The Learning Experience Ops Show

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman talks with Kristen Bourgault, director of instructional design programs at Quinnipiac University, where she co-developed and has taught in a fully online master's and certificate program for the past 12 years. With 25 years in higher education and nonprofit settings, Kristen has been a persistent advocate for the legitimacy of online learning, a cause she says has required fighting for the entire span of her career. They discuss what got her hooked on instructional design as a student worker building courses in Web CT, why online education has always been treated as the ugly stepchild of the university, and how her initial excitement about ChatGPT forcing better assessment design gave way to harder questions when her own students used AI to shortcut assignments she thought were AI-proof. Kristen also shares what hiring managers are telling her they actually want in instructional design candidates, why her graduates leave the program unwilling to chase shiny technology, and what quality really looks like when a student comes back ten years later to tell you what stuck.

Takeaways

• Online education has always had to fight harder than it should to be taken seriously.
  
• The human relationship is the center of online learning, not the technology.
  
• ChatGPT initially looked like it would force better assessment design, and in some ways it has.
  
• When students shortcut assignments, it is a signal to redesign, not to police.
  
• Making assignments easier and more connected actually produces deeper learning.
  
• Hiring managers want AI literacy, core ID skills, and project management in equal measure.
  
• Graduates who are taught to be critical of technology will not chase every shiny tool.
  
• Online faculty and students are consistently under-resourced and overlooked by their institutions.
  
• Quality shows up when learning immediately applies to a student's life and career.
  
• Instructional design is a durable, evolving field that is not going away.

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What Hiring Managers Want From Instructional Designers Right Now- Kristen Bourgault on AI Literacy, Core Skills, and the Three Buckets Every ID Needs to Cover

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“The Ugly Stepchildren of the University:” Kristen Bourgault on Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Online Learning to Be Taken Seriously

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman talks with Brenda Boyd, founder of Practice Learning and a former senior leader at Quality Matters for more than 14 years. They discuss what quality actually means in online education, why standards should read like carrots rather than sticks, and how her own experience as a returning college student with a terrible online course became the origin story for her career. The conversation covers the maturity of the learning design profession, how assessment needs to evolve beyond the five-paragraph essay, the National Accreditation Commission's AI hub for workforce Pell compliance, and why measuring ROI in education requires knowing where you are before you can know where you're going. Brenda also makes the case that critical thinking and discernment are the skills that matter most as AI becomes embedded in every corner of education.

Takeaways

• Quality is a continuous improvement journey, not a destination.
  
• Standards should feel like carrots that welcome educators, not sticks that punish them.
  
• The learning design profession is still growing and has not fully professionalized.
  
• Assessment must evolve beyond essays toward diverse ways students can show learning.
  
• Emergency remote instruction during the pandemic was not online learning and left a stigma.
  
• Institutions need to know their baseline data before they can measure ROI.
  
• AI literacy and discernment will be essential skills for everyone, not just technologists.
  
• Hospitality experience translates directly to working with faculty and subject matter experts.
  
• Students deserve practice opportunities where they can fail without consequence.
  
• Human connection and community will remain critical as AI reshapes education.

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Quality Is Not a Destination: Brenda Boyd on Continuous Improvement, ROI in Higher Ed, and the Frameworks That Make Better Learning Possible

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There Has to Be a Better Way: Brenda Boyd on Quality, Standards, and the Students Who Never Know Your Name

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman talks with Hamit Hamutcu, founder of AIx Ed, an event and community platform that brings together K-12 teachers, university leaders, ed tech founders, and policymakers to make sense of what AI means for education. They discuss the striking leap in maturity he observed between the November 2025 and May 2026 AIx Ed conferences, the danger of siloing conversations by sector, and why education is making more progress on how we teach than on what we teach. Hamit also shares lessons from co-founding a data science skills taxonomy, offers practical advice for professionals drowning in AI news, and predicts a calmer near future where AI becomes embedded in workflows rather than remaining the dominant topic of conversation.

