Rethinking Learning with Karl Kapp’s Action-First Design

Instructional design isn’t just about what learners know—it’s about what they can do. In this episode, Dr. Karl Kapp discusses his new book, Action First Learning, and why engagement, application, and challenge are essential for lasting impact. 

Show Notes: 

Karl Kapp challenges traditional instructional design methods and introduces ideas that inspire lasting behavior change from learners. His key takeaways include: 

• Design for Application, Not Absorption: Action First Learning emphasizes giving learners opportunities to apply concepts right away. By focusing on real-world tasks and challenges from the start, training becomes more relevant, memorable, and impactful. 
• Desirable Difficulties Improve Retention: Learning that feels too easy may not stick. Struggles—when designed well—lead to deeper understanding, stronger memory, and long-term performance. 
• Reflection Is Essential for Learning: Without intentional reflection, learners may have experiences but miss the lessons. Instruction should include built-in prompts or creative methods to encourage personal reflection. 
• Effective Learning Doesn’t Require Expensive Tech: High-impact learning experiences can be created using simple tools like card games, role-plays, or branching scenarios. It's the design, not the delivery method, that matters most. 
• Gamification Is Evolving—And So Should We: Today’s most effective gamified learning emphasizes strategy, feedback, and motivation—not just points and badges. The future lies in designing experiences, not rewards. 

Read more from Dr. Karl Kapp 

Beyond Gamification: A Move Toward Action-First Learning (published by ATD)

Action First Learning (plus Instructor’s Guide, Learning Tools, and Coloring Page published by ATD) 

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Why Action First Learning is the Key to Real World Preparedness (Published in Training Industry) 

Powered by Learning earned Awards of Distinction in the Podcast/Audio and Business Podcast categories from The Communicator Awards and a Gold and Silver Davey Award. The podcast is also named to Feedspot's Top 40 L&D podcasts and Training Industry’s Ultimate L&D Podcast Guide.

Learn more about d'Vinci at www.dvinci.com.
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Transcript

Susan Cort: [00:00:00] Consider shifting the focus in training from what employees need to learn to what employees need to do, and you may also see a shift in your results.

Karl Kapp: Action First Learning really is a philosophy. So, so what motivated me to write the book in one area was a lot of people's, uh, get caught up in like, oh, is that a game or a gamification? Oh, that's really not gamification. And so. I, I would say to a lot of people, like, I don't really care. What I care about is whether or not learners are engaged and learning in meaningful activities.

Susan Cort: That's our guest renowned educator, author, and speaker Karl Kapp. Karl joins d’Vinci President Mason Scuderi and me to talk about his new book, Action First Learning and discuss what you can do to put learners in the driver's seat to get stronger performance and better outcomes.

Next on Powered by [00:01:00] Learning.

Joining me today are d’Vinci, president Mason Scuderi, and our guest renowned professor, speaker, and author, Karl Kapp. Karl's new book, Action First Learning Instructional Design Techniques to Engage and Inspire is out, and we are delighted to talk about his book and get his thoughts on the evolution of gamification.

Hi, Karl, great to see you.

Karl Kapp: It’s great to be here.

Mason Scuderi: Welcome.

Karl Kapp: Thanks. Great to be here, Mason. Thank you for having me.

Susan Cort: Karl, no doubt most of our listeners are familiar with your work. But for those who aren't, just give a little summary about your journey in learning and development and, and what you're working on now.

Karl Kapp: Yeah, so great question. So, uh, I, um, teach, uh, full-time at Commonwealth University, which used to be called Bloomsburg University, but we've merged with a couple of our sister schools and at Commonwealth. I teach instructional design and technology classes. And a number of years ago, I really got interested in how do I make instruction more engaging?

And so the [00:02:00] whole research and idea of gamification came about, um, way back in, I think 2011 or 2012 or something. I published my first, uh, book on gamification called the Gamification of Learning and Instruction. Since then, I've been exploring the topic, looking at the topic and thinking about how do we expand the topic so that more people can create instruction that's exciting, interesting and engaging.

Susan Cort: And, of course this is not your first book that just came out that we're gonna be talking about today. You've written how many now?

Karl Kapp: So I've written 10 books and I say that this book is not just a culmination of my thoughts on it, but it also books like I, I'll write a book and, and someone will say, yeah, great book, but you have no case studies. So then I add case studies to my next book and they say, that's a great book, but there's no step-by-step instruction.

