Twenty years of designing for learners and educators

In the classroom

My first teaching job was college writing at La Sierra University. From there, I spent eleven years as a K–8 principal at two schools, and for eight of those years I taught a class too. Running the school and teaching, same day, every day.

Later, I taught 7th–12th grade English and journalism at Dallas Christian Academy, where I built a dual-credit program so students could earn college credit before they graduated. I’ve also taught college essay and research writing at Dallas College and West Coast University.

Designing courses

I’ve designed courses for elementary, middle school, high school, and college students, for homeschool families and public and private school districts. Lessons mix hands-on activities, visuals, and audio, and each one is built around state standards and what the students actually need. Some families want hands-on projects. Others prefer learning online. I design for both.

As an ELA content strategist at ECS Learning Systems, I built curriculum that turned what teachers need to teach into materials students could actually use. My go-to tools include Canva, Google Classroom, Pear Deck, Kahoot!, Edpuzzle, and Seesaw.

Writer’s Grit

In 2019, I founded Writer’s Grit, a writing company. We hired writing instructors for Boston Public Schools after-school programs and helped working writers publish books and magazine articles. Kids’ first stories on one end, magazine bylines on the other.

Content design at BrainPOP

At BrainPOP, I started as a content manager, leading a team of five writers. Then I moved into UX writing and research. My free-trial messages for BrainPOP Science took engagement from 3% to 39% and brought in 570 leads when the goal was 250.

When the content team went from six people to one, I was the one. I partnered with six product designers across five teams and got four products speaking in one voice. Content errors dropped 20%.

More BrainPOP case studies (password-protected):

• Designing for educators
• First-time use research: onboarding students to BrainPOP Science
• AI-assisted grading and onboarding
• Leading content design by establishing standards
• Grobo: a play and learning app

UX of EdTech

From 2022 to 2026, I was a senior content designer and UX researcher with UX of EdTech. I led editorial, including a three-part series on UX writing in edtech, and I co-host the UX of EdTech podcast. I’ve interviewed design leaders from Google LearnLM, Canva, IDEO’s Play Lab, and Microsoft Education.

Listen to the podcast →

Edtech companies I’ve worked with

Full time and on contract, I’ve helped edtech teams make their products easier for teachers, families, and students to use.

Teaching taught me what I use every day in content design: know your audience, then give them what they need.