Keynotes

New Learning Journeys and Destinations: Stackables, Micros, and Lifelong

Traditionally, many prepared for life-long careers by earning a formal degree from a college or university. However, the information age and ever-changing technology, especially in STEM fields, makes some of these degrees outdated almost as soon as they are earned. Enter a relative newcomer to talent development and learning journeys: stackable and micro-credentials.

Stackable and micro-credentials are gaining popularity because they can be agile and responsive to rapidly changing workforce learning needs, fostering a deeper sense of life-long learning while providing customizability and flexibility for individuals and organizations. Even agencies like IACET (International Association of Continuing Education and Training) which has been providing standards of excellence for continuing education units for many years, and ATD (Association for Talent Development) are embracing stackable and micro-credential learning in recent years. Learn why stackable and micro-credentials are not only good for individual learners, but also good for your organization’s learning programs!

Vince Lindenmeyer AnnMarie Marlier

It Takes More than Grit to Keep Your Career Afloat!

Resilience is the capacity to not only survive life's challenges, but also to learn and grow from them, to become stronger as a result of such challenges. While stress, trauma, adversity, and dramatic change are rarely welcome, your capacity for resilience enables you to find a way to move beyond the challenge and toward a stronger self. You have heard the saying “let it roll off you, like water off a duck’s back”. However, ducks aren’t hatched waterproof, and people aren’t born resilient… you must take specific action to Stay Afloat! Using the metaphor of a duck’s waterproofing; we will explore the six keys to building your personal and professional resilience

Maureen Orey

Workshops

Stop: Collaborate and Listen

Attend a workshop where participants can take useful techniques and apply changes to their style immediately.

Behavior change in business and personal relationships that promote smooth and efficient interactions will be presented and practiced amongst participants.

Paula Baggiani

Self-Awareness: Strengths and Blindspots

When we drive – we know what our cars can do, and we know where our blind spots are. But do you know the extent of your personal power? And do you know where your professional blind spots are?

Many people don’t really know themselves. And Carter Cast, professor of business management for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University says we have “blind spots because most of us have a hard time being objective about ourselves.”

It’s time to find out!

Scott Burgmeyer

Breakthrough with Design Thinking

A strategic priority of the modern business in a technological world is rapid and robust employee and organizational learning, which demands a radical rethinking of how we develop and deploy creative competence. We must assume leadership in creating cultures of innovation, collaboration, and empowerment.

In this session, discover how you can transform your success by exploring some key principles from design thinking, revolutionizing your approach to innovation, talent, and the employee experience.

Stuart Chittenden Dan Gilbert

Elevating the Role of L&D in Your Organization

This session will be relevant and beneficial to anyone involved with their organization’s Learning and Development, performance improvement, and talent management strategies. The time spent in the session will focus on the research and statistics about how Learning and Development teams and activities are viewed in most organizations.

Attendees will learn how vital Learning and Development is to the success of organizations as it directly impacts employee engagement, improving the leadership pipeline, and retention. Building their understanding of the role they could and should be playing in their organizations will empower the learning and development professionals to begin implementing more strategic actions when it comes to the employee development.

Jeannie Frazier

Make the Future Accessible: Strategies and Tools for Universal Design

In this session you will learn and apply practices of Universal Design to create a more accessible and inclusive environment for the training of talent in your organization. Included are demonstrations of accessible technology for learning, including screen sharing, captioning, and alt text tags.

This session is interactive, and participants will leave with tools and knowledge to create accessible training programs, and materials.

Megan Johnson Leslie Ginder

Building Augmented Reality Experiences for Learning

Augmented Reality (AR) has become an amazing new technology for us as consumers and now as learning developers. Our ability to access AR from our mobile device makes the barrier of entry to use and develop technologies, low. However, as developers, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

Understanding when to use AR, how to design quality AR experiences, and generating organizational buy-in are difficult hurdles to adoption. Getting started with this technology is easier than ever before, the challenge is doing it in a way that makes it a valuable, and sustainable part of your learning and development world.

Destery Hildenbrand

5 Steps to Bring Screencasts to your Online Training

Screencasting is a video recording of your computer screen. It can be an effective way to produce tutorials, training videos, or recorded presentations. For Instructional Designers, the benefits of screencasting are the ability to easily create video content and the abilty to control and design content that meets your objectives. For learners, screencasts can be viewed anytime, anyplace as often as needed and and at their own pace.

This workshop will break screencasting into 5 Steps that will help attendees get started with screencasting and provide guidance for the process of creating a screencast.

These steps are:

1. Choosing software

2. How to plan for a screencast

3. Creating a good quality screencast

4. Post-production magic

5. Ways to deliver

Attendees will leave this workshop knowing how to improve their courses with screencasting and they will participate in creating a screencast.

Jeremy Lally

Visual Design for Learning and Development

We’re constantly surrounded by visually engaging design that can grab and keep our attention. So how can we take the best aspects of this and apply it to our own learning design and content?

While many in our field don’t have a formal background in visual design, building these skills doesn’t need to be intimidating and when done right can transform dry, dense, or confusing content into something more. And that doesn’t just mean making something more attractive. Stronger visual design can also make content for learning more approachable, improve retention, and reduce cognitive load, all which make for more effective solutions.

