I design for what people need to do — not just what they need to know
My approach to instructional design is practical by nature. I want to understand what people are being asked to do, what’s getting in their way, and what will actually help them perform more successfully.
Sometimes that means designing a course. Sometimes it means creating opportunities to practice, providing performance support, or improving a process. And sometimes the answer isn’t training at all.
How I Got Here
My career in learning began long before my title included Instructional Designer.
01
Educator & Instructional Coach
Breaking complexity into learning people can use
More than three decades as an educator taught me how to break complicated ideas into understandable pieces and give learners meaningful opportunities to practice and apply what they learned. As an instructional coach, I learned something equally important: trust, listening, collaboration, and buy-in matter when you're asking people to change how they work.
02
Technical Instructional Design
Learning unfamiliar systems—and translating them for others
Designing technical learning for Navy engineering and firefighting systems taught me to research unfamiliar subjects, ask SMEs focused questions, and translate complex information for learners with varied backgrounds.
03
Corporate L&D
Connecting learning to performance and business goals
Corporate L&D added another dimension—connecting learning needs to organizational goals, collaborating across teams, and designing practical solutions for employees with limited time.
Different learners. Different industries. Different kinds of content.
But the question behind my work has remained remarkably consistent:
What will help this person do this better?
Understand
Why does the stakeholder believe there is a performance problem?
01
What solution—or combination of solutions—is most likely to improve performance?
Recommend
05
Diagnose
What's contributing to the performance gap?
04
Investigate
What can we learn from existing resources, the work environment, successful performers, and those who are struggling?
03
Define
What should successful performance look like, and what's happening instead?
02
When someone comes to me and says, “We need training on X,” I don't begin by thinking about what the course should look like. I begin by trying to understand why they believe training is needed.
My Approach
The answer may be training, but it might also be targeted practice, performance support, better communication, a process change, or something outside L&D altogether.
The goal isn't more training. It's better performance.
How I Work
Good learning design gets better through curiosity, collaboration, feedback, and revision. I want the solutions I create to be useful—not simply impressive—and to help people perform more confidently when it matters.
Ask & Listen
Understand the need before jumping to the solution.
Learn
Research what I don't know and ask focused questions of the people who do.
Collaborate
Work with SMEs, stakeholders, and the people closest to the work.
Iterate
Use feedback, testing, and revision to make the solution better.
Useful beats impressive.