A few of the leading associations are close to “pulling the trigger” and jumping into the next hot new growth area for association education: asynchronous teacher led online courses with a start and end date. LERN has talked to four big associations over the past year about developing and offering their first online courses, and

Responsive design is the hot new trend in eTools and online courses, Dan Belhassen of Winnipeg told a packed audience for LERN’s new Certified Programmer Online for associations this spring. Responsive design involves HTML5 software that will automatically scale to the size of the screen that the user is using, whether it be a cell

Comprehensive faculty development is one of the three big ‘what’s next’ items for faculty development, Michael Lewis told the Third Annual Faculty Development Conference participants this spring. Lewis is in a relatively unique and insightful position in faculty development in higher education.  As Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Development at Saint Louis University

“Text feedback will change your class,”  Jared Campbell of Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida, told the Third Annual Faculty Development Conference participants. Text feedback – – texting the instructor during the class – – is one of the big ways to engage Gen Y and Gen Z in face-to-face classes, he noted. The

The “I can’t do it” response of students challenged by their studies can be overcome, say Dionne Felix and Odessa Jordan of Calhoun College in Huntsville, Alabama.  The belief operates out of a fear, they note.  “The issue is not a particular learning style, but being differently-abled,” says Felix. They created their own definition of

Replace those static photos and written bio’s for your instructors with more lively videos, says John Alexander, an instructional designer with  the College of Extended Studies at San Diego State University. He says when instructors introduce themselves to their online (or even face-to-face) students with a video, it makes the course more engaging. Among other

To implement The Flipped Classroom, Kimberly Helms and Laura Walker recommend: 1.Integrate The Flipped Classroom gradually into your course. 2. Demonstrate the flexibility of The Flipped Classroom to your students. 3. Incorporate educational technology in The Flipped Classroom, the more engaging the online features, the better success you will have. 4. Allocate points and motivate

The LERN Institutes program is heading to Savannah April 16-19 – and here’s a sneak preview of just some of what you will take away when you attend the Marketing Institute. The past decade has brought you many more ways to market your lifelong learning programs. Whether you’re looking at inbound marketing, mobile marketing, search

There are at least six ways your lifelong learning program is leading your institution. Create a win-win situation by letting your institutional leaders know what cutting edge strategies your lifelong learning program is doing that can and will positively impact the greater institution. Even if your lifelong learning program is small. Even if your program

eTools are merging with old tools in the in-person classroom to create a powerful one-two punch for engagement and student involvement in learning. The common element in both is that they are ‘active tools,’ enhancing not only student interaction but often student involvement in the creation of information. Student participation in the creation of information

Here’s a sneak preview of five of the critical income-generating new things participants in the Advanced Programming Institute will learn in the big annual LERN Institutes program April 16-19, 2015, in Savannah. The Institutes are being held in the historic district, home to over one hundred blocks of centuries-old original homes, like the one in

Generational issues in our field took another turn this month as lifelong learning programs are now reporting a new issue:  when students in a class are older than the teacher. Gen Y instructors are now teaching Boomers and Gen X, adults as many as 25 years older than the instructor and with much more life

We warned you about drones in the Nine Shift closing speech at the big LERN annual conference. Now with the news about a drone landing on the White House lawn, near misses with airplanes, and flying over football games, drones are in the news as a big problem. But if you think that’s bad, wait

LERN’s lead researcher Julie Coates has announced the solution to America’s #1 Problem, premiering a new eBook at Pratt Institute in New York City this month. America’s #1 problem today is a skilled worker shortage. By “skilled,” we mean college educated knowledge workers. Georgetown University’s Anthony Carnevale, our nation’s leading training and workforce expert, says

After working intensively with Pratt Institute, the leading design school in the United States, LERN consultants have helped the continuing education unit add $1 million to the bottom line in just one year. The huge ROI results to greater profitability show the value of LERN consulting in the field. LERN consulting can help any lifelong

A new LERN Magazine is now out. It’s probably the best summary of the latest trends, news and advanced practical how-to tips in the field of lifelong learning. You can get a free copy, even if you get another newsletter from LERN. It’s a great visual piece to give to your boss as well. Here’s

Keep your program out of the doghouse with your institution.  Here’s what lifelong learning program leaders can do to keep your program – and you – out of the institutional doghouse. Anticipate concerns You probably know who is going to be critical, and what they are going to say.  Don’t wait to be reactive and

Successful programs stay on the trail.  They don’t ever stop staying on track.  Here’s some of the top ways to keep your program from straying off the success path and getting lost. 1. Email LERN with a question Whenever you face a difficult issue, just email us at info@lern.org   We have top experts that specialize

Check out our brand new UGotClass classroom tour for 2015! This tour will give you the layout of the classrooms as well as what you can expect as you or your students participate in our courses.  