In this hands-on workshop, you’ll discover practical strategies and resources that can help you use visual design to enhance your work.

Dawn Mahoney

Learn to Flip: Flip your Presentations and ILT into Virtual Events

Learning professionals are asked to do more with less and asked to reach more people, with fewer resources. Designing effective virtual events as a trainer needs to be intentional and effective.

Join this workshop for an immersive learning experience. Applying a three step process, we will flip our in person learning events (presentations or ILT) to live online designs. Bring a current presentation or ILT and flip components for the virtual environment, whether that be an interactive webinar or a Virtual Instructor Led program. Participants will walk away with a portion, if not all of their design converted by the end of the workshop.

Britney Osbern

From Learning to Changes in Behavior that Stick

We’ve all been to a conference or workshop where we “ooh” and “ahh” over the learning content and promise of application. Then when we go back to our desks we move forward without the promised changes.

Kristen O’Shea has been training around Gallup’s CliftonStrengths for 8 years and has witnessed individuals and teams experience the excitement of learning about their strengths and the failure of applying actual behavior change.

In this session we will dive into two digital platforms that help to integrate learning into what is already taking place in the flow of the workday and help to actually change behavior through neuroscience and positive psychology.

Kristen O’Shea

Getting Started with Blended Learning

With dramatic advances in learning technology, the separation of learning environments (either onsite or online) is not only no longer necessary, but the combination of the two is rapidly becoming preferable. Research by Microsoft and other organizations suggests that blended learning might have advantages over purely onsite and purely online learning.

In this session, participants will explore definitions of blended learning, examine blended learning models, review best practices for blended learning, and discover ways to use best practices to create their own blended learning course.

Kim Whiteside

Concurrent Sessions

Upgrading Your Meetings

Have you noticed that when you decide to buy an app, a phone, a car, etc. you always have the opportunity to upgrade to something that makes it more useful?

Do meetings become more of a burden than a burst of creativity and productivity? Are you able to provide your best insights and solutions in the meetings you routinely join? Would it be all right with you if the meetings you hold or attend could become innovative, exciting and truly allow you to contribute whatever you and others can bring to the meeting?

LEAP Training & Coaching is offering you the ability to “Upgrade your Meetings”. It’s your choice, meaning you can stay with the status quo, or you can join us for your Upgrade Package.

This package is useful for all who lead meetings, attend meetings, or normally sleep through meetings.

Ryan Bouda Joann Bouda

Putting Structure Around Peer to Peer Learning

As Learning & Development professionals, we get asked to train everything! Unfortunately, we can’t be everything to everyone and not all requests can be fulfilled. At First National Bank, we realized this and wanted to provide an alternative to saying ‘No’.

In this session, we will review the work we have done to put structure around peer to peer learning for various roles across the bank. Our peer to peer learning solutions incorporate a blended learning approach including facilitator-led topics where needed and other various learning methodologies.

Kristi Stewart Krishna Clay

Fire Juggling: How to Prioritize Your Projects When EVERY Project is on Fire

Very few of us can use a “first-come, first-served” model when it comes to completing learning projects. The loudest voice or highest rank becomes the criteria for prioritizing our projects.

• What happens when everyone has a loud voice?

• What happens when we use the highest rank and we spend valuable time on projects that provide benefits to very few in organization rather than to the masses?

Learning professionals are helpers by nature and we don’t want to say ‘no’ to anyone. Unfortunately, every ‘yes’ we give whittles away at the time we have to give to all of our projects, creating a little bit of work on way too many things.

You will leave this session with a clearer view of your projects and how to prioritize them. You will also gain insight into how justify your priorities to your customers and manage their expectations in a transparent manner.

Christine Stanczak

Conquering the Knowing/Doing Gap

We have years and years of education. Education teaches knowledge. We don’t need more knowledge (Knowing). We need to utilize the knowledge we have (Doing). 96-98% of everything you do each and every day is by habit. You get up on a certain side of the bed, you start your day with a certain routine. 2-4% of your day you actually think about.

Learn how to tap into awareness so you can raise your thinking time. Take those large goals and reduce them to the ridiculous providing an agile work environment. Control your own destiny and make quantum leaps in your business or your personal life. Start getting RESULTS that STICK in your business and/or your personal life.

Joelene Dredge

Leading Change as a Learning and Development Professional

As Learning & Development professionals, attendees will learn their role in ensuring that change initiatives within their organizations have the biggest impact. Attendees will gain insights around managing change as part of Learning & Development/Organizational Development to ensure increased engagement and success as new initiatives, tools, and/or content is introduced to their organization.

Data from the Franklin Covey Change Index, which is a private study that ranks companies and organizations based on their ability to change, will be shared where attendees will learn why change is so difficult, why it fails, where it fails, and how people think about change.

Curt Garbett

Partnering with Talent and Development to Drive Business Results Through the Diversity and Inclusion Lens

Union Pacific is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion, creating an environment where employees are engaged and productive. In this session, we will share how Union Pacific's Talent Development team positions Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to attract, engage, and promote an inclusive workplace.

