Customer Ratings and Reviews

The perfect amount of information plus an engaging facilitator.

The training was amazing! It opened my eyes and perspective on how I can improve my Instructional Design techniques and also gave me insight of the deeper issues behind the obvious in my department that I would address with the Manager, so we can all improve and grow. What I became aware of is that training is not always the solution to all the issues. I am now clear of the steps I need to take within my company. Denise is an amazing trainer and professional!

Denise is engaging in her training style and very knowledgeable on the Instructional Design topic.

This training could not have come at a better time for me. A lot of the information was not new to me but it was wonderful to have the information that I have heard put into a formalized context. For those who have been in the field or just starting out this is a great way experience the Instructional design process,

Instructor Denise Sawyer-Johnson was amazing. She provided information in a manner that allowed me to immediately apply the information to practices.

I wish that there would have been an ice-breaker at the beginning. With such a large group, people didn't seem comfortable to speak up. I think an ice-breaker would have helped. I also was expecting more activities from an AMA session. I thought there was more lecture/talking from the instructor than I was thinking there should be. I also think a lot of that was due to the fact that people weren't comfortable with speaking up and the instructor filled the gaps/answers when no one responded instead of waiting. I think the introductions/getting to know one another would help. Between Train the Trainer (TTT) and Instructional Design, I liked Train the Trainer better but the group dynamic was also very different. Don't get me wrong, I still took something away from ID but it wasn't what I was expecting. In TTT there were maybe 10-12 people and in ID there were 20 on the first day.

Denise was great! Was able to understand and retain the content. Very informative course.

Denise was excellent, she was a great teacher and really forced us to put the things we were learning into practice.

Denise was engaging and very knowledgeable. She covered the topics in the course with clarity and competence as well as provided a great deal of anecdotal advice from her depth of experience in the field.

Great content and very thought provoking. The first two days were a lot of lecture. More teach backs or other ways to cover the material would have been welcome.

It met my overall goal of having a better understanding of the design process.

The instructor presented the information in an excellent manner, encouraged participation, got everyone involved in learning.

what an amazing three professional instructional days. Denise is truly a SME in her own right. This course should be done over a 5 day period, although this may be difficult for most of us regarding our daily jobs this is far too much relevant information to be funneled into three days. Its not fair for the instructor who has a wealth of knowledge and best practices to share.

Denise a great trainer. She freely shared her vast knowledge with our class.

The instructor was amazing and I believe a lot of useful advice stemming from her impressive corporate background experience

I really enjoyed this course but would have benefited from suggested reading or read aheads on Kirkpatrick, job aids, and accelerated learning. Occasionally, our discussions veered away from course materials toward career coaching for too long a period of time. I think I would suggest offering one-on-one discussions with the instructor to discuss career goals and applications. This would free up more class time to understand the theory.

I thought the seminar was very organized and well thought out.

I loved this course, and it was directly applicable to my needs. What I learned is useful across the functions of my entire team. My only wish is that I had a bit more context about the course beforehand - I didn't really know what I was getting into.

Denise was great! Full of knowledge!

I thought the training was outstanding and very thorough. I liked the variation of the lecture, activities and presentations.

Great course! Very informative

Denise is a wealth of knowledge and incredibly professional. She has a wonderful gift of instructing and a fantastic sense of humor.

The class was very well presented. Even in a technical field, I worried the class wouldn't be entirely applicable. Instead, I found a large majority of what I was shown to be translatable to our training department.

I think the faculty kept everybody involved and stayed on task throughout.

One of the best course I've taken in a long time!The instructor Annette encouraged student questions and participation. It was great that the PowerPoint presentation was a handout, that way you can follow in class and not have to worry about frantically take down notes and worry about not getting everything.

The training was fantastic! I went in with little knowledge of instructional design and left feeling confident and inspired. Thank you!

Denise was a true asset to my enhanced development capabilities. Her training experience was a pillar in relating the text to real-life application. Her personality kept the energy level at an all time high throughout the 3-day course.

I personally get more out of instructional vs activity based training, but it was good, and left with great resources.

It was a good course. Not at all what I expected. I took the Training the Trainer and thought this was a follow up course that actually went into the writing practices. That being said it was still a good course

The seminar was a great experience, learned so much and the materials that were offered were perfect for the needed learning. Jill was amazing, very professional and experienced on the topic.

Jill was amazing. I love her style of training. She most def keeps it real world :) I enjoyed everything about her class.

The sessions were interactive, fun and informative. I took away a lot on instructional design

I really appreciate Jill’s style of training. She took the time to explain methods that needed added attention. She maintained the order in the class when needed yet still allowing learners to discover ideas in their own way.

