In this conversation, Jason Gorman talks with Brenda Boyd, founder of Practice Learning and a former senior leader at Quality Matters for more than 14 years. They discuss what quality actually means in online education, why standards should read like carrots rather than sticks, and how her own experience as a returning college student with a terrible online course became the origin story for her career. The conversation covers the maturity of the learning design profession, how assessment needs to evolve beyond the five-paragraph essay, the National Accreditation Commission's AI hub for workforce Pell compliance, and why measuring ROI in education requires knowing where you are before you can know where you're going. Brenda also makes the case that critical thinking and discernment are the skills that matter most as AI becomes embedded in every corner of education.

• Quality is a continuous improvement journey, not a destination.
• Standards should feel like carrots that welcome educators, not sticks that punish them.
• The learning design profession is still growing and has not fully professionalized.
• Assessment must evolve beyond essays toward diverse ways students can show learning.
• Emergency remote instruction during the pandemic was not online learning and left a stigma.
• Institutions need to know their baseline data before they can measure ROI.
• AI literacy and discernment will be essential skills for everyone, not just technologists.
• Hospitality experience translates directly to working with faculty and subject matter experts.
• Students deserve practice opportunities where they can fail without consequence.
• Human connection and community will remain critical as AI reshapes education.

Quality Is Not a Destination: Brenda Boyd on Continuous Improvement, ROI in Higher Ed, and the Frameworks That Make Better Learning Possible

There Has to Be a Better Way: Brenda Boyd on Quality, Standards, and the Students Who Never Know Your Name