Especially for Gen Y (born 1980-1999), the course serves as the first of three in a series addressing the development of Generation Y leadership. Find out what it takes to become an effective leader. Discover your style of leadership. Discuss task completion, building relationships with your subordinates, becoming socially perceptive to changes in the workplace,

Here’s this month’s reason why LERN Loves You. Some 251 individuals from over 200 LERN member organizations logged into the LERN Club 534 times in just five weeks in 2015 already.  That’s amazing.  That’s around 20 percent of LERN member organizations using the LERN Club in just one month. It’s also why LERN is now

By Dr. Layne J. Harpine, LERN When I ask a group of Contract Training professionals, “What’s the number one objection your clients raise?” they often say, “Price!” When a client complains about price, they are really saying they aren’t yet convinced that the services you are proposing are valued at the price you’re charging. No

One of the biggest trends in both the new awards for 2015 and the best promotion ideas of the year is the merging of old school print based marketing techniques with new school media. It’s not either-or, it’s not even both-and.  It’s the merging of them.  From the big LERN conference in Orlando, here are

LERN ended calendar year 2014 with its best year in history.  December 31, 2014, also marked the end of our best six months in history. FY14 income was a record, and our first half FY15 income (July 1, 2014-December 31, 2014) was a half-year record of over $1.9 million, up almost 10 percent over last

Here’s a number 200 LERN members love: 0.005 That’s the amazingly low refund rate for UGotClass online certificates and courses. LERN offers any student a full refund, at any time (even after the course is over) with your approval of course. Sometimes we even beg someone to take a full refund. And yet, and yet,

Data Analysis has been named the continuing professional education Course of the Year for 2015.  Data analysis is a new 21st century skill for the workplace. The interest in it from people in all sorts of occupations and fields zoomed this year. “We have had all this data.  Now we can do something with it,”

Getting too much email from LERN?  Some 66 percent of your fellow LERN members say yes. On the other hand, a whopping 90 percent of you say you want to hear from LERN primarily through email. So working with North American email marketing expert Dan Belhassen, LERN is conducting a review of our email.  Thanks

The minimum wage going up in 20 states was named the top story of 2015 for the U.S. so far by LERN members. The news garnered 30 percent of the votes in our exclusive LERN home page poll. No reasons were asked, so we’re guessing the increase in the minimum wage is good news for

March and April Big Now’s the best time of year to promote UGotClass. March and April are two of the three months with the biggest registrations each year. Email Past Participants The easiest way for you to make money is to tell past UGotClass participants to take another certificate or course. February and March are

With three sessions and monthly course offerings from February through the summer, now is the best time of the year to promote UGotClass. 1. Get our certificates into your next print brochures. 2. Integrate our courses into your regular in-person offerings in both your print brochure and your website. 3. Post as many of our

LERN Forecasts for 2015 premiered at the big LERN conference in Orlando. It is the 20th year for the annual forecast, one of the most sought after reports in the field. From the many forecasts we make about the coming year, four stand out: 1. Blended – – everything. Online technology will help enhance all

New!  The LERN Dashboard is complete and will be rolled out soon.     With LERN’s new Dashboard you will be able to have up-to-date statistics and averages from other programs at your fingertips. You will get the latest info on: -Registrations -Revenue -Cancellation rate -Brochure to registration ratios -Operating Margin -New offerings And you

By Dr. Layne J. Harpine How do you respond to endless streams of requests, offer a variety of high-quality programs in various content areas, provide service on weekends, late nights and holidays and deliver the exact training program to match the needs of an assortment of participants? It doesn’t happen by accident. In order to do

UGotClass will be integrated into the Lumens business software system, it was jointly announced at the big LERN conference in Orlando during the opening session, LERN President William A. Draves noted, “I want to thank Augusoft founder Cem Erdem for his leadership on this.  And I want to thank all of the Lumens users who

Male faculty grade just like female faculty, giving male students worse grades than their female students, even though the male students learn as much.   The results of our initial research suggest that male faculty behave just like their male students when the male faculty become learners themselves. For example, the male faculty as learners do