So then I added step-by-step instruction. So this book has case studies, step by, you know, the whole nine yards. I threw it in there, everything I learned from my, my previous 10. So it's, it's kind of a combination of content as well as design.

Susan Cort: [00:03:00] Great.

Mason Scuderi: Yeah, we really loved the AI prompts that you integrated as well, Carl, into, into the book. They, they were really helpful.

Karl Kapp: Thanks. Yeah. That, that was a lot of fun. And I thought, thought, uh, it just gives people that kind of, um, over the hump of getting started, uh, with, with AI. So that was kind of cool that it was coming on. And plus it's 2025. You can't write a book without mentioning the, letters AI.

Mason Scuderi: Uh, that's a great way to get started. Well, speaking of getting started, uh, why don't you kick us off by telling us what, what is Action First Learning and what motivated you to write the book?

Karl Kapp: Yeah. So Action First Learning really is a philosophy. So, what motivated me to write the book in one area was a lot of people's, uh, get caught up in like, oh, is that a game or a gamification? Oh, that's really not gamification. And so. I, I would say to a lot of people, like, I don't really care. What I care about is whether or not learners are engaged and learning in meaningful activities. And so I really started thinking about that and I'm like, we, we need to do, maybe we need another term. And I thought [00:04:00] of, um, activity-based learning, but that has a lot of academic. for lack of a better word, right? People say, well, that's not activity-based learning. You have to do this or that's not.

And so I'm like, okay, okay. Let's get a term for practitioners. That's about a philosophical, an overall approach. It doesn't have to be, um, didactically defined. We can make it broad and then a lot of things can come under that. So. That was the impetus. And then the other impetus was I was looking out through old, um, comic book fan looking through old comics and action comics.

I came up with Superman holding up the car and I'm like, you know, and what a lot of people, it was fun. What a lot of people don't realize is that book was actually an anthology. So it was not just about Superman. There were a number of different stories in there. um, since the book was about nine different approaches to action first learning. I thought, well, this would be a perfect kind of, uh, concept to go with. So, uh, we kind of went with that concept, uh, making, um, and [00:05:00] giving people the tools to make Action First Learning, uh, in their own organizations or, uh, helping other organizations figure out what's, what's a good way to do that.

Mason Scuderi: One of your early hooks in the book, Karl, is that traditional education and corporate training has moved away from action first approaches. Uh, why do you think this happened?

Karl Kapp: I, I think there's a lot. I think there's a lot of reasons. So when. Training went online to, uh, web-based training. We missed a huge opportunity. We took the old broadcast model of me speaking to a large group of people and we just digitized it. So the same message to everybody, and everybody gets the same instruction whether they needed it or not. We perpetuated that for a number of years. Worrying about really worrying about, oh, does this look good? How does it make me feel? But not learning outcomes. Those had seemed to be a secondary learning outcome. So I, I think part of the reason we got away from it, [00:06:00] just because became easier to make broadcast instruction, became a little bit harder to think about instructional strategies, and a lot of people just kind of went in that direction.

But now we're in 2025 and we know that people we know from the research and, and we've known for a while, that when somebody is engaged with content, doing something, thinking about it, it becomes more real and more impactful. I mean, think all the way back to, uh, you know, Montessori. Think back to Dewey.

You know, these people in the 1800s, well, Montessori was a little later, but Dewey in the 1800s knew about learning by doing, and, uh, it just wasn't scalable. And so with the technology now, I think it is scalable. And I think also, you know, you think about the pandemic and um, the isolation that people felt. Um, one of the things that Action First Learning can do is, is help overcome some of that isolation by tapping into the social elements of learning. So we go to Pandora's social learning theory. [00:07:00] We know we learn from observing and working with others, and action verse learning fits right into that social learning theory.

Mason Scuderi: Yeah, you can really see that those trends developing and uh, I think the book is a really good reminder to, to shake us up to. To reevaluate. Um, what are some examples that you've seen in, in the corporate world where action first learning has improved outcomes?

Karl Kapp: I, I, so, so just going back real quick is, um, the idea of Action First Learning is, is as I mentioned Dewey and, uh, so it's not brand new, but, but we tend to, in the L&D field, go through these cycles of remembering something and then forgetting it and remembering it. And so I'm hoping that, we'll remember now that this is really effective. Um, there's lots of, of different, um, ideas, uh, that have been. Impact in corporate setting. So, so one example I like to give is I was, uh, asked to come in the, the, this company was doing, um, audits and uh, they were doing [00:08:00] internal audits. They worked for the Department of Defense and so every once in a while, they had to do internal audits and investigations. And the course was beautifully created by a subject matter expert, a lawyer, and it had the learning objectives, and it had the terminology, and it had the website and it had, and then later on it had a role play. But the problem was nobody knew how to do an audit. Like they came in and they're like, uh, I don't, well, didn't you go to class?