The instructor was well experienced, made the classroom environment warm and friendly

The slides and the printed materials were not always in sync. Our instructor thankfully kept us on track. Annette was an excellent instructor and was a huge part of why this was successful. She has a wealth of experience which was to the benefit of all.

Although not a certified Learning Designer, I've been creating my own training material for 10 years. I took this class to get a few new ideas to help strengthen what I was already doing and to do things to increase participation and excitement. I picked up a few new tools to work with so I would say it was successful for me.

Activities were relevant and helpful. Instructor was knowledgeable and managed the class well and created a good learning environment.

Great coverage of info, that took us wayyyy out deep, yet brought it full circle.

Excellent content, instructor and facility. I have tools I can use both immediately and long term to achieve company goals.

Outstanding material, design, and knowledgeable instructor

Denise was incredibly knowledgeable in this area. She had so much content, it was overwhelming. The room was VERY cold and I was drinking lots of coffee and tea to stay warm, but needed a break once an hour to use the bathroom. The timing of breaks wasn’t good, I didn’t want to leave for fear if missing something or being rude to the class, but a break an hour for 7-10 minutes would have helped with the pathroom time and give time to check in with email and other things. I loved connecting with the participants and had a great time learning. This should be a 4 day course to digest everything, make comnections, have more breaks and go out and enjoy the city.

It was a very engaging training. I was able to stay focused throughout. Our instructor was fabulous.

This training seemed to be a little longer than needed. Each day felt as though it could’ve been an hour shorter than scheduled (in part because our group was small). In addition, it was a lot of information being pushed to the group with limited interactivity. More interactive modules would’ve helped.

Helpful info but primarily focused on classroom training.

It provides a good insight about instructional design, but I felt that the trainer didn’t support me enough neither provided feedback

Instructional Design for Trainers was a great class. I will be using all that I have learned back on the job.

The course was well structured and paced.

Great class! I learned some specific things that I can take action with when I return to work. Annette was a generous and effective teacher.

Annette is a great instructor! She made sure that everyone in the class achieved their goals for the course.

Excellent class. Instructor was perfect in relating the information to our jobs and ways to improve our training design. A+++

She was very open to our ideas about understanding the systematic way of training and adjusted to our needs.

Karen was an excellent instructor who was very knowledgeable with the course content. I feel additonal courses in "Instructional Design for Trainers" need to be added to the AMA course list for 2017 and 2018.

Class was interesting, helpful and very relevant to my daily job responsibilities. The instructor was knowledgeable and engaging. I would recommend this training to anyone interested in Instructional Design.

enjoyed the class -- It should have gone one more day -- We had to rush through some stuff

The instructor was very nice and friendly and pleasant to learn from, but the material was a bit much. I think if it could be layed out in a more streamlined fashion it would have helped me more. Seemed to be a lot of back and forth when using the manuals. The content was there definitely, it's up to the user to make it work, so that i understand. Overall i am satisfied and im certain things will start coming together once i apply the concepts.

Outstanding training. I received above and beyond my goals.

I have 0 years of experience in instructional design, and this course covered the necessary information to help me get into the world of ID without leaving me feeling overwhelmed. Jill was excellent! Such a pleasure to have as an instructor.

I was disappointed in the course content. I didn't feel that it was technical enough for a course on instructional design. The content was very generic and lacked proper citing as well as resources. I also felt like the Case Study lacked specificity and was too ambiguous to cement the learning from each module.I found the instructor to be a bit abrasive when it came to feedback provided in the course. Comments such as "that's not analogous at all" or "I've never seen anyone call it that" put a distance between learners and the instructor. Her methods may be more appropriate for the East coast than West coast.This is the first AMA course that I would not recommend to anyone and if it had been my first experience with AMA I probably wouldn't attend another one.

Class was very informative and gave me a lot of insight considering I have no prior training in the Training field.

Karen was wonderful as an instructor. I loved that this course was extremely hands on and very personable!

The course was extremely insightful. I walked away with a better understanding of how to structure my trainings.

The Instructor was knowledge and personable.

An excellent course with many opportunities for learning new ideas, and improving old ones. Great instructor who's energy filled the room the entire time.

I think the training was very informative. I feel like it was engaging and the instructor was intuitive of our needs for Instructional Design. I would recommend this training to both new and experienced training developers.

instructor was very knowledgeable as a business person

The class was too long for the material covered. It could easily have been condensed into 1.5 or 2 days. And that is considering we had a great deal of student interaction throughout the class.

I did find value from the training, but it was not in the way I would have assumed.

The instructor was very engaging, and kept the class on task at the same time. This training is rated as one of my top professional experiences to date! The material was provided in a way that I could make the connection to my current role.

Well thought out course; great engagement; wonderful take-aways

The training was great! Jill led us through the steps necessary to build a training program. She gave concrete examples and as our own training followed the same methods, I have an example of many different techniques and activities to incorporated into my training programs going forward.

