As we embark on the MALAT Applied Research Project (ARP) it is exciting to think ahead about disseminating our research and how our work may benefit our peers, colleagues, organizations, and learning community.

Following the completion of my ARP, I would like to integrate my findings and recommended strategies first into my practice then, for employees within my organization, and ultimately with the L&D community.

My topic involves incorporating design thinking in corporate instructional design to improve learning design and learner experience. I envision building a toolkit based on my research findings and further refined in practice. The toolkit could be used by instructional designers, facilitators, and managers to help inform their design processes and learning initiatives. I cannot be too detailed about what my toolkit will include until I narrow my scope and flush out my research questions. Also, it will be dependent on the findings of my research. What I do know is that I want to provide practitioners with applicable, ready-to-use, research-informed instructional design strategies. This is something I would have benefited from when I was starting out. Then, building on the resources provided in the toolkit, I would like to conduct workshops, again within my organization initially and then possibly to the larger L&D community. I think that in-person workshops would be an excellent way to deliver this training using a social, collaborative, experiential learning approach but, the reality is that the toolkit would be more widely used because it is a self-directed, on-demand resource that can be used when and where the practitioner needs it using minimal time and resources.

Another avenue of dissemination I will consider is through my professional network, the Institute for Performance and Learning (i4PL). I will be attending their conference in Toronto next week where presenters will be discussing their L&D initiatives and lessons learned in one-to-two-hour sessions. In addition to conference presentations, i4PL members have a number of ways to share knowledge and information including webinars, i4PL’s community of practice (CoP) initiative, and social networking events.

I look forward to reflecting on this post once my ARP is complete and wonder if these plans will change or stay the same depending on where the research takes me.