Well, yeah, I learned about doing an audit, but I really, you know, don't. we flipped that. We said, okay, as soon as they walk into the classroom. We're gonna give them a problem and they're gonna have to solve it. So we said, Hey, there's an anomaly. $10,000 seems to be missing. What are you gonna do? And so everybody sat there and was like, I don't know, what am I gonna do?

And they just looked at the instructor for a while and then someone said, well, what's the corporate policy? Ah, and then they started looking at the corporate policy and said, oh, what are the, um, steps for doing an audit? Oh, what is, so by the end of that, it was like a two day they actually had performed an audit. And so afterwards we asked 'em, you know, do you feel more comfortable? [00:09:00] And they're like, yeah, absolutely. We now know how to do an audit. We could do an audit in actual situation. So that's one example, just kind of flipping it in a classroom environment. Another uh, thing that we did was working with a, ironically, a large software company that said, Hey, our division leaders are really good at their division, but every time we promote them, they kind of favor their division. They don't think at the enterprise-wide level, so they're sub-optimizing the organization. So we created a board game and where people had these dilemmas that, uh, it was really interesting. There were nine people around the board and three teams. Three teams of three. If the teams worked together, the company would be successful.

If they fought each other, the company wouldn't be successful. And so that was a great example of Action First Learning and the conversations and the dynamics were just kind of amazing and, and how that happened. And another one, we, um, were helping this company, they were doing. Customer intake, like they were talking to new [00:10:00] customers and onboarding. And, uh, we created, um, branching scenarios for them. Basically kind of a, I call it pick your own path because choose your own adventure apparently is copyrighted and they will go after you. So, uh, pick your own path or trademark.

Susan Cort: We'll edit. We'll edit that out. Yeah.

Karl Kapp: Um, so anyway, so pick your own path, but basically it was kind of an intricate, uh, issue where people had to right away go in and make decisions and the decisions had consequences and the decisions had outcomes. And, um, afterwards, people, well, it was so funny because like the training had told them to, uh, use a certain approach. Like no one was using this approach. And then afterwards people were like, oh my gosh, the approach of doing such and such is so awesome. I'm gonna use it all the time. And, and the trainers were like, yeah, we've been like saying that in every class. Like, how come you didn't pick it up? But it's one thing to hear it, it's another thing to experience it.

And so they were able to experience it, see what the consequences were, and apply that. And it actually [00:11:00] helped improve onboarding and retention of customers dramatically. So, uh, those are just three examples.

Susan Cort: It definitely sounds like Action First Learning puts the learner first and makes the learning more relevant, more engaging, and, and probably sticky in the long run. Um, so I'm sure those are the kinds of benefits you're seeing.

Karl Kapp: Exactly. Uh, idea of Action First Learning is, is don't ask the question. What do learners need to know? Ask the question, what do they need to do?

Susan Cort: Yeah.

Karl Kapp: Sometimes those are not the same thing.

Susan Cort: Mm-hmm.

Mason Scuderi: Karl, one of the terms that's still ringing in my ears after reading the book is desirable difficulties. Uh, and you mentioned how instructional designers should weave these, uh, into the training. Why do you think that they're important?

Karl Kapp: Yeah. So, uh, that's a, that's a concept by Bork and, um, I think it's, I think it's an amazingly, um, it really resonated me with me too the first time I heard that term, because the idea is that. And it's so [00:12:00] counterintuitive that the easier we learn something, the easier we absorb it. We're like, great, this is great learning, but actually the harder it is to return, retain it. What we need to do really is if we struggle a little bit and, and I ask all people like, think about, think about how you really struggled with learning and then all of a sudden you got it. You remember that forever, but you crammed for a test. Um. get an A on it the next day, maybe you remember it, but three weeks later, four weeks later, five week, you don't remember anything. So the idea behind, um, the concept of desirable difficulties and it's desirable. So, so it's not just throwing difficulties to be difficulty, but slowing down the learning process so that people really understand what they're doing. Processing it, struggling with it, overcoming the, um, cognitive biases they may have or the, or [00:13:00] the obstacles that they have to learning.

