Michaela Ayers

The Teach Access Fundamental Concepts and Skills Framework provides educators with core #accessibility topics, goals, and learning objectives to support teaching #inclusive design across disciplines: https://lnkd.in/eB8m4gfQ #DigitalInclusion #DisabilityConfident #DisabilityInclusion

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🎮 Level Up Your Learning: L&D Boss Mode Activated 🚀 Ever feel like Instructional Design is just a giant open-world RPG? 🗺️ You start with a vague quest: "Make training... better." ⚙️ You gather your tools: Articulate, Camtasia, Vyond, check! 📚 Your companions: Bloom’s Taxonomy, ADDIE, and UDL. 👾 The boss battle? Engagement. (And maybe your LMS crashing mid-launch.) In the world of Learning & Development, we’re not just trainers, we’re quest designers. We build worlds where learners choose their own adventure, power up with microlearning boosts, and unlock achievements like "Finally Understood Compliance Policy 3.7." Whether you're soloing as a one-person L&D army or part of a co-op team, remember this: 🧠 Every knowledge gap is just an undiscovered side quest. ✨ Every learner is a hero waiting to level up. So equip your empathy, activate your creativity, and let’s make learning legendary. #LearningAndDevelopment #InstructionalDesign #Gamification #eLearning #LMSLife #UDL #LDBossMode #LevelUpLearning #OpenToWork #VideoGameLife

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Instructional design work lives in the gray. That’s because our work is built around people, and people aren’t black and white. Every project brings different personalities, priorities, and perspectives. What feels like a “clear” plan in theory can get fuzzy fast when you add in real humans with real experiences. It’s not about right vs. wrong. It’s about listening, adapting, and finding that space where good pedagogy meets the lived reality of the people we’re designing for, students and faculty alike. How I cope with the gray: 1. I start with curiosity instead of judgment. When someone’s approach doesn’t match my expectations, I ask why before I decide how. 2. I focus on the basics. If I’m unsure which way to go, I return to the course goals, the learner's needs, and the outcomes we’re aiming for. 3. I give myself permission to pivot. Flexibility and adaptibility is a superpower. It’s how we build stronger solutions that actually work in context. Some days, working in the gray feels messy and stressful. But it’s also where the most creative, human-centered solutions are born. #CTLinCLT #instructionaldesign #learningdesign #SME #leader #highered #studentfocused #studentled #reflection

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An excellent reference guide for anyone in the Instructional Design and Learning & Development fields. While I’m familiar with the keywords for each level, having actions/outcomes and sample questions for each level is very helpful to then be able to create other actions/outcomes and questions/tasks to ask the learners.

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📣 Accessibility is no longer optional, abstract, or someone else’s job. ADA Title II makes WCAG the operational standard for public-sector digital content. That shift alone is significant, but the impact runs deeper than a new rule. For many organizations, this touches systems, content, and workflows that have been in place for years. That weight is real. The sense that this could feel like “a lot” isn’t resistance. It’s an honest reaction to scale. The risk isn’t that accessibility becomes hard. The risk is that it becomes resented when it’s treated as a checklist, a scramble, or a last-minute fix. Accessibility becomes workable when progress matters more than perfection. When a few thoughtful decisions move it from reactive to embedded. You don’t need to fix everything at once. You do need a grounded place to begin. Three anchors worth holding: ⚓ • The rule is real • WCAG is practical when applied incrementally • Start small. Keep moving.

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Instructional Design & Learning Experience | Strategic Designer Shift There's a moment every Instructional Designer faces. A fork in the road. One path is familiar. Safe. It's the one where stakeholders come to you and say, "We need some slides." And you build slides. You're fast, efficient, responsive. You're an order-taker. You produce content. The other path is harder. It requires you to push back. To ask different questions. To say, "Before we talk about slides, let's talk about what's actually broken here. What performance gap are we trying to close?" That's the shift from order-taker to strategic designer. And it changes everything. Order-takers produce content. Strategic designers influence capability. They shape how organisations actually work and how people actually perform. But that shift doesn't happen by accident. It requires something from you: • Confidence to ask the hard questions • Commercial awareness so you understand the business impact • Clear language around impact so people understand what you're actually solving • Strong design principles so you can defend your decisions When you make that shift, you stop being the person who executes other people's ideas. You become the person who shapes the ideas. When you elevate the conversation, you elevate the entire function. I'm curious: at what point did you realise Instructional Design could be strategic? What changed for you?

