge: Making extensive content understandable and easy to study. This requires clear explanations, intuitive navigation, and quick access to key information. 🔹 Example: A company has a standardized sales process that needs to be communicated to new employees so they know how to apply it. ✅ Pros: Expertise is presented in a structured format; course development requires less time if content is already prepared. ❌ Cons: If the content is not well-designed, training effectiveness will be low. Its impact on business results is often formal. 🔹 Learner-Centered Approach. This approach focuses on the end result—changing learners’ behavior. To achieve this, various approaches, materials, concepts, and delivery formats can be used. Main question: "What is the best way to achieve the desired behavior change?" ➡ Suitable when: • There is no existing knowledge base, • Innovative solutions are required, • Business impact is a key priority. 🔹 Challenge: Identifying what knowledge and practices will drive change and selecting the right tools. 🔹 Example: Employees need to improve their ability to handle objections in sales. This requires analyzing current behaviors, studying best practices, and developing new strategies using various learning methods: role-playing, simulations, and case studies. ✅ Pros: Can significantly impact business results.  ❌ Cons: Requires more effort: analysis, testing, and refining methodologies. 💡 Conclusion: At first glance, the choice seems simple: if there is ready-made content, use the first approach; if not, the second. However, in practice, the most effective approach is a combination of both. Always start with the question: What behavioral change do we want to achieve through training? If materials exist, adapt them. If not, analyze the audience and choose the optimal training method. Which of these approaches do you encounter more often in your practice?👇

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Strong instructional design starts with clarity — not just in content, but in structure. Before authoring tools come into play, visual mockups help bring the learning journey into focus. It's possible to apply core design principles early: sequencing, cognitive load, flow, and alignment with outcomes. This step-by-step carousel shows how a simple visual plan can lead to smoother collaboration, faster approvals, and better results. A win for all involved! Clear beginnings = smoother, faster results. 👇 Curious how others approach the early stages of a course — visual planning or straight into development? #InstructionalDesign #LearningAndDevelopment #Elearning #Canva #CourseDesign #LXD #IDCommunity #ContentCreation

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Top Tools Every Instructional Designer Should Know in 2025 Creating impactful learning experiences requires the right mix of tools — from content design and eLearning development to AI-powered writing and media production. I’ve compiled my essential toolkit that keeps my projects efficient and engaging. Check it out and let me know which tools you use or recommend! 👇 Share your favourites below! #InstructionalDesign #Elearning #LearningAndDevelopment #EdTech #AItools #ContentCreation #Training

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Hey, all you instructional designers out there. Especially Articulate Rise users. Your tools may make it seem easy to get accessibility right. After all, many of the design decisions around your course's architecture are already made for you. In some cases, that's a good thing. It handles things like focus management and button labeling pretty well. As long as you're not coloring too far outside the lines, you can make beautiful courses that your learners can all get through. But let's face it. Instructional designers love the design part of the job. We don't always want to color inside the lines. We like to stretch our tools to their limits. In some cases, we like to pull them like taffy until they're stretched so thin, they don't even resemble their original shape anymore. That's fine. It's fun to toy and to tinker. But the further you stretch, the more you have to consider accessibility. If you don't, you may unintentionally exclude learners. You'll never reach that coveted 100% completion rate if 10% of your users can't even finish the course. I recently audited a Rise course that felt pretty good overall. But there was a drag-and-drop game that simply wasn't keyboard accessible. Then there was a video that didn't have a supporting document or audio track that described the important visuals. Oh, and a pop-up that had no Close button. I could close it with the Escape key, but there were no instructions to do that. I just had to guess. In the end, I was able to complete the course. But I missed out on several tasks, and others were more difficult to complete than they should have been. So how do you know if your courses are accessible to everyone? It starts by learning to go hands-on with assistive technology and evaluating your own designs. Then you can start to identify common barriers you may not have even known you were creating. If you'd like help learning how to do that, then come join Dr. Nicole L'Etoile, CPACC and me for "Hands-On with NVDA: Accessibility for Instructional Designers and Course Creators." It's a 2-day workshop designed to teach you the skills and empathy you need to improve your inclusive course design. But you only have today and tomorrow to sign up for the session that starts on Monday, November 3rd, 2025 at 12pm Eastern. So head on over to the link in the comments and register. #A11y #InstructionalDesign #Articulate #Rise

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Twine is my favorite tool for creating branching scenarios. It's the fastest way for me to plan the branching structure and write the content without the tool getting in the way. While I've been using Twine for basic prototypes for years, I've also been working on ways to improve the visual design. One easy approach to a more polished design is using an image background. In Twine, you can add that background in two ways: with macros or CSS. My blog post includes code to copy and paste into your own Twine projects to make it simple for you. https://lnkd.in/e-PMRB_w

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