It will allow that learning to stick more effectively. Now, learners don't like it. Like if you look at some research about, um. Uh, active, uh, activity-based learning. There'd been some research that said, Hey, students, how'd you like activity-based learning? They're like, yeah, I didn't learn as much. It's not as good as a lecture, but it turns out but then they, uh, quizzed them or, or tested them and they found out, yeah, you actually learned more than the lecture. You're not a very good, um, arbitrary of your own knowledge and, and we're not, humans are not, we're not good at kind of self-assessment at all. But the idea is that, um, the struggling actually leads to more learning, deeper learning, and then more ability to apply that learning.

So, so all kinds of goodness comes out of that. And desirable difficulty are things like giving a learner unorganized information, having them organize it. Um, space practice, space retrieval is an example of that. Giving learners [00:14:00] quizzes actually is a way of recalling information. So there's a lot of really simple tools to create a desirable difficulty, but, um, it's something that we often don't think about because we get this pushback from the learners. And I liken it to a physician, right? I do not like to get shots. Like I, I, you know, I get lightheaded and whatever. I'm like, don't gimme a shot. Don't put a needle in my arm. But you know what? It's good for me. so, um, I have to get that vaccination. So, the idea of, yeah, sometimes we as learning professionals have to administer something to a learner that maybe they don't like, but it's good for them from a learning perspective.

And, and I think one thing in the industry we need to do a little bit more is say, look, we're we're professionals. We know what we're doing. Take this medicine and you'll feel better. So, uh, or, you know, do this instruction and you'll be better on the job. So that's kind of the idea as well.

Susan Cort: I, I would suppose that the challenges kind of lead to, um, confidence, which lead to competence. [00:15:00] And, and I wonder what advice you might give to instructional designers who are thinking about how to build in those desirable difficulties without making them too difficult. Are, are there, it's probably a fine line.

Karl Kapp: Very fine line. And, and one of the things, so, you know, going back to my gamification history, one of the things that game developers have done, uh, really well is, is accommodated that. So if you go into a game, for example, you might get like three levels of help. So let's say I'm going in, I'm trying to find a treasure, right?

The first level of help might be, um. I in the woods, it might be behind the green and gray, you'll find the treasure that you're seeking, right? And like, well, what does that mean? Right? then the second level might be something like, look to the left of the screen behind. Nature, right? And rocks and trees.

The third level might be it's behind the rock, near the tree. Go find, right? And so now that's three different levels of help that I can decide as a learner what I want. And if I get super [00:16:00] frustrated, I go to the third level and I find the stupid treasure and I move on. that's, that's really helpful from a learning perspective.

Next time I go somewhere, I'm, I'm like, Hey, I wanna be a little bit more challenged. So, so we can actually build these levels into the instruction to do that. And we've done that with, um equipment, right? We have a demo, demonstrate version, a practice version, and a test version. We say, here's a piece of equipment that you've been working with.

And most people will go to the test version and then find out, ooh, I don't know how to do this. And then sometimes they'll go all the way back to the demo, oh, this is how you do it. And that taps into, you know, Malcolm Knowles, uh, uh, uh, the father of andragogy said, um  - adult learners learn best when they know they don't know something. So if you give them this situation where they don't know something, this difficulty, then um, they're more apt to learn and figure that out. So instructional designers can develop multiple levels of help. They can, uh, even ask like, what level do you want to go in at? Do you wanna go in as an expert, novice, something like that.

That's [00:17:00] the way you can do it. You can get, you can give them hints, you can, uh, have tips, um, and kind of go through that process and, and that helps 'em. I, I think the instructional design process, somewhere along the line, the, it became like, no, no, we just dummy it down. And so we'll give them the most basic information and then we wonder why our learners are bored. Like we're dealing with adult learners. They know a lot of stuff, and if we boil it down to the very basics and start there, we lose them from the beginning. So that was…

Susan Cort: They see the need.

Karl Kapp: Exactly.

Susan Cort: Like, here's why I should pay attention 'cause I don't know this yet. So that, that does make it more relevant.

Karl Kapp: Yeah, exactly.

Mason Scuderi: And Karl, you also mentioned that reflection is a key part of the action first cycle, which makes sense. When you have overcome a significant challenge, you know, that you, you, you want, you need, might need to reflect on it because it's more than just clicking next, next, next and, and finishing the module and checking the box. But how…

Karl Kapp: Exactly.

