About

While I’ve only called myself a Learning Experience Designer for about a year, I recognize— looking back on my first twenty years as an educator — that I’ve really been doing this work all along.

 

Instruction in any mode is only meaningful if it produces authentic, lasting learning — in other words, transformation. Over the years in my K-12 English Language Arts and Social Studies classrooms, I designed much of my own curriculum and refined my instruction to produce measurable learning outcomes. Learner transformation becomes more reliable through pedagogical best practices, but even so, it never ceases to inspire.

 

Beyond pedagogy, meaningful instruction creates transformative learning experiences through the art of communication — clarifying and scaffolding complex ideas for deeper comprehension and application. It draws on the human response to narrative, making content more relatable and memorable through storytelling. For this reason, two decades of advising student Drama Clubs, scriptwriting, and directing student theater and film productions have contributed nearly as much to my growth in learning experience design as teaching core academic subjects.

 

Shifting from K-12 to adult education has highlighted for me the similarities among learners of all ages. Learners thrive when they are heard and understood; when their prior experiences are recognized and valued; when their exceptionalities are supported as strengths; when they have agency and accountability in their learning; when they are challenged and then supported to meet those challenges; when they feel connected to mentors and peers; and when they understand the real-world relevance of their learning goals. Building those conditions into instructional resources is central to learning experience design as I understand it.

 

To both the science and the art of learning experience design, I bring a strong foundation in communication, storytelling, project leadership, and a long track record of supporting learner growth, along with a growing body of experience in digital learning, multimedia development, and emerging technologies. I am most drawn to work that makes complex information accessible, relevant, and usable in real contexts — work that helps learners grow in capability and confidence and benefit from their learning in measurable ways.

 

For me, learning experience design sits at the intersection of cognitive science, instructional technology, communication, and human connection. What continues to draw me to this work is the opportunity to create learning that is intellectually rigorous, creatively engaging, and deeply human.