Episode overview

What does good instruction really look like? Amy Coughlin has authored nearly 50 courses on Pluralsight covering Azure, AI, and cloud architecture — and she's spent years figuring out exactly what makes technical training land versus what makes learners tune out.

In this episode, Amy pulls back the curtain on her approach to course design: why storytelling and real-world experience beat slide decks every time, what organizations consistently get wrong when they try to build training in-house, and why the best instruction is always built around the problem, not the tool.

She also makes a sharp distinction that every L&D and technology leader should hear: AI chat tools are task tools, not learning tools. And confusing the two has consequences.

In this episode:

• What separates instruction that sticks from training that gets forgotten

• Why themes, stories, and even corny puns make technical content more effective

• The hidden risks of pulling your best SMEs to run internal training

• What AI sycophancy means for developers who rely on it too heavily

• Why focusing on the problem, not the tool, is the future of content design

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Questions or comments? podcast@pluralsight.com