ATDps: December 2026 Virtual Member Event
Hold That Thought (Literally): Using Your Brain and Body to Make Learning Stick
with Baelaya Berendsen
Ever run a great session and realize a week later that most of it didn't stick? Before the year wraps and 2027 planning kicks in, spend an hour on the neuroscience of learning, using your hands as much as your head.
You're probably already using more brain science than you realize. This session names it, then adds the piece most programs leave out: the body.
You'll grab whatever's on your desk, experience what overload actually feels like, and swap ideas with peers in your role (coaching, facilitation, instructional design, or talent development) for making your programs more hands-on. First pilot in the ATDps mentor program.
Takeaways: a clear picture of where learning gets lost between hearing something and remembering it; why giving people too much at once backfires; the research on why involving the body helps memory; fresh ideas from people doing your kind of work; and a role-specific job aid you'll keep using long after the session.
What you'll leave with quick wins you can use tomorrow:
- Feel cognitive overload in your own hands, and never build a crowded slide the same way again
- An easy swap for your next session: trade a stretch of lecture for something hands-on, like asking learners to gesture or use an object (research links gesture to longer-lasting learning)
- A one-page job aid for your role, with a quick check to run before your next session, module, or program
- A simple model of how attention, working memory, and long-term memory work, so you can design with them instead of against them
- Steal-worthy ideas from peers in your exact role
Our guest:
Baelaya Berendsen is an APTD-certified L&D facilitator who's endlessly curious about how people actually learn, and why so much of it fades by Friday. Her years at LinkedIn, Salesforce, Quantcast, and DocuSign taught her how to make hard-to-measure work matter to leaders, so she designs learning that sticks and measures whether it did. She designs and facilitates hands-on, neuroscience-grounded sessions, from ESL classrooms at King County Library System to a senior business class at Seattle Pacific University, where she was a guest facilitator.
http://linkedin.com/in/baelaya
Learning Sciences, Instructional Design, Training & Delivery.
Registration:
Pre-Registration - Members attend at no charge. There is no walk in availability. Pre-registration is mandatory.
Pre-Registration - Non-Member $20.00. There is no walk in availability. Pre-registration is mandatory.
We are not able to issue refunds after the Friday prior to the meeting. Substitutions are encouraged.
