Learning Leaders Digest #119

Here’s what’s interesting this week.

Aug 24, 2026

Welcome back, Learning Leaders.

One idea from this week’s podcast with Katrina Kennedy has stayed with me:

review and reflection are not the same thing.

When trainers review, we usually do the work. We summarize the lesson, repeat the main points, and remind participants what they heard. It can feel useful, but the learner is still mostly receiving information.

Katrina prefers retrieval and reflection.

First, make participants pull the learning back out of their own heads. Ask them what they remember, what stood out, and what they think matters most. Then move them one step further and ask what they are going to do with it.

That small shift changes the energy of the room. Instead of the trainer doing all the thinking, participants have to process, choose, and apply.

It also reinforces something I think we forget too often in training: better learning does not always require more content, a new technology, or another framework. Sometimes the biggest improvement comes from changing who is doing the work.

Katrina and I get into that idea much more deeply in this week’s podcast, along with movement, cognitive load, connection, retrieval, and what trainers can do to help learning last beyond the session.

You’ll find the episode linked below. I think it is especially worth a listen if you are trying to make your training more participant-centered without simply adding more activities for the sake of engagement.

What I’m Reading:

I’m reading The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey, and one idea I like is his focus on choosing just three important things to accomplish each day. Productivity is not about cramming as much as possible into every hour. It is about making sure the things that matter most actually get done.

That applies to trainers too. We can spend a lot of time tweaking slides, answering email, and polishing materials while avoiding the few things that would really improve the learning experience. Sometimes a productive day is simply getting the three right things done.