Mason Scuderi: [00:18:00] do you build reflection into the, you know, to the end of the, of the online learning experiences.

Karl Kapp: A great question. I always say there's no learning without reflection. There's only experience. And so if we really wanna learn, we have to think about like what just happened, whether it's positive or negative. And so we as instructors can do a number of things, or even an e-learning designers can do a number of things.

One is build that in. Learners typically will not take the time to reflect on their own unless we encourage them to do that. So at the end of the module, what did you learn? What are you gonna take away? How are you gonna apply this? Reflect on, um, any thoughts that you have. So you could do that physically or you could do that, uh, in a module.

Um, we did a module one time was so much fun. It was, um, Zombie Sales Apocalypse was the name of the, it was a digital game. And the idea was you were, uh, trying to sell to pharma and you, uh, if you didn't say the right thing, you were selling them an anecdote to zombie, uh, [00:19:00] virus. And, uh, at the end of that, there was a reporter that came up to you and said, Hey, that was a pretty tough situation you had in there with all those zombies and trying to sell them the antidote. Can you reflect on a couple questions? And then the reporter just asked questions about learning, you know, what sales strategy worked? What things did you think you were doing wrong? What would you do next time? And all those were just in the form of this, uh, interview. And it was very effective because the learners were forced to reflect without saying, okay, everybody, now we're gonna reflect. And the other, the other thing I I wanna point out is that a lot of, um. Learners. It’s kind of like, it's so interesting. We never learn how to learn, right? In high school we just kind of figure it out, right? We, they maybe teach us study habits, maybe not, uh, which should be in every class, I think, but, but adult learners especially, we have no learning in reflection.

Like nobody's ever taught us how to reflect. So one of the things that we can [00:20:00] do is give learners the tools to reflect. Whether it's, you know, a video reflection, whether it's certain questions, whether it's a sequence, whether it's even learning that there are different ways to reflect, right? You can reflect kind of just the facts. You can reflect on interpretation of the facts, you can reflect on how somebody else reacted to the facts. So there's lots of different ways to reflect, and those are some of the ways that we can help learners, um, overcome that. And, and the value is not just in that situation, but. Across like also, if we see somebody to reflect, then they can reflect on all kinds of learning situations and take that with them wherever they go.

Mason Scuderi: Absolutely. Karl, it was a really interesting parallel that you drew in the book about how toddlers learn and how adults should learn. So as learning professionals, what can we take away from that?

Karl Kapp: I, I think it's so much fun. Uh, I, I mentioned sometime that, oh, uh, you know how nobody teaches a baby a language? Well, but we talk to babies differently, but [00:21:00] not all the time. We do and we don't. Um, so I thought that was kind of an interesting observation. My favorite thing is to watch a baby, um, imitate the rhythm and cadence of a conversation before they can even speak.

I just think that's so fascinating that they're like, da, da, da, and they stop and they wait and they, but it's just as if they were having a conversation. So what I think we can learn is a number of things like toddlers are, are very exploratory. And I think exploratory learning is a great way to help somebody really learn something that they want to learn or that's valuable to them. So even I think like, so what we can do in instructional design is create non-sequential instruction. Like a lot of times we have to say, do this screen first, this screen first, this screen first. But let's, let's create non-sequential to, to get the learners, um, interests going. Uh, the other thing that, uh, toddlers do is that they test boundaries. Like, can I do this? Can I do that? And so I think one of the interesting things that we can do is allow learners to [00:22:00] test boundaries. Like, okay, what if I act unethically? What happens? What if I, you know, a lot of companies, no, no, no. Our compliance training, we can't have anybody, you know, doing anything wrong, whatever.

But, you know, people are wondering, like, so what is the consequence? Like, what is the what, what will happen? So kind of demonstrating that I think can happen as well. And, um. other thing about toddlers is that. Um, and this is kind of, uh, not, they're fun to watch, like a toddler, uh, when they're in a good mood.

Like, don't get me wrong, they can be in bad moods, but they're just enjoying everything that they do and everything that they encounter, and they're just excited by the newness of it. And while we might not be able to create that exactly, I think creating an environment where things are new, things are exciting, and things are, are, you know, dare I say fun.

Susan Cort: Yeah.

Karl Kapp: Uh, is, is a great way for learning. We, we've, you know, school kind of beats out curiosity and [00:23:00] engagement and interactivity and all that kind of stuff. You know, we all remember in school we got in trouble for talking to our classmates, but sometimes we were just talking off topic, but sometimes we were curious about the question or how it relates to me or whatever. But you're not allowed to do that. You have to, um, be quiet. And so I, I think, um, if we go back to before that, it can be very engaging and, um, make learning really relevant.