Since the training programme was activity based, major portion was left to the disposal of participants rather than any value added inputs by the faculty.

It was amazing. I learned everything I wanted to learn and Jill was awesome

Jill is very knowledgeable and engaging. She was able to put structure to concepts that I was already practicing.

Jill was fantasic, I thought the pace was a bit fast so I would just suggest pacing it out a bit more.

"There was a lot of information in this seminar. And some areas felt like we moved quickly through them and I would have liked a little bit of a deeper dive. I found myself thinking ""I wish this were a 5 day seminar"" many, many times. Even a seminar with an optional 2 day workshop addition would be nice. I think this is a fantastic entry level course, but would love to have an even more indepth look/deeper dive. Definitely need a bigger room. With so many activities, it felt very crammed and in close quarters. Jill was absolutely excellent. I've attended at least 5 AMA seminars now and she was the best instructor that I have experienced both in charisma and experience. She was a wonderful teacher and provided a lot of useful knowledge. I would love to take more courses with Jill!"

Jill was a subject expert who communicated lessons well and was a wealth of information and resources that I can use immediately.

This was a fantastic course! We covered an incredible amount of material, but Jill always made it fun and engaging and always relevant to the course objectives. I appreciated her safe and encouraging environment. Day 2 was perhaps a bit heavy on the course book, but everything was beneficial and it was very helpful to go through the Instructional Design process from start to finish. I highly recommend this course and this instructor.

The course was awesome. Jill was terrific. One of the best and most useful professional courses I've taken. Thank you!

Denise was a lively, engaging instructor who knew her material thoroughly. She was able to respond to each individual's questions and situations. Very impressive teacher.

Denise was professional, friendly, informative, and a good listener. Her sessions were easy to follow and she provided a welcoming environment; which made me feel at ease. I shared with her what areas I had hoped to learn during the class (it was more on technology than design) and she went out of her way to provide additional information and guided me in the right direction. I would like to thank her for taking the time to me additional information that I was looking for. In addition, I was not expecting to unite with other participants but all were friendly and willing to keep in touch with one another and we also learned from each other. Overall a great experience.

Denise was informative, engaging, and overall a fantastic instructor.

Very informative!

Denise was an excellent trainer. She is clearly well versed in instructional design and led an effective seminar.

Denise managed to cover a lot of information in a short period of time. I walked away feeling like I learned so much about the process of organizing my ideas; as well as, addressing the needs of my audience and my organization.

Meet all of my expectations. Nice comfortable facility.

The class was very useful and provided a great design framework. The instructor was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. I have no doubt the course was improved based on who was teaching it.

Jill is a fantastic instructor. She has a lot of experience and brings many personal stories/use cases to the course that allow me to connect the course material to my job.

The course was productive and interactive.

Jill did a great job engaging the class in discussion. I really appreciated how she used minimal ppt slides and focused on dialogue.

Engaging, insightful, and in-depth training. Jill has many years experience which shine through in her facilitation.

Although a very intense course for myself, the overall knowledge gained will definitely help me with my future work related training.

Thorough training that provided a strong working knowledge of instructional design at a professional level.

it was a difficult calls; but well presented.

Course spent lot of time on Define vs. Design and very little on Develop. Seemed slightly off-balance

Jill was a great instructor. I really benefited from her learner-focused teaching style. I am new to the industry and she was more than willing to answer any and all questions and did not move on before ensuring that we were all on the same page.

Most useful AMA course I've taken so far.

Jill was an excellent instructor. She taught the information in manner that enabled learning and facilitated positive group dynamics. In addition, the onsite staff member Stephanie was extremely helpful and demonstrated "above and beyond" customer service. Thank you!

Jill was excellent!! I thoroughly enjoyed this course. The content and activities were great. I left feeling like I have a firm understanding of the instructional design process.

I appreciate the way Jill kept us engaged in the class. She was very knowledgeable

The course was very informative and the instructor was knowledgeable in the content presented.

Well driven training, even though felt quite repetitive sometimes, and realizing some things are simply re-phrasing over and over again.

Course would be better if a road map of the whole process was available. Some steps could be noted as optional. Stick to one style.

My goal was to be able to use my current resources to deliver an effective training course. I received everything I need and more to get organized.

Jill is a seasoned expert in ISD and brings a wealth of knowledge from both theory and practical considerations for course design. The knowledge she shares is a tremendous help to the participants.

This course was extremely educational, and the instructor did a fantastic job in getting the information across to us and making sure we understood it, while still being open for discussion/questions. She somehow managed to independently cater to the needs of each person in the class, without detracting from everyone else's experience. Thank you Jill!

The information was presented well and the instructor was superb.