Takeaways

• The maturity of AI conversations in education jumped dramatically in just six months.
• There is far more progress on how we teach than on what we teach.
• Cross-sector conversations are more valuable than sector-specific silos.
• AI skills must be integrated into subject context, not taught in isolation.
• Taxonomies help professionalize a field but must be ready to be thrown out.
• Durable skills like problem structuring and evaluation outlast any specific tool.
• Keeping up with AI daily creates anxiety; a monthly wavelength is enough.
• Individual initiative is driving more change than organizational policy right now.
• The real next step is tinkering with AI in your own workflows, not reading about it.
• In two to three years, AI will feel more like business as usual than a disruption.

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From AI Disorientation to Traction: Hamit Hamutcu on the Six-Month Shift in How Educators Are Thinking and Talking About AI

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From AI Disorientation to Traction: Hamit Hamutcu on How Educators are Finding Their Footing

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman talks with Anand Shekhar and Ram Iyer, co-founders of ClaraLearn, a workforce intelligence platform built on a thesis that runs against the grain: the global talent crisis is not a skills shortage but a clarity shortage. Anand and Ram explain how AI is collapsing both the skills and scarcity that have historically determined professional value. They walk through their model for helping professionals discover their identity beyond job titles, explore adjacent career paths without starting from scratch, and retain what they learn rather than just consuming content. The conversation also covers why learning must be treated as infrastructure rather than a cost center, how critical thinking and domain knowledge are becoming the real differentiators, and why governments and institutions need to step in as the pace of disruption accelerates.

Takeaways

• The talent crisis is a clarity problem, not a skills shortage.
• Professional value has always been a function of skills and scarcity, and AI is collapsing both.
• Your professional identity is a spectrum of capabilities, not a job title.
• Critical thinking and domain knowledge are the skills AI cannot replicate.
• Retention of learning matters more than consumption of content.
• Exploration should build on existing skills rather than starting from scratch.
• Learning must be treated as organizational infrastructure, not a cost line.
• Personalization is the missing layer in most learning experiences today.
• Governments, enterprises, and institutions must collaborate to reduce professional anxiety.
• Realizing your human potential is the most durable response to any disruption.

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The Talent Crisis Is Not a Skills Shortage- Anand Shekhar and Ram Iyer on What AI Is Doing to Labor Market Value and the Human Capabilities That Survive It

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Would You Do This Job If Nobody Paid You? Anand Shekhar and Ram Iyer on the Human Capabilities AI Cannot Touch

DOWNLOAD THE JLX FUTURE SKILLS SURVEY REPORT: https://jackrabbitlx.com/fss_report/

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman and James Altman unpack the findings of the JLX Future Skills Survey, which asked 197 learning professionals across six regions and multiple sectors to rate nine skills on how important they believe each will be in the next three years. The results revealed three statistically distinct tiers, with learning strategy and design thinking at the top alongside AI tools and stakeholder influence, while traditional staples like LMS authoring tools and content development landed at the bottom. James walks through the methodology, the debates around the term "learning professional," and the surprising gaps between what practitioners value and what they believe their employers value, particularly around storytelling and data analysis. They also discuss the wide spectrum of AI adoption in the field, the qualitative responses that read as a general indictment of a profession without a roadmap, and the early vision for a cross-sector skills roadmap for learning professionals.

Takeaways

• Durable skills dominated the top tier over purely technical ones.
• Learning strategy and design thinking rated highest across all respondents.
• AI tools ranked high but couldn't be statistically separated from durable skills.
• LMS authoring tools and content development fell to the bottom tier.
• Professionals value storytelling far more than they believe their employers do.
• Employers are perceived to prioritize data analysis and reporting over narrative.
• 44% named something AI-related as the top competency, but that number hides enormous variation.
• Judgment appeared constantly in open responses alongside AI.
• The qualitative data reads as a profession-wide indictment of having no clear roadmap.
• Cross-sector collaboration is essential to building a shared skills framework.

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Toward a Skills Roadmap for Learning Professionals- James Altman on 197 Survey Responses, Three Tiers, and the Crucial Work Ahead

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No One Has the Answer: James Altman on What 197 Learning Professionals Actually Think Will Matter in the Next Three Years

Summary:

In this conversation, Jason Gorman and Heather Xu dig into the human side of AI transformation and the growing pace gap between technology, people, and organizations. Heather is the founder of Design for Flow and a former director at KPMG. They explore why learning teams must shift from being course creators to business-aligned capability builders, how to design workflows that preserve human thinking rather than surrendering it to AI, and why human connection is increasing in value, not decreasing. Heather introduces two practical frameworks: one for mapping AI relationships across a workflow (coach, thought partner, accelerator, automator) and another for personal AI value (amplify, unblock, stretch, free). The conversation closes with a discussion on human agency as the foundational skill for navigating an uncertain future.

