Summer: Time to Relax and to Learn
Swinging bridge reservoir, Bethel, NY

Summer: Time to Relax and to Learn

Summer is often a time to relax and kick-back. Enjoy rivers, lakes, and trips to the ocean. But for educators, teachers, and professors, the summer is often a time to learn new skills, prepare new courses, and continue the learning journey. Most educators I've met, corporate and academic are life long learners.

In that spirit, here are a number of summer courses (most only about an hour) that you can take to expand your skills. These are all available on LinkedIn Learning.

The good news is that MOST institutions or libraries have access to LinkedIn Learning for FREE so the courses are often no cost. But even if you have to pay a little, they are absolutely worth it. Enjoy!

Creating Branching Scenarios

One of the hottest educational trends right now is to create a branching, interactive, scenarios where different choices and decisions lead to different outcomes. Just like real-life. Some outcomes might be favorable and some may not be as favorable. This course provides a great overview for anyone who want to explore the creation of branching scenarios.

Showing a branching tree for creating online branching scenarios.

Click on the link to see a preview of my course on scenario-based learning. Designing Scenario-based Learning



Increasing Learner Engagement

When you are actually in a classroom (virtual or physical), let your expertise shine through but also convey your knowledge and insights in a way that excites and engages students. You may be the most well-researched and knowledgeable person on a subject but if you can't engage and motivate students, you will have a problem.

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Some of these ideas are covered in train-the-trainer and teacher training programs but its a great refresher and, you might even find one or two new gems.

In this course I explain how to engage students both with traditional, non-digital methods and through some more modern approaches. Here is the link to a preview of Learning How to Increase Learner Engagement. One of my most popular course.

Gamifying Your Instruction

Another of my most popular courses (actually a series of courses) is on the topic of gamification.

My gamification courses will help you to think about gamifying your instruction whether online or together in a group. Overall my advise is to start small and then add more and more game elements.

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It’s effective from a learning perspective and really engages learners. If you are not sure where to start, check out the courses below. They will help you think through the gamification process and to create meaningful gamified instruction. It's a great way to get started. Click on each link for a preview of the course.

The Gamification Series to help foster interactive learning provides an overview of gamification in the first course and then gets a little deeper into techniques and ideas in the second course and then the third course called "Sales Gamification" really gets into tying gamification to specific behavioral elements. The context is sales but it can be used for any learning activity where you are attempting to influence behavior.

Setting up and Running a Training Department

As someone who has spent decades in the Training and Development Industry, I've gained a great deal of knowledge about how to set up a training department (I was a one person training department in my early career), how to make sure training adds value, and how to leverage training for organizational success. I've put all that knowledge and "school of hard knocks" experience into this series of courses.

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This is critically important because organizations spend a great deal of money each year on training and you want to make sure it's providing the right return to the organization.


Here are the courses in a recommended order but they can certainly be mixed and matched.

Next Level

If you want to take your professional development or your team's professional development to an even higher level. Consider applying to become a member of the L&D Mentor Academy. It's not for everyone and it is focused only on senior folks but it provide a powerful boost to your career. You can learn more at https://www.ldmentor.com/ or DM me directly.

Next Steps

While we all need some rest and relaxation after the crazy few years we've had. We also need to continually learn. Especially if we are in the learning business in one way or the other. Take a few moments to grab a lemonade and a note pad and enjoy a nice dose of professional development. You'll be glad you did.



About Karl

Karl Kapp, Ed.D. has been a Professor of Instructional Technology for over 20 years at Bloomsburg?University. In that time, he's written books, created LinkedIn Learning courses, published peer review articles, wrote successful grants, held numerous corporate advisory events, and has taught countless professionals watching them go on to great, inspirational careers.

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