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Most accessibility conversations in L&D stop at compliance. Do we have captions? Did we use alt txt? Is this screen reader friendly?   But accessibility in learning isn’t a checklist. It’s a commitment to equity.   That’s why I’m teaming up with Dr. Nicole L'Etoile, CPACC for a practical conversation about accessibility in L&D.   Webinar: Roadmap to Accessibility: How to Shift Mindsets, Culture, and Workflows   You’ll walk away with a roadmap to: ✅ Audit your current course and learning experiences. ✅ Prioritize accessibility barriers that impact learners most. ✅ Develop a plan for remediation and sustainable change ✅ Embed accessibility into your team workflows and org-wide systems.   And you're invited to join us!   📅 Sept 23, 11-12 CT 💻 Zoom   This event is open to the public and free to attend. 🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/dNiWJVmq

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TL;DR — Accessibility shouldn’t be a last-minute checklist. Most eLearning teams design the course first… and fix accessibility later. That’s when accessibility feels like a constraint. So I built the A11y Strategic Copilot — an AI reasoning partner for Instructional Designers. It forces a workflow: Path A — Structural Design Build accessibility into the course blueprint. Path B — Audit & Remediation Stress-test an existing module. Every recommendation is evaluated through a Disability Advocate lens (screen reader, neurodivergent, low-vision users) and grounded in WCAG 2.2 AA + Rise 360 best practices. Because good learning design shouldn't just look good — it should work for everyone. 👇 The carousel explains how the system works and here is the URL for my GPT: https://lnkd.in/eEhz5p_e #InstructionalDesign #LearningAndDevelopment #Elearning #Accessibility #WCAG #InclusiveDesign #LearningExperienceDesign #Rise360

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We've spent years streamlining eLearning development for federal clients—and one of the biggest game-changers is building accessibility in from the start. In this blog, I share how 508-compliant eLearning templates not only ensure compliance, but also accelerate development, reduce rework, and drive real ROI. This is about more than meeting requirements—it's about designing smarter, scalable solutions that work for every learner. If you're aiming for faster, more cost-effective content development without compromising quality, this is worth a read. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eGWEA2XA #eLearning #508Compliance #AccessibleDesign #LearningStrategy #FederalTraining #ROI #LeadershipDevelopment #InstructionalDesign

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Introducing L&D Launchers 🚀 ~ ATD St. Louis’ New SIG for Instructional Designers Starting April 1st, 2026, (NO JOKE!) 😎 Ready to Think Bigger, Build Smarter, Grow Faster, and Execute Bravely? If you’re an Instructional Designer who’s ready to level up your craft and your career, ATD St. Louis just launched something built exactly for you. Meet L&D Launchers — a brand‑new Special Interest Group blending entrepreneurial mindset with instructional design mastery. And the best part? ATD St. Louis members attend for FREE. If you’re not a member yet… this is the moment to join. https://lnkd.in/gmaWzjyK 🌟 What Makes L&D Launchers Different? This isn’t another “tips and tricks” group. It’s a year‑long professional development arc designed to help new and developing IDs build clarity, capability, and confidence — using a quarterly framework inspired by entrepreneurial classics and aligned to the ATD Talent Development Capability Model. The program moves through four powerful phases: 🔹 Q1 — THINK: Vision, Role Clarity & ID Identity You’ll define the Instructional Designer you’re becoming and craft a Professional Development Aim that guides your decisions all year long. As the document puts it: “Define a clear professional vision as an Instructional Designer… Establish the identity of the ID you are becoming.” 🔹 Q2 — BUILD: Needs Analysis, Assets & ID Leverage Shift from order‑taker to strategist by mapping your workflow, identifying reusable assets, and choosing your next “leverage experiment.” The program reframes ID work through an entrepreneurial lens: “Understand ‘assets vs liabilities’ as reusable ID assets (templates, frameworks, systems).” 🔹 Q3 — GROW: Learner Behavior, Engagement & Experience Design Audit your design habits, reduce cognitive load, and focus on the high‑impact decisions that actually move learners forward. One of the core prompts: “Which design choices help or hinder learner success?” 🔹 Q4 — EXECUTE: Systems, Habits & Your ID Operating System You’ll close the year by building your own Instructional Design Operating System (IDOS) — a personal blueprint for how you design, learn, and lead. The program emphasizes identity‑based habits: “Build identity-based habits that support your Professional Aim.” 🎯 Who Is This For? New and emerging Instructional Designers IDs seeking clarity, confidence, and community L&D pros ready to think like strategists, not order‑takers Anyone who wants to blend an entrepreneurial mindset with instructional design excellence. 🎁 Why Join ATD St. Louis Now? Because L&D Launchers is free for members — and it’s one of the most thoughtfully designed, capability‑building programs we’ve ever offered. If you’re ready to launch your next chapter as an Instructional Designer, this is your runway. https://lnkd.in/gmaWzjyK Association for Talent Development (ATD) - St. Louis Chapter, Association for Talent Development (ATD)