Mason Scuderi: Um, I, I think you also mentioned Karl, and I think we've probably experienced it in, in our line of work in the industry, that, um, some corporate leaders, uh, might resist, uh, active learning and might exist things that are a little more experimental. So, um, how as L&D professionals can we help to overcome this cultural pushback?

Karl Kapp: Yeah, that, that's a great question. So, um. One thing I I like to say is it's easier to, um, ask, beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. So sometimes just do it. [00:24:00] sometimes it's, it's a terminology like, again, why I got away from games and gamification. A lot of people got stuck up on the, the, the terminology, you know, hey, game is a four letter word in this company, we're not using it. So, um, action first makes sense from a, from a perspective of, of doing something. Um, I think showing the results. So you actually do that. And the other analogy I often, I often use, which I think is so amazing to me because let's say that you're a salesperson, you've been with the company for 20 years, and we say, Hey, we're gonna do some sales training.

They go - I've been here for 20 years. I'm not doing any training on sales. You go to Tom Brady and say, Hey, you wanna practice football? Oh yeah, let's go throw the ball. In fact, I'll be here at six o'clock tomorrow morning. Let's see you. You know, it's amazing. Why is Tom Brady the best quarterback, arguably in the world, right? Practicing. Because he knows that's how you get better. You stay sharper and you improve yourself. [00:25:00] It's in sports all over the place in corporations. It's not, and I, I, I find that kind of, um, ironic. So I often talk to learning le uh, um, organizational leaders, operational leaders, et cetera. And I say, look, your people need to practice these skills.

Otherwise, they're practicing 'em on customers. They're practicing them on other business units. They're practicing 'em on their fellow employees, and maybe they're doing it right and maybe they're not, and you wanna take that chance. Let's just do a little. Practice and it's amazing the impact, just, just a little bit of training does when it's done right and it's, and, and they understand why they're doing it on that particular element, so, so I often use the practice argument as well.

Mason Scuderi: Yeah, that sounds really good. Uh, another challenge that, that may come up. And at d’Vinci, you know, we know that creating quality, um, deeper learning experiences can have some cost implications. Um, but what are some ways that learning leaders [00:26:00] can Action First learning, uh, in a more budget-friendly way if they don't have the resources for high fidelity simulations?

Karl Kapp: In, uh, the book, I, I start with a chapter on card games. So, um, I was, the other day I was doing, I was at a, a conference and, uh, you know, had like a hundred people there, um, in this activity and I took out card games and we were playing a card game. And somebody said to me afterwards, they sent me an email, said, Hey Karl, um, this card game was great. Where can you go get the cards? I try printing stuff out at Staples all the time and it doesn't work, so I, I emailed 'em back and said, I have bad news for you. I printed the cards at Staples, so you can buy an Avery two by two cards for like $24. It's 180 cards and so, so you can do it very cheaply with cards. Um. Board games, there's like places called print and play. There's, uh, the game crafter cheaper than ever that you can create games. And so you can do that [00:27:00] easily. So, um, the idea that Action First Learning has to be fully immersive simulation. It's not true. And in fact some of the research is that if you do the same cognitive activity, but even though it's not exactly the same physical activity, you can get learning benefits.

So for example, card games, let's say you work for an insurance company and you have to sort, um, valid claims from invalid claims. Now, some would argue that if you work for an insurance company, they're all invalid claims. But let's for a minute, pretend some are valid and some are invalid. When you sort them, you're going through that mental process of what are the criteria, how does it work, and what is the element there?

And so those types of activities are not really costly. You could do a quick, um, not just physical card game, but you could do a digital card game and very easily get those kind of results. And so, um, I, I think, uh, with some imaginations, so we did, um. One of the chapters in the book is about escape rooms, and we did an escape room where we just basically had, uh, maybe [00:28:00] $150 worth of supplies. And, you know, we had a spreadsheet that you had to fill out the number and you had to take the number over here. And then we had, uh, an something that was in, um, Microsoft Word, and then we had something that was like, so. If you get creative, you can do Action First Learning the very tight budget, and it's more about the design process than the technology.

