NEW! Storytelling for Instructional Design Certificate

A Series of 4 Online Sessions starting September 29, 2026

Register Early! Course size is limited.

Certificate Overview

Storytelling enhances learning and boosts retention by making information memorable, engaging, and relatable. It builds crucial skills like empathy, critical thinking, and creativity, helps process complex ideas, and fosters deeper human connection. This interactive certificate focuses on mastering the science, art and power of storytelling to craft immersive experiences for learners. We’ll explore key strategies to incorporate the best practices of storycrafting into your approach to instructional design. You'll work on your own elearning or instructor-led project throughout the course and learn just what you need to craft compelling, story-driven learning. You’ll explore why stories are powerful for learning; explore the key elements of effective stories; ensure narratives align with key objectives; and craft a narrative using proven story plot lines. You will gain access to dozens of tools, templates, and rubrics to help you craft and evaluate the effectiveness of your stories.

Bonus Items:

• 86-page participant guide containing templates, examples, worksheets, and key points to remember as you design and develop your courses
• The opportunity to submit your project work for feedback from your instructor.
• The option of an additional 1 hour of free 1:1 consultation after the program to refine your narrative.

Prerequisites:

Bring either a current working project or a concept for a new project you would like to develop. We encourage using this experience to build a portfolio piece or to complete a current project in the workplace.

Who Should Attend:
Instructional designers or anyone who writes and designs learning content across any modality.

Course Objectives

In this certificate you will learn to:

• Use empathy in storytelling to connect with learners: dive deeply into the emotional motivators and challenges that prevent learners from connecting to your content.
• Apply the best practices in storytelling to your instructional design systems: weave storytelling practices into your instructional design methods.
• Strategically leverage storytelling plot lines for learning narratives: consider seven common storytelling plot lines and select the right one for your needs.
• Leverage conflict to drive learner engagement: use tension created in storytelling to drive learner interest and engagement.
• Map a well-crafted story to learning outcomes: develop your skills in storytelling while aligning to learning outcomes using our storytelling for instructional design toolkit.
• Bring learning to life: select tools to create rich experiences based on the type of story you want to tell.

Course Materials

Before the class: You will be able to download an 86-page participant guide containing templates, examples, worksheets, and key points to remember as you design and develop your courses. You'll:

• Have a systematic model to use to craft narratives that align with learning objectives
• Use rubrics to assess the effectiveness of narratives
• Reference key story plot lines to build learning narratives for specific learning use cases
• Learn how to build each element of a learning story regardless of instructional design methodology
• Be provided with many examples of learning stories that you can modify and use in your own training projects. You’ll also create these elements throughout the program
• Learn how to incorporate accessibility best practices into your narrative development process
• Explore how to leverage each part of the process when you need it going forward
• Gain strategies for crafting powerful elements of impactful narratives for learning

Sessions

Instructional Approach:

• Live, online presentations
• Examples and many useful job aids
• Facilitated, online discussion
• Performance-based exercises
• Online polling
• Individual project work for immediate application

A Series of Four (4) Sessions

Session 1: Select your project for narrative development.
Session 2: Develop narrative theme, purpose statement, and character map.
Session 3: Select and develop plot line and complete the scenario map.
Session  4: Present narrative and complete the post-course evaluation survey.

Instructor

Dr. Meredith Singleton
Founder, CEO, Story Arc Learning
With nearly two decades of experience in instructional design, storytelling and writing, and content development, Meredith leads a team of instructional designers and developers dedicated to creating compelling and engaging story-driven learning content. She has her Ph.D. in Technical and Professional Communication with a focus on instructional design and learning. While serving as the Chief Strategy Officer for Untold Content, she built and served as a facilitator for Innovation Storytelling Training, leading teams within private corporations such as Boeing, Hershey, and Edgewell; and federal- and state-level government entities, including NASA, the State of Wyoming, and the State of North Dakota. Meredith is a certified Advanced Online Instructor with the Online Learning Consortium and is Quality Matters certified. Story Arc Learning received a 2025 Training Magazine Network Choice Award in Authoring Tools.

Course Dates

Register Early! The course size is limited

2026 COURSE DATES: 

Session 1: Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Session 2: Thursday, October 1, 2026
Session 3: Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Session 4: Thursday, October 8, 2026

Each session is 2 hours in length:

All sessions start at 12:00 pm Eastern Time (New York time). Here is the time of the sessions listed in various time zones:

• 09:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific Time (PT)
• 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Mountain Time (MT)
• 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Central Time (CT)
• 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm Eastern Time (ET)

Course Rates

Register Early. Course size is limited.

Early-Bird Registration 30+ days prior to the course start date: $745

Registration within 30 days of the course start date: $895

Train as a Team and Save!
For questions on group discounts, visit fees and discounts.

Course Equipment

IMPORTANT -  You'll participate in online and collaborative activities in a number of ways, each designed to provide a unique means to interact and learn from experts and colleagues. All course delivery software operates at Internet connection speeds of 56.6 kbps or better, on PC, Mac and Unix platforms. Programs will use teleconferencing or VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol.) The login instructions emailed to you approximately one week prior to the start of the course will outline platform use as well as any headset requirements or suggestions. Each registrant must provide their own laptop or desktop computer in order to fully participate in the course as mobile applications such as Zoom and Adobe Connect have limited feature functionality that may prohibit you from fully experiencing class activities. Please test your login information a minimum of 48 hours in advance on your course start date on the computer you will be using for the course.

 

What Others Are Saying

Hear what past attendees have to say about this and other Certificate Courses. Read the testimonials.  

ATD Initial Eligibility and Recertification

Training Magazine Certificates have been pre-approved by the ATD Certification Institute to offer educational programs that can be used towards initial eligibility and recertification of the Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD) and Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD) credentials.  For questions on initial eligibility and recertification, visit ATD Certification Institute. 

This program has been approved for a maximum of 8 points.