Traditional learning paths aren’t cutting it. Here’s how to incorporate experiential practice and outcome-driven design to transform learning journeys into measurable results.
Between the realities of constantly changing tech and the pressure to grow revenue during challenging economics, how can organizations transform learning journeys into outcome-driven skill accelerators? Greg Fuller, VP of Codecademy Enterprise at Skillsoft, and Frank Gartland, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Skillable, dove into how organizations can overcome today’s training and enablement challenges in a conversation led by Jade Emmons, Communications Director at Skillable.
Read on for key takeaways and actionable insights.
Jump ahead
- Prioritize personalization – How to use pre-assessments and a hands-on strategy to tailor learning journeys.
- How AI is impacting learning journeys – Why experiential learning is non-negotiable in the AI Era.
- Start with outcomes – What do you want people to be able to do and why?
- Add flexibility – Find out how hands-on labs can flex and scale across learning journeys.
Meet your presenters
Greg Fuller
VP Codecademy Enterprise, Skillsoft
In Greg Fuller’s 24+ year career with Skillsoft, he has been involved in tens of thousands of hours of content development projects – all focused on tech skills. Along the way, Greg has acquired several technical certifications such as PMP, CISSP, Oracle OCP, Cisco CCNP and many others. Greg has applied much of the knowledge that he’s acquired working closely with several Fortune 500 companies to help build their upskilling programs.
Greg Fuller
VP Codecademy Enterprise, Skillsoft
In Greg Fuller’s 24+ year career with Skillsoft, he has been involved in tens of thousands of hours of content development projects – all focused on tech skills. Along the way, Greg has acquired several technical certifications such as PMP, CISSP, Oracle OCP, Cisco CCNP and many others. Greg has applied much of the knowledge that he’s acquired working closely with several Fortune 500 companies to help build their upskilling programs.
Frank Gartland
Chief Product & Technology Officer, Skillable
As Skillable’s Chief Product & Technology Officer, Frank Gartland collaborates with customers, analysts and partners to better understand enablement and skilling challenges to ensure Skillable continues to create a market dedicated to solving those problems with hands-on experiences. Frank believes people will struggle to find the confidence to do their best work until they’ve had a chance to “actually do the work.”
Frank Gartland
Chief Product & Technology Officer, Skillable
As Skillable’s Chief Product & Technology Officer, Frank Gartland collaborates with customers, analysts and partners to better understand enablement and skilling challenges to ensure Skillable continues to create a market dedicated to solving those problems with hands-on experiences. Frank believes people will struggle to find the confidence to do their best work until they’ve had a chance to “actually do the work.”
Jade Emmons
Communications Director, Skillable
Jade Emmons is a seasoned storyteller and communications specialist with deep roots in the tech industry, dating back to the early days of GDPR. With a talent for translating complex, technical topics into clear and compelling narratives, Jade has helped organizations make subjects like big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, IoT, GDPR and the future of work accessible and meaningful to broad audiences.
Jade Emmons
Communications Director, Skillable
Jade Emmons is a seasoned storyteller and communications specialist with deep roots in the tech industry, dating back to the early days of GDPR. With a talent for translating complex, technical topics into clear and compelling narratives, Jade has helped organizations make subjects like big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, IoT, GDPR and the future of work accessible and meaningful to broad audiences.
Prioritizing personalization through tailored learning journeys
The same learning journey doesn’t work for everyone. Rather than marching everyone through a rigid curriculum, Greg explained how Skillsoft leverages pre-assessment data and hands-on labs to build personalized learning paths. These tailored journeys address individual gaps and objectives, keeping learners engaged and ensuring their efforts connect directly to the skills necessary to demonstrate proficiency.
Data-driven personalization, powered by virtual lab platforms like Skillable, ensures learning is never one-size-fits-all. Instead, it’s dynamic – adapting as learners grow, change roles or encounter new technologies.
Learn more about creating custom learning journeys from Greg in the clip below.
Video transcript
Greg Fuller: This is the learning cycle or the skilling cycle that we like to talk about here at Skillsoft. So, we like to start learners with some level assessment. Again, this comes down to making a very personalized learning journey for each learner.
We’re in this age where if we want Frank and Jade and Greg to upskill, just getting them a very static, same learning journey just doesn’t work anymore. And so you think about platforms like Skillable, for example, that’s a great way to pre-assess a lot of hands-on capabilities.
So, it can be traditional assessments or, more importantly, something a little bit more hands-on. So it’s really for this pre-assessment piece – what we do at Skillsoft, we actually create custom learning journeys based upon what a learner does well at or, more importantly, what they were lacking in their pre-assessment. So, the learning journey for Jade versus Frank versus Greg, we’re all given slightly different learning journeys.
Experiential learning is non-negotiable in the AI Era
Jade brought up the elephant in the room – AI – and led the group in a discussion about how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work and learn.