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Strong learning design doesn’t start with content — it starts with leadership. The most effective L&D initiatives I’ve seen weren’t just well-built modules in Articulate or polished facilitation sessions. They were learning strategies supported, modeled, and reinforced by leaders. When leadership aligns around: • Clear performance expectations • Reinforcement beyond the training event • Psychological safety for practice and feedback Learning moves from event-based to culture-based. In your experience, what role does leadership play in making learning stick? #LearningAndDevelopment #InstructionalDesign #Leadership #WorkplaceLearning #HumanPerformance

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As an instructional designer, you're always making several decisions in your learning experiences, and you might not even think about it too much. Experience has taught you that a scenario-based problem would fit perfectly after a video or a reflection exercise makes sense to follow a case study. But, why did you make these choices? Why not another kind of activity or learning strategy? A conversation with a newer instructional designer inspired me to make a tool to help with these selections. Check it out in today's article! https://lnkd.in/e9CGEtcQ

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In L&D, structure creates clarity — and clarity drives results. While tools and platforms evolve, the ADDIE model still helps anchor learning initiatives in thoughtful analysis, intentional design, and meaningful evaluation. I found this updated breakdown helpful as a reminder that strong foundations matter — especially when aligning learning to business performance. https://lnkd.in/gywrhbbM

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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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Calling all Instructional Designers and Talent Development leaders, Last Friday’s ATD South Carolina learning event, we explored a familiar challenge in our field: shifting from “order taker” to strategic partner. In 𝙈𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙪𝙩𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙑𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘽𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣, we looked at how to move beyond starting with what we are teaching and instead begin with how we define success. We also used the 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘅 to bridge the gap between training requests and meaningful organizational outcomes. It was energizing to see so many professionals ready to shift conversations with stakeholders from activities to results. If you would like a copy of the Instructional Design Matrix, feel free to message me. Building on this topic of visible and aligned outcomes, we are also exploring the formation of an ATD-SC 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗟&𝗗 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 focused on advancing influence and outcomes in our field. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗟&𝗗 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽. Reach out if you are interested in contributing. 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝘂𝗽𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁? I am booking for Q3 and Q4 2026, and 2027. I enjoy sharing this framework and a wide range of approaches that help L&D professionals use backward design to strengthen influence, sharpen strategic thinking, and improve learning outcomes. Feel free to reach out via LinkedIn Messenger. Special thanks to Ty R. Graham, MHA, MS, Chandelle Anderson, MBA, Jada Addison, MA, MCCT, CPTD, and Kasey McClure #InstructionalDesign #BackwardDesign #TalentDevelopment #LearningAndDevelopment #StrategicPartner #TrustedAdvisor #ATD

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Most explanations of instructional design focus on processes: ADDIE, SAM. Great! But once processes are mastered, the hardest part of the work moves away from process. It’s deciding how expertise should be framed to enact a behavior change. This is a rhetorical problem, and one I want to lean into. So I wrote about it.

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One requirement I consistently see across instructional design job postings is the ability to align learning initiatives to measurable business outcomes. 💻 In practice, that means moving beyond content development and approaching projects through performance diagnosis, stakeholder alignment, and disciplined scope management. I address this by defining operational metrics during project intake, mapping learning to specific decision points in the workflow, and sequencing development around execution milestones rather than information coverage. 🎒 This approach strengthens project governance, reduces rework, and ensures that learning investments produce observable performance improvement rather than simply higher completion rates.

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🎯 Instructional Design is more than slides and standards—it's about sparking transformation. Whether I'm building onboarding for new hires or designing training that drives behavior change, my approach is always learner-centered and outcome-driven. ✨ What I’ve learned: It’s not just about what we teach—it’s about what they retain. Interactivity matters. Engaged learners are effective learners. Design is empathy in action. When we understand our learners’ needs, challenges, and goals, we build resources that actually make a difference. I’ve worked across education, corporate training, and leadership development—and every project reinforces one truth: great design meets learners where they are and moves them forward with purpose. 📚 Tools I love using: Articulate 360 | Canva | Google Suite | LMS platforms 💡 Focus areas: Curriculum Design | Adult Learning | Onboarding | eLearning | In-Person & Hybrid Training I’d love to connect with others in L&D, OD, and training! Let’s learn from each other—what’s a recent win or lesson you’ve had in instructional design?

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