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Early in his career, long before he was a university professor, Karl Kapp worked as a trainer in industry. 
And to prepare to for his new job, he himself attended training. 

He recalls arriving at a training center in an industrial park. “I heard a lawn mower humming in the background as I took my seat near one of the windows. I saw an overhead projector at the front of the room next to a huge stack of slides the instructor would use to teach the class. Immediately, I struggled to stay engaged. The instructor monotonously recited information directly from the slides and his dog-eared teacher’s guide. He spoke with no emotion, as if unaware of the two dozen learners in the room. Slide after slide after slide.”

The lawn mower was a highlight of the day, and Kapp thought to himself, “There has to be a better way.”
Kapp, professor of instructional technology and director of the Institute for Interactive Technologies at Commonwealth University, in April published Action-First Learning: Instructional Design Techniques to Engage and Inspire.

The author or coauthor of more than half a dozen books on the convergence of learning, technology, and business, Kapp’s latest book is already making waves. On Amazon, it’s ranked 27th in books on “leadership training” and 53rd in “human resources and personnel management.”

In Action-First Learning, Kapp covers nine types of learning experiences in one volume—from card and board games, escape rooms, and branching scenarios to augmented reality and AI-powered coaching. Kapp also includes a chapter by instructional designer Amy Pape (a Commonwealth University alumna) about how to improve action-first learning by making it more accessible. Each chapter includes a case study, a design checklist, as well as tips on how to leverage AI to help create action-first learning. 

“Academic research and personal experience all tell us that when learners do something right away during the learning process, they are more fully engaged,” says Kapp. “The immediate action sets the tone for the rest of the instruction. Action for action’s sake is not the goal of action-first learning. The goal is purposeful and meaningful action—always tied to specific learning outcomes.”

Many of Kapp’s previous books are about using games and gamification in instructional design — a concept that has since taken off with his gamification and interactive learning courses on LinkedIn Learning, gamification built into learning platforms as a matter of course, and even gamification graduate certificates. 

“However, I realized that the words game and gamification often stood in the way of my students, executives, training managers, and readers' understanding a more fundamental value: the need to encourage learners to do something — to take action,” says Kapp. 

In naming his instructional approach, Kapp took some inspiration from a childhood love of comics … specifically, Action Comics, which debuted in 1938 and included the first Superman story. 

“I couldn’t produce a book about action-first learning without paying further homage to Action Comics. I asked my e-learning designer colleague Kevin Thorn to lend his expertise to the chapter on comics as an action-first learning technique,” says Kapp. “Kevin is also an illustrator and contributed the comic-style artwork in each chapter to inject a bit of fun and whimsy into the book, just as I suggest you do in your learning designs .”