We will discuss the role Learning and Development plays in preparing ERGs to lead and drive business results by thinking more strategically and implementing continuity.

Lisa Hayes Polly Harris

Orientation or Onboarding?

25% of all new employees leave an organization within the first year. Think about the cost of recruiting and onboarding that went into those employees. According to research by Glassdoor, organizations with a strong onboarding program improve retention by 82%. How does your onboarding program stack up?

In this hands-on session, join the discussion of who, what and when of onboarding. Using a gap analysis tool, you will be able to look at your organization's onboarding program and identify where you want to be and develop an action plan to get there.

Shelly Heenan

Engaging Technology: Getting Started with Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a widely used technology in games, marketing, and everyday apps but what about learning and development? Where do you get started? How should you use it? Finding answers to these questions can be difficult and cause developers to overlook the potential this technology holds.

In this session, we will answer these questions and more through discussion, development, and Interaction.

Destery Hildenbrand

Outside the Box Training: From Inside the Box

This high energy 60-minute moderated, panel discussion, featuring Kiewit’s Curriculum Design team, will discuss utilizing internal talents and everyday resources to create innovative training on a shoestring budget.

Attendees will witness a variety of exceptional learning modalities and the opportunity to engage with them first hand.

Abbey Howard

Leading with Empathy. Because: People

Empathy is: The ability to understand and share the feelings of others. During this session, we’ll explore ways of using empathy to see things from the learners’ points of view. And use that insight to craft better learning experiences. We’ll discuss techniques and determine ways of answering important questions about your learning audience.

For example:

• What do the learners already know?

• How do the learners feel about having to complete the content?

• Are the learners clear about the way they’ll use the content in their work?

Every session and course you build is intended to improve people’s work performance in some way. So, before jumping into building the content, it is vital to find ways of seeing things from the learning audience’s point of view. Doing this well improves their learning experience ensuring they get the right content and just what they need.

Dawn Mahoney

Swimming in the River of Change: A New Perspective on Leadership Development in 2020 and Beyond

In this session participants will learn about the 4 pillars of a highly functional and adaptive organization and essential leadership development practices.

Each critical component will be presented and supported with evidence from behavioral and organizational science research along with simple practices participants can start using right away to start the ripple of positive change in their own organizations.

Jennifer Tellinghuisen Beth Merkel

Increase Your Visual Literacy to Improve Retention and Engagement

This interactive session will increase your visual literacy by introducing you to a visual alphabet and providing guided activities to practice transforming ideas into a visual language that is more universally understood.

Be prepared to:

- Experience the impact of using a "visual language" through demonstration and hands-on experiences

- Learn and practice creating basic shapes and elements

- Begin developing your own personal visual dictionary

- Discover practical ways to incorporate visual literacy in the workplace

Amber Hutchinson Kristi Rutledge

Productive Conflict

Workplace conflict is inevitable. Conflict triggers different behaviors in each of us, from destructive to productive responses. In this session we define conflict as a difference of opinions involving strong emotions.

We will explore why conflict occurs, how to respond productively and how to help your learners respond productively to workplace conflict.

Gretchen Finke Patras Lori Smith

Living Life to the Fullest: To thine own self be true

Life is stressful, and many of us find challenges in balancing professional and personal life. Is there a way we can have it all?

This presentation will focus on the power of living a lie of authenticity. Participants will identify their values, set goals, and understand the importance of self-advocacy in attaining a life well-lived.

Amy Pick Katie Wadas-Thalken

Case Study: NMC’s innovative skill-based credentialing program

Is the current job market impacting your ability to hire and retain skilled employees? What’s the impact on your bottom line?

In this session, we’ll explore how NMC tackled challenges faced by our sales and service organization, and our innovative talent development solution.

• You’ll get an inside look at how NMC leveraged data and existing resources to create a skill-based, blended credentialing program designed to address current business challenges.

• You’ll be introduced to NMC’s three-tiered talent development solution, and will have an opportunity to discuss how a similar program could benefit your organization.

Matt Wagg

Getting Started with Digital Badging

To keep pace with rapid changes in work responsibilities, industry requirements, and advances in technology, employers and their employees are turning to Digital Badging as a way to verify knowledge and skill development.

In this session, participants will be introduced to the concept and process of digital badging, see examples of digital badges, as well as choose courses and learning objects from their organization that may be eligible for digital badging. Participants will also receive a list of resources for additional exploration of digital badges.

Kim Whiteside

Agile Instructional Design

AGILE is traditionally a technology project management methodology that enables teams to innovate, collaborate, and produce measurable results, and collect valuable feedback through multiple iterations. But did you know it can also help Instructional Designers do the same?

Using AGILE methodology, instructional designers can more effectively collaborate with stakeholders and subject matter experts to create development opportunities that meet current business needs and provide a foundation for the ever-changing business needs of tomorrow.

Come learn how you can use AGILE to break down your projects into manageable chunks to prioritize your workload, provide small deliverables to stakeholders and receive feedback on a set cadence, and move projects through your pipeline more effectively and efficiently.

Jen Wichern