The Argument Nobody Questions Ask anyone why they want AI in their training and you'll hear some version of the same answer: it saves time. And it's true. AI can summarize a 20-page report in seconds, turn messy notes into a clean response, generate examples, compare options, build quiz questions, and explain a hard concept in plain language. For instructional designers, trainers, and learners, that's real value. Here's the catch. Sometimes the work AI removes is the exact work that was supposed to produce the learning. If a learner is supposed to practice analyzing information and AI does the analysis instead, the task gets easier, and it may also stop teaching anything. If the goal is to build judgment and AI hands over the recommended option, the learner lands on the right answer without ever building the skill the activity was designed to develop. That's cognitive offloading, and instructional design hasn't caught up to it yet. The question isn't whether people … [Read more...] about AI Can Save Your Learners Time. It Can Also Quietly Take Their Learning With It.
AI and Learning Design
Stop Asking “What Can AI Do?” Start With the Learning Goal
AI has made it remarkably easy to start an instructional design project in the wrong place. If you open almost any AI tool, you can immediately generate learning objectives, outlines, scenarios, quiz questions, scripts, graphics, summaries, feedback, and even complete courses. If you give the tool a topic and a target audience, within seconds it will give you have something that looks surprisingly close to instructional content. While that speed is useful. It can easily distract us from a much more important question. Before asking “What can AI do here?”, instructional designers should be asking: “What do people need to learn or be able to do, and what thinking do they need to practice to get there?” That one simple question is important because it changes how you use AI. Instead of looking for tasks you can automate, you start deciding which parts of the work AI can reasonably support and which parts people need to do themselves. Sometimes AI should generate the first … [Read more...] about Stop Asking “What Can AI Do?” Start With the Learning Goal