I love Jill's straightforward and direct approach to facilitating the training. She also cultivated a very open and welcoming environment in the classroom. I would love to attend another course with her as the facilitator. The content of the course was incredibly helpful and just what I wanted to get out of my time.Overall, my experience was great , and I look forward to returning to AMA in the near future!

Overall, the seminar was good and I did come away with some great tips, but it was not at all what I expected. This seminar was geared for developing skills to enhance face-to-face training which is not what I am in need of. I thought that there would be more focus on content development and design. It is clear that my understanding of the role and functions of an instructional designer were not accurate.

As I mentioned in my original feedback, the instructor made this a very frustrating experience. She did not stay on track and many times throughout the course, the students in the class were asking for more clarification about assigned tasks and about where we were in the course. The material is helping a lot after the fact, but I learned more from my fellow classmates than I did from the instructor during the actual course. I also felt the focus was on presenting a course rather than the design of a course.

Great information taught by a fantastic instructor.

I found the seminar very informative and felt like I could apply everything I learned when I designed training courses at work

The instructor was perfect for this seminar. I have been to a few classes based on training and design and this was by far the best. Thank you Jill!!

Geri was great! Very energetic and was able to get the who class involved. The attendees of the class were all great people and we got along well. I had a great experience and learned quite a bit from the class.

Unfortunately the course I attended did not cover all of the items mentioned on the Seminar Outline. The instructor seemed to be experimenting with new teaching techniques and did not follow along with the book. Activities were introduced to the class with little background or instruction and there was little tie back to the actual course materials to close the learning loop.We skipped around from activity to activity - with some of the class participants creating module previews to deliver to the rest of the class on materials that hadn't been covered yet and that was really in some cases the extent of training and discussion on those modules. It felt like this instructor (while experienced in the field) didn't familiarize with the course work book. (Are AMA instructors contractors? Aren't they required read materials prior to every delivery ?)I feel like the course ended up being very surface level and that I am no more skilled at Instructional Design than I was before I arrived.

I entered into this course with an optimistic attitude in preparation for an upcoming deliverable.

The first day of the course was less than I expected, as we focused quite a bit on items that were not in the materials. The instructor often forgot the "four D's" of the model we were supposed to be learning. The second day, the teacher suggested we cut mock garden flowers out of construction paper. I openly expressed that this was not an effective use of our time. The teacher became incoherent; at one point, she rambled on for about 8 minutes on drilling in Saudi Arabia, Disney projectors, a $3M piece of curved glass in China, and a 3D modeling structure for the "mines." She made sound effects and hand motions that left another student and I pondering if she'd taken drugs during her lunch break. I did not attend the third day.

I would like a full refund. I intend to inform my colleagues at Stanford of my discontent with my experience. The one star is in response t

Frankly, I am EXTREMELY disappointed in the training class that I attended and do not believe that my professional skills or competency were increased or developed whatsoever.
I and another learner questioned the benefit of attending the final day of training - the other learner was a no-show on the final day.

I would like either (a) my money refunded or (b) an opportunity to attend another training class. I look forward to your reply regarding corrective actions as I believe that at least 1-2 other attendees from my training class will be requesting the same.

The class was just what I needed to feel comfortable putting together training modules. The practical tips and techniques learned will truly benefit me for years to come.

Instructional Design for Trainers was a phenomenal course. The subject matter and concepts taught will be invaluable to our ability to restructure and refine our IT Methodology training at Ryder. The course instructor (Anne) was extremely knowledgeable about the course and lesson materials. Moreover, Anne incorporated countless real world examples that helped each learning objective "stick". Thank you Anne and AMA for a wonderful experience!

This seminar provided great tools and resources to me so that I can define, design, develop, decide (and delight as this is the 5th "D" we added) effective programs. The Instructor was very knowledgeable and shared many use cases and professional stories. The attendees were very engaged which is part of what makes a Instructor-Led class more effective than web-based-training.

There were many opportunities to practice the new skills, which helps with learning and forming new habits. Great course.

The lessons I learned from the facilitator have already been implemented into my job materials. I enjoyed the creative atmosphere and the activities that really hit the concepts home.

The only downside: For the price, breakfast and lunch should have been available.

This was the first time to attend a seminar focused mainly on instructional design and it was a learning experience. The class size was small enough for the facilitator to know how each person was doing and also to use specific workplace experience of the participants in classroom discussions.
The participants also could relate more easily and many hands-on exercises were attempted. Generally I was able to apply what was taught to what I needed to do in order to improve on the design of programs for various leadership levels within our organization.
The facilitator was excellent in her delivery, not to mention her ability to engage the participants throughout the duration of the program. The environment was also good for learning because AMA staff were always on hand to assist the participants in any way possible.
But I will suggest that soft copies of the slides should be sent to our mails from the first day of the seminar.