More than 300 faculty have become Certified Faculty Developers (CFD).  The online program starts February 9 and runs through April 10.  Log on anytime, as much or as little as you want. The weekly live webinars with top faculty development experts are archived if you miss it. Sign up now!  Click here for more info

Want more satisfied students?  Vary your teaching techniques. Get creative with new teaching techniques. Liven up your classes, and it could enhance your repeat rates.  Encourage your teachers to think outside the box, try something new and don’t worry about failing. Try one thing new each time. The top new ‘wow’ teaching technique for 2015: 

LERN pioneered yet another association innovation this year by creating session quizzes at our big annual conference. The outcomes based quizzes allow attendees and their supervisors to measure conference participation by knowledge acquisition rather than just seats in chairs. This will become part of our marketing and benefits for organizations sending people to our conference.

The Ontario Real Estate Association, Ontario Real Estate College, Don Mills, Ontario, Ozzie Logozzo, executive director, has won a LERN international award for 2015. This organization is definitely the first association to develop a plan and get training on converting their face-to-face classes to hybrid or blended.  But they may also be one of the

Virtual associations with little or no physical offices are starting to catch on, according to a review of other association news sources. LERN did its first seminar on becoming a virtual association almost ten years ago, hosted by the American Institute of Architects and Thom Lowther in Washington D.C.  LERN has been a virtual association

The print brochure is roaring back, experts at the big LERN conference say. The print brochure has a new and improved life in both lifelong learning and in the print catalog industry in general, report print catalog experts Paul Franklin and Julie Coates. Franklin says more catalogs were mailed this year than last year, and

A new Digital Library will open soon and offer complete access to any and all paid LERN publications, webinars, slide shows and books in the LERN inventory.  For one annual subscription, you and your staff can gain access to all of the paid LERN publications. The new service was announced at the big LERN conference

From a survey of LERN members, here are your three biggest concerns right now. The results were announced at the big LERN conference in Orlando. 1. Low enrollments: 49% 2. Organizational support: 23% 3. Budget reductions: 19%

Thanks to all of you for making 2014 the best ever in LERN’s 40-year history.  Your membership, consulting requests, and leadership of our nonprofit education association is vital to your success. LERN’s total mission is to serve you and your organization.  This year it worked better than ever. We look forward to serving you more

Lifelong learning staff can improve teacher presentations and student learning by helping your teachers make their slides more visual. In an advanced intensive daylong workshop, multimedia consultant and expert Diana Howles offered numerous strategies on using words, images and sound in slide presentations at the big LERN conference. Slide presentations do aid in student learning,

A new era of blended learning was introduced at an historic LERN conference in Orlando. The era of blended lifelong learning is likely to last for decades to come. From the opening session, which had attendees on their feet and waving their arms, the conference was less than 15 minutes old and it was clear

The year 2015 is the year of the creative, LERN President William A. Draves will say in his annual “State of Lifelong Learning” for 2015 in the opening session of the big LERN conference in Orlando, Nov. 21-23. It is the lead point for how you can enhance the success of your program in 2015

From your LERN consultants’ point of view, these are the three biggest weaknesses in lifelong learning programs right now: 1. Cutting back on, or eliminating, the print brochure. 2. Not enough new offerings each year. 3. Lack of data, and analysis of that data. And when we survey you, we find that our concerns are

Generational turnover is taking place over the next 24 months, new LERN research shows. The generational turnover will be a main theme for the annual State of Lifelong Learning talk and written report at the big LERN conference in Orlando Nov. 21-23. Generational ‘transition’ has now become ‘turnover.’ The shift over the next 2 years

Registrations this year are only slightly better than last fall, according to an exclusive LERN survey of member programs. We’ve seen this pattern for the last five years now.  About 70 percent of you have income up or about the same.  But a worrisome 30 percent of you see it down again. There’s also concerns. 

For the first few years of LERN’s history, we weren’t called LERN. We were called the Free University Network. And this year is the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement and the first free university. Free universities had an educational philosophy that was regarded as heresy, that “anybody could teach and anybody could learn.”

