Telling people things was always the cheap option. Now rehearsal is cheap too: simulations, branching scenes, AI counterparts. A course that never makes the learner do the thing needs a reason to exist. And rehearsal should adapt: spacing that responds to your misses, a counterpart that responds to your words. Every learner is going to have a tutor soon. Somebody has to decide what that tutor is aiming for, and that is the job I want.
I use it daily — to draft scenes, score transcripts, play difficult customers. It's useful exactly to the degree the person directing it knows the field: which wrong answers are plausible, which feedback gets read, what transfer looks like. Without that, it just generates slop faster.
"Completed the module" is a fact about a browser tab. I would rather report rubric scores from real transcripts, decision-level xAPI data, and an evaluation plan where every metric has an owner. Training should get judged like any other investment.
Nothing on this site is here because it is new. Spaced retrieval, worked examples, psychological safety, implementation intentions: every design bet traces back to research that predates the tools. A format earns its place by clearing the same old bar, which is whether anyone does their job differently afterward. Engagement numbers that cannot answer that question stay out of my reports.
Thirty faces tell you a lesson isn't working before the bell does. So I work backwards: what people do all day first, assessment before activities, every line read out loud before it ships. M.Ed. Curriculum & Instruction, VCU — 4.0, plus a certificate in Instructional Design & Learning Sciences.