Now, AI, as we mentioned before, greatly accelerates a lot of that as well. You can use an AI prompt and it can, you know, accelerate the process dramatically. So there's that element as well. And it's never been, I don't think, a, a more exciting time to be involved with L&D and Action First Learning. 'cause we have so many tools at our disposal.

Mason Scuderi: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. And I think, uh, my next question is kind of, that segues really nicely into it, which is with, with more training options than ever. You know, and more, more modalities and ideas and uh, and now Action First Learning. What are your thoughts on balancing [00:29:00] speed and depth and training, and especially in like a high pressure industry where time is of the essence?

Karl Kapp: Yeah, so. There is a saying that I read in a novel one time and it said, um, is smooth and smooth is fast, and I just thought that was the greatest. Uh, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. What happens, I think in a lot of organizations is they think that by going 110 miles an hour, will work out, and so we need to go fast. what they miss is that element of smoothness. So if you're going very, very fast, oftentimes you've gotta go back and do things over again. You have to rework things, you have to apologize to clients, all kinds of stuff like that. But if we have deeper knowledge, and it does take some time to develop and, and you also have to keep [00:30:00] those people, you can't, you know, keep chucking 'em out. You keep people with deep knowledge, then they do things smoothly. When they do things smoothly, that speeds up your process. So instead of looking for speed, look for smoothness. Do people do things effectively? Do people understand what they're doing? Do people, uh, are they able to overcome obstacles that they might encounter if we train them to think and act in those ways? Then we actually can move faster as an organization eventually. But what's happened is we decided we'll act really fast first and then figure out everything later. And that often for an organization, unless you have, and, and that's why venture capital like burns through so much cash because they rarely take the time. To be smooth. They simply think it's gonna be fast. And so when you talk to organizations and, and you wanna build an organizational culture and you wanna build, uh, organizations [00:31:00] that last and that make an impact, you have to think smooth first, fast second. And slow is smooth, and then smooth is fast.

Mason Scuderi: That's an excellent explanation. That's the first time I've heard that. That's awesome.

Karl Kapp: Yeah, it's so funny. I like for, for, for leisure, I guess I like to read like, um. You know, like kind of spy novels. And they're all the same. They're all exactly the same. There's a guy who used to be in some secret government agency. He got kicked out for some thing that happened, and then he, his wife, girlfriend, kids, whatever, get killed and he goes on a mission.

Then he finds out the secret agency was trying to eliminate him and like, so I read those books all the time. So they're all the same, but different authors and different characters. But one of those books talked about this smooth is fast. Uh, smooth. Uh, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that that works for almost everything.

And so, um, I've adopted that.

Susan Cort: I would think too, it, uh, it helps to build on [00:32:00] sequential learning too. That if you, if you go in and there's that understanding of the first concept, then, then there's gonna be greater understanding and competency with all the subsequent ones, which ultimately will make the learner more proficient in his or her job.

Karl Kapp: Yes. Yeah. I mean it, it's so funny to me how little organizations. Think about practicing and perfecting what their employees do every day. And the only way, and, and so think about an employee that doesn't really kind of know customer service, right? And so they get on the phone and they're practicing with the customer, oh, that didn't work.

Okay, lemme try that. Oh, that didn't work. Meanwhile, your customer's like, this is the worst customer service ever. And I can tell you. Probably those employees aren't reflecting on it. So they're not learning from the, how are they learning, how are they improving? And so that's why organizations I think, really need to invest in this kind of, uh, approach so that they can become better in the long run.

And it, it's, it's, it's, it truly is an investment and people, um, nowadays want quick [00:33:00] return on their money. It's just the same thing. I won't quick return on my human, um, resources, but actually assets grow over time. They don't grow immediately.

Mason Scuderi: Well, Karl, we couldn't leave the conversation today without getting your take on, uh, gamification and, and where we are with gamification. Uh, so you are the leading expert. I don't think there's any dispute about that. Um, but how do you think, uh, gamification is evolving, uh, with, with a, the adoption of AI and, uh, like we said before, more modalities and options than ever available to us. Uh, so how does that, uh, bring us home into action first learning.

Karl Kapp: Yeah, that's a great question. So the original, the working title for this book was Beyond Gamification. So, um, what I really wanted to do is kind of move beyond, move to the next level. I think gamification is definitely moved from the original, like points badges and leaderboards.

You know, um, Jesse Shell called a chocolate covered broccoli, I think or exploitative wear and, and uh, [00:34:00] all that kind of stuff to understanding that games are effective because they have challenges, because they have feedback loops, because they have cognitive dissonance that has to be, um, Um, aligned, right?