Takeaways:

• Technology, people, and organizations are moving at three different speeds.
• Your strengths are what make you feel strong, not just what you're good at.
• L&D teams must start with business strategy, not their own curriculum.
• If a learning program isn't adding value, it's actively reducing it.
• Design for human plus human plus AI, not just human plus AI.
• The real value of AI comes from strategic questions, not automated outputs.
• AI left on its own misses things that human judgment catches.
• Agency looks different for everyone: builders, explorers, sense makers, collaborators, creators.
• Organizations must account for cognitive burden as work intensifies.
• Human connection is becoming more valuable, not less, because of AI.

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Brain Fry Is Real and Organizations Are Causing It: Heather Xu on Cognitive Burden, Pace Gaps, and the Human Cost of Too Much AI Too Fast

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The Three-Body Problem: Heather Xu on Designing Work That Actually Flows When Everything Is Moving at Different Speeds

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman and Adarsh Lathika explore what happens to human capability when AI starts doing more of the thinking. Adarsh, a strategy and learning systems practitioner, introduces concepts like the shadow curriculum, cognitive debt, and the Anatomy of Work framework to explain how learners and employees are increasingly bypassing formal learning systems and building their own AI-powered solutions. They discuss why institutions and employers are losing relevance as learning providers, how prioritizing speed and output over depth is eroding foundational skills, and why human biology, judgment, and context are becoming the true competitive advantages in an AI-first world. Adarsh also unpacks three major shifts reshaping the field: from institutions to individuals, from courses to systems, and from knowledge to judgment.

Takeaways

• Learners are building their own AI-powered learning tools outside formal systems.
• Knowledge is now abundant and instant; judgment is the real differentiator.
• AI is shortcutting the repetitive work that historically built domain expertise.
• Junior professionals are losing the chance to develop intuition through experience.
• Prioritizing speed and output creates only superficial skill development.
• Employees no longer trust that organizations are invested in their growth.
• L&D must shift from curating courses to building self-sustaining learning systems.
• Human biology, discipline, and habits outside work directly affect workplace performance.
• Transparency between employers and employees is essential to navigating this transition.
• Institutions must become places where cognitive and behavioral skills are built, not just credentials earned.

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The Shadow Curriculum Is Already Here- Adarsh Lathika on What Happens When Learners Stop Waiting for Institutions and Start Building Their Own Systems

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The Shadow Curriculum: Adarsh Lathika on What Employees Are Teaching Themselves and What That Means for Every Learning Professional

Summary

In this conversation, Jason Gorman and Simon Greenwold discuss the power of storytelling as a strategic tool for organizations, particularly in higher education. Simon, co-founder and CEO of Story as a Service and Jason's business partner, draws on over 25 years of experience at Northwestern University and EdTech company 2U to explain how organizations can clarify their core story and communicate it effectively, both internally and externally. They explore real client work at Princeton and Excelsior University, the current state of higher education under political and economic pressure, and why storytelling is a practical superpower for faculty, learning designers, and institutional leaders.

Takeaways

• Internal communications are the most important and least understood part of organizational health.
• Every organization has a core story that must be clarified before strategy can be built.
• Storytelling translates academic jargon into language anyone can understand.
• People remember three things, so be concise and intentional.
• Stakeholders hold stakes; understand what they care about before you communicate.
• Higher ed is being disrupted by AI, politics, and economics all at once.
• Most workplace turbulence feels severe but is usually mild.
• An organization's core story is like a Shakespeare play: same story, new forms over time.
• AI will disrupt learning design but will not replace the humanity it requires.
• Storytelling is a learnable skill that can become a professional superpower.

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Your Story From the Inside Out- Simon Greenwold on Why Internal Communications Is the Most Underestimated Driver of Organizational Health

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The Story Is the Strategy: Simon Greenwold on Why Higher Ed Cannot Afford to Get This Wrong