In developing learning experiences, I strive to create an "authentic" and transformational experience. Whether it be a project-based online course applying a constructivist approach to engage students, instruction via e-learning modules using a behaviorist approach and gamification,  a college-level face-to-face course, or a hands-on training with a live instructor modeling and supervising skill-building, the instruction and learning experience should be engaging and relevant to the students as well as to the instructional goals. Basically, I don’t proscribe to a single approach but rather an approach that works best for the learner in a given context.

My experience encompasses positions at medium to large organizations as well as small companies, non-profits, and universities  prior to my current position as Associate Director of Learning Design at the Center for Digital Innovation in Learning at Boston College.
"Your contributions in instructional design and project management were crucial in the overall success of the Summer Institute.... [You] exemplify professionalism, patience, and collaboration, and were a joy to work with."

Excerpt of letter from Dr. David Weil, Dean and Professor, Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Learning Experience Design
With  experience in the communications and marketing fields, it's only natural that my methodology incorporates a user-centered approach to course and training development. This holistic approach requires not only developing course instruction with the learner as the focus (a given in learning design work) but also addressing the goals and needs of all stakeholders.

I co-developed the MS in Learning Experience Design at Brandeis to expand students knowledge and skill base beyond traditional instructional design programs. The program includes a three-track approach that allows  students to apply their work with a focus on adult training and development, education (K-Higher Ed), or edtech. At Boston College, I co-developed the Certificate for Instructional Design for Learning and developed and taught Module 2: Applied Learning Sciences and Human-Centered Design.
Personas
Persona development is a crucial step in the Define phase of learning experience design. Without accurate personas of students, you cannot be sure that the learner's needs will be met, that the experience will be designed such that students will be engaged and motivated to successfully complete the course or module.

In higher education, the personas are ideally created during program development as this enables the program directors to more accurately stipulate guidelines that ensure consistent design across courses. 

In the accompanying PDF, you can view examples of personas developed with my teams at Brandeis and Boston College. We used various methods to gather data about the learners from survey data to focus groups to interviews with individuals.
PROGRAM & CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
The Open Source Technology Management Certificate was developed as a partnership between the Open Source Initiative and Brandeis University. Based on market research and work with subject matter experts, we developed  a certificate program made up of three topics areas in  which students can earn badges. Each topic has two micro-courses; each course presents a real-world problem that the students work on in teams.  If students want to earn graduate-level credit in one of the topic areas, they can complete an assessment for credit. We worked with subject matter experts in the field of open source technology to develop the curriculum.
To the left is a dashboard (anonymized here) that I created to maintain a visual, real-time presentation of the projects and courses that the learning design team worked on.  The data was pulled from the capacity tracking spreadsheet that I maintained to track our work. In addition, I wrote regular activity reports to communicate to leadership the work of the learning design team. Below is an example report where I have anonymized the staff names.
ANALYSIS & EVALUATION
What makes the discipline of learning design so effective is its focus on analysis and evaluation. Analysis begins with the needs assessment, the environmental and task analyses, as well as an assessment of the stakeholders' expectations. This analysis requires detailed research and may utilize multiple modes of data gathering from simple observations to focus groups and interviews to detailed surveys. It will inform the type of assessments to give the learner and will be used to evaluate the return on expectations of key stakeholders as the course or training is implemented.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to do research and analysis of a program of large online courses to evaluate student engagement. The goal was to better understand what caused the low retention rates of the students. You can read about the study that I designed and the results in a paper (link to the right) that was published in the journal, ​Current Issues in Emerging Learning.
Click below to read my masters thesis.
VIDEO FOR LEARNING
The learning objective for the lecture below is for the students to be able to explain the significance of the three pillars of responsible negotiation: people, problems, and process.
Used with permission.
This is the first video of a 20+ video lecture series. While I produced and edited this first video (in Premiere Pro), I oversaw the filming and editing of the rest, which were completed by a professional video editor. The film was shot in the film studio at Brandeis with a green screen behind Dr.  Alain Lempereur.
The learning objective for the following video is for the viewer to be able to explain, after watching the video, how the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model benefits both the consumer and the farmer.
I shot this video with an iPhone and a DSLR camera. I also developed a storyboard prior to filming and edited the video with Adobe Premiere Pro. The purpose of the project was to promote a community farm in Lexington, Massachusetts as well as complete an assignment for a course in the MEd program at UMass Boston.
INTERACTIVE LEARNING MODULES

Anatomy of the Brain

Click on the image to the right to work through an elearning module, created with Storyline and developed to explain orientation terminology of the brain. The faculty member has students with varying levels of introductory knowledge and wanted to develop modules that students could take outside of class to prepare for an entry-level test to bring them all to the same level of understanding of the anatomy of the brain

To move through quickly, click the next button.
Innovation