So all of those things we now understand are really what makes games more effective. So gamification is becoming at a, a much more deeper level from a learning perspective in that people are making the instruction more. Um, with more feedback, with more engagement, with more of those elements and less of a, yeah, let's throw points at it or let's throw a badge at it. Um, and so this, I called it content gamification. and I really think content gamification is becoming more and more of the future where you get into kind of the flow of what's happening rather than these external points and leaderboards and, and badges And, and I think. I wouldn't, wouldn't have written the book [00:35:00] Action First Learning if I didn't think Action First Learning is the next step. Uh, people now need to really think about what does a learner need to do. Like, I think gamification in some ways is like, what do we have to give the learner to motivate them? Like, so what are we giving to them? But now it's what can, what does a learner need to do and how can we help them do it?

And that's kind of the new paradigm. What is a learner doing and how do we help them do that when we can, um, craft the instruction? That way it becomes valuable to learner. Now, with AI, we can now create, you know, automated digital coaches. And so a lot of, uh, uh, training can be done like in your pocket.

Like I can pick up the phone and say, Hey, how I'm going into a meeting with somebody? Uh, can you gimme some information on the best way to negotiate? Right. And I can get that information and, and easily get that. So I think, I think one of the shifts that's happening is as designers of instruction, we now have to [00:36:00] think about designers of coaches.

Designing of mentors, designing of experiences. And so we're gonna be doing more and more of that now, that doesn't negate the need for like, you know, deep learning in courses and things like that. And I, and I, I'm afraid the industry is gonna go all, you know, we we're a pendulum, so we'll go all one way.

Oh, everything's an AI coach. And then we're gonna find out, hey, wait a minute. People don't have deep knowledge. Especially one of the things that I worry about is, you know. I've had a number of years of experience. So when something comes up in the ai, I can, you know, put the dots together and I can go, oh, well that's not right.

Based on my experience, this should be this and that can't possibly be right. Let me check that. Um, but if you grow up with AI and you don't have those, know, years of experience, I kind of worry like, where are you gonna get that? And I just read an article the other day that said a lot of entry level jobs, which are being eliminated via AI are, um adversely impacting the new, uh, [00:37:00] employees because now they're not getting that experience. You know, the experience of rolling up your sleeves and earning your stripes for the first, you know, five, ten years. So it will be interesting. 

But I think as, um, designers of instruction, thinking about AI right now, we use it to help us speed line, uh, speed up our process, help us, um, make connections where maybe we couldn't if we had that experience and help give learners, you know, chat bots and coaches and, and things like that. And that'll continue to grow and it'll, it'll only get better from here. Um, but we have to kind of, uh, go in with both eyes wide open, understanding both the promise of AI and also the perils of AI. And, uh, I think if we do that, it's gonna be a, an exciting time forward, but, but we have to be a little bit cautious in, in where we go. I don't think structural design's going away as a, as a career. I think, I think that's here to stay because people always [00:38:00] need to learn and it always needs to be designed.

And some of the, even the best, uh, AI instruction I've seen still kind of lacking. And I, I believe we learned through connections. I always find it very interesting that, that people want to use an AI avatar to teach leadership. Well, if you're leading AI avatars, go for it. If you're leading people, it's not

Susan Cort: Not so much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Karl, we can't thank you enough for joining us today. You've shared so many great insights, uh, uh, from your book, and we're gonna put a link in the show notes to your book and some of your other, uh, recent resources so people can learn a little bit more about, uh, your thoughts on action-based learning and also gamification and, uh, some of the other things that you've been writing about lately.

So thank you for joining us today.

Karl Kapp: Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun, so thank you.

Mason Scuderi: And Karl, we really appreciated you joining the d’Vinci Summer offsite staff meeting, uh, earlier in July, and, uh, sharing your insights in book with the entire d’Vinci team. So, thank [00:39:00] you.

Karl Kapp: Yeah,

Susan Cort: yeah, we appreciate that, Karl. Take care. We'll look forward to having you back on again.

Karl Kapp: Look forward to it.

Susan Cort: Thanks to d’Vinci President Mason Scuderi and our guest Karl Kapp for joining us today. You'll find links to some of Karl's latest articles and resources as well as his new book Action First Learning in the show notes. If you have ideas for future topics or guests, please reach out to us at Poweredby Learning@dvinci.com.

And don't forget to subscribe to Powered By Learning wherever you listen to your podcasts.