Opening keynoter Delatorro McNeal had the 800 plus crowd on its feet, shouting, and waving their arms in a high energy presentation that kicked off a high energy conference. McNeal also had a 21st century message and medium, telling the people it was not enough to encourage young people to “go to college,” and that

Dense downtown development is the key to having strong towns in the 21st century, keynoter Charles Marohn told 833 attendees at the big LERN conference in Orlando. The experiment in suburban sprawl has failed, he said.  He noted that a big box store actually brings in less tax dollars than a block of small shops

Badges, certificates and certifications are the fastest growing area of continuing professional education. A packed room on the subject at the big LERN conference in Orlando demonstrated that this is a hot area. But the widely disparate questions equally demonstrated that the world of certificates can also be characterized as a chaotic scene. And it

This year is the 40th anniversary of the founding of LERN.  The first newsletter came out with the banner headline, “Treasurer Splits with Funds.”  Just a note to those of you starting an organization – – this is not the best way to promote your membership drive. We are pleased to report “the funds” was

A free one-night, or weekend morning, class “For Parents of Boys” is now scheduled for eight different Wisconsin towns in February and March. This will be part of our kick-off to both the new book, and the Parents of Boys citizens group. We will be in New Richmond, Federick, Greenfield (Milwaukee), Menasha, Chippewa Falls, Prescott,

Smart Boys, Bad Grades:  Gender Inequality and STEM in Education by Julie Coates and William A. Draves will be released this spring in conjunction with our new Parents of Boys effort. The book will be available as an eBook and also in software cover.  Buy it here.

Give your boy, and encourage, plenty of frequent motion while he is studying.  And praise his teacher for any physical movement in class. And strongly object when any boy is denied recess. New studies from Finland show that frequent motion actually increases the learning for boys.  Frequent motion (every 15-20 minutes) is good for both

You Hit Another Record for Year! 2015 Will Be Even Better! Data Analysis Hot! Our new Certificate in Data Analysis is both new and hot. It rose to be our most popular certificate in less than a year. John Rutledge, above, teaches the first course. Our Courses Superior LERN members say our courses are superior

The year ended with yet another registration record for UGotClass, with November registrations setting a new record for the month. It was the 8th consecutive monthly record for UGotClass. New classes premiering this month included Marketing eBooks, The Flipped Classroom, Lean Six Sigma and more.

We’ll have more great news to announce about UGotClass at the LERN conference in Orlando. -Come visit Leslie and Zech at the UGotClass booth. -If you are not yet a Partner, we have a suite session for you. -If you are a Partner, come to the Partner briefing in the LERN Suite Saturday from 3

The 2015 UGotClass Catalog with all the Certificates and Courses will be distributed at the big LERN conference in Orlando. Others will be mailed out afterwards to LERN members. If you want to get the catalog, just email zech at zech@lern.org

Representatives of 12 of our Top Partners participated in helping LERN plan to continue growing UGotClass in 2015. Producing more webinars and items for social media emerged as the top new areas for UGotClass to develop in the marketing area for 2015.  The webinars are free to your customers and give a taste of the

One of the big questions today is “how do we attract Baby Boomers” to our program? This article from AARP reveals some new thinking about the evolution of “senior” centers and Boomer programming.  

In the old days, a ‘sales pitch’ was the talk presented to customers to get them to buy training, but that’s not going to work today. Today’s pitch should be a two-way conversation backed up by the motivation to help the customer succeed. The sale will be a natural outcome of a well-crafted pitch and

Online programming is growing and will become 50% of association professional development.  But Gen Y and future generations of association members have a different set of preferences for delivery formats, leaving some of the formats associations use with little growth potential. Working with the Association Council of LERN, a new Certificate in Programming Online will

Get creative with new teaching techniques. Liven up your classes, and it could enhance your repeat rates.  Encourage your teachers to think outside the box, try something new and don’t worry about failing. Encourage your teachers to try one thing new each class offering. The top new ‘wow’ teaching technique for 2014:  have your students

October registrations for UGotClass were another all-time monthly record, going over 500 for the first time ever. Registrations were up 16 percent over October last year, reported Leslie Kowalczyk (shown in the picture), Administrative and Customer Service Manager for UGotClass. Some 182 organizations have produced registrations in 2014 so far. The average number of students

Surging this year in registrations has been our Certificate in Customer Service. It now ranks among our Top 5 Certificates. Nanette Sanders-Cobb, shown in the picture, and Fred Bayley teach the two courses that comprise the certificate. The courses have been offered for several years, but have been put into a Certificate more recently. Certificates

23 Advanced New Sessions from 23 different presenters, including 12 new presenters, are the cutting edge centerpiece of the big LERN Annual Conference in Orlando this year. You and your colleagues come for the most advanced, practical, how-to sessions in lifelong learning in the world.  And this year’s breakdown of advanced new sessions will premiere