Accessing and organizing knowledge quickly is being democratized and the ability to practice and apply that knowledge is becoming even more critical. As a result, traditional passive learning methods – reading, watching videos or completing static assessments – fall short in building true job readiness. Greg highlighted the role of AI in modern-day test taking. AI can answer a multiple-choice test, but it can’t replicate hands-on experience.
Frank agreed that AI itself raises the bar for training and enablement programs, emphasizing that only interactive, experiential practice can truly measure and validate skills. AI makes it essential for learners to have safe environments to experiment and gain feedback – helping them build both competence and confidence.
Hear more from Greg about the value of incorporating hands-on experience in today’s learning journeys in the video clip below.
Video transcript
Greg Fuller: If you think about AI, you know, traditional learning assessments, etc., now AI is more or less a tool to help us pass those tests. There’s some security mechanisms you can put in place, but, really, a traditional multiple-choice assessment, you can’t really rely on that assessment of learners’ knowledge anymore. And you could always argue that never was the case.
But even if someone’s using AI for some type of hands-on activity to help coach them, they’re still physically doing that activity. And that’s a big thing that we have to keep in mind in this world of AI-generated content and results is that hands-on element is a real true test.
Start with business outcomes and validate performance
When building learning journeys, Greg explained the importance of understanding the end state you want to reach first. Begin by defining your desired learning and business outcomes, then reverse-engineer your plans from there. What should employees be able to do that supports the organization’s vision and strategy?
Once outcomes are defined, learning plans can be developed to build those specific capabilities. Activity data generated from hands-on labs offers a powerful way to validate whether training is working. Rather than focusing on completion time or traditional assessments, organizations can now measure the real impact of learning investments on performance and business goals.
This outcome-driven mindset is especially vital as companies strive to keep pace with change. Learning is no longer just about checking boxes; it’s about enabling people to deliver measurable results.
Hear more from Frank about starting with the “why” when incorporating virtual labs into learning journeys in the video clip below.
Video transcript
Frank Gartland: Getting started was one of the things we mentioned at the beginning. A lot of folks, I think, they’ve been building learning the way they’ve been building learning for a long time. You know? Release a new process, release a new workflow, release a new feature. Like, whatever it is that your job is. Okay, I need to build some content so some group of people – customers, employees, partners, whoever – can do something. Right? They can produce something.
And I think instructional designers do a great job of sitting back and going, “Okay; what is it that we want people to be able to do?” And let’s create content that gives them the confidence to do that, gives them the experience to do that, etc. Right? So when you think of labs, it’s really no different. It’s kind of like, look. What do you want people to do? And how do you want them to do it? Might be a part of it, it might not be a part of it. But it’s like, what do you want them to do and why do you want them to do those things?
And once you kind of know the “what” and the “whys” creating a few labs and integrating those within the learning journey. Whether you’re kicking it off with it, like a hands-on first kind of approach – we’re going to do labs and we’ll pepper content around for where gaps are. And if they don’t have any gaps and they can do the work. Great. Go for it. Right? Or whether it’s, “Hey; we’re going to teach them some stuff and then give them labs at the end or labs throughout.” It doesn’t matter.
But I think that’s the place to start. What do you want to be able to do? And build labs on those things. And then validate that, yes, you did it. The validation is the part that will get the confidence.
Modern learning journeys demand flexible hands-on experiences
From pre-assessments to capstones, Greg cited the flexibility and scalability of hands-on labs as key differentiators for outcome-based learning journeys. Whether building foundational knowledge, upskilling for new technologies or preparing for a major transformation, hands-on labs can be embedded wherever they’re needed – before, during or after more formal instruction.
For example: Skillsoft uses off-the-shelf labs (aka, Skillable Challenges) to provide bite-sized, skill-focused practice, while customizable labs built by Skillsoft on the Skillable platform serve as a competitive differentiator for their customers and provide valuable capstone events that validate mastery in real-world scenarios.
Hear more from Greg about why Skillsoft partners with Skillable for hands-on labs in the video clip below.
Video transcript
Greg Fuller: The big influx point for us really was Cloud upskilling. You know, you could always spin up virtual machines, simulate some type of practice environment. You didn’t have the thoroughness of the Skillable labs that have that evaluation mechanism. But you could always kind of fake it in learning. That’s a good way to think of it. But Cloud really was that influx point for us.
We evaluated several different partners, and we landed on Skillable for two big reasons: that they had the suite of tools that we needed to easily integrate into our platform. But secondarily, where Skillable sets themselves apart compared to anyone else in the space is the flexibility and customization pieces where we could actually build Skillsoft fit-for-purpose labs within seconds to actually have that on their platform. And it’s really that flexibility that Skillable brings to the table that really helps us there.
Start driving results with hands-on learning
The Skillsoft webinar underscored the need for learning journeys that are personalized, experiential, outcome-driven and flexible. By leveraging platforms like Skillable, organizations can move beyond passive, one-size-fits-all programs and instead enable people to build and validate job-ready skills – at scale, in context and with confidence.
Interested in learning more? Watch the on-demand webinar replay.
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