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A Bird, Some Berries and Lots of Branching Scenarios
Yum! Just look at those tasty berries hanging temptingly from that branch. I’d be right on that branch if I was that bird too! When I was looking for images to represent branching scenarios, this one appealed to me as much as those berries appeal to our feathered friend. What are branching scenarios? They’re like those…
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Faculty Buy-In Is Complex. Let’s Talk About What’s Helping.
Faculty buy-in is a recurring theme in conversations with instructional teams. It remains one of the most nuanced and evolving parts of our work. It is inherently complex, rarely linear, and often manifests differently across institutions, departments, and even individual courses. Common Challenges From our recent…
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Storytelling as a Framework for Learning Design
When I worked as a filmmaker, my job was to tell stories that moved people. A successful film does more than present information. It creates tension, invites identification, raises questions, and leaves the audience changed in some small but lasting way. That mindset still shapes how I design learning experiences today.…
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A Productive Rivalry With AI
Life as an Instructional Designer: A 4-Part Series Part Part 4: A Productive Rivalry With AI AI has become a regular part of how I work, and overall, I support it. It helps me move faster, think differently, and unblock myself when I’m stuck. Whether I’m refining language, brainstorming ideas, or working through a problem,…
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Surviving and Thriving at Conferences
Life as an Instructional Designer: A 4-Part Series Part 3: Surviving and Thriving at Conferences By the time a conference really gets going, your day is already full. The schedules are packed, sessions move quickly, and the networking never really stops. It’s easy to feel overstimulated, no matter how social you are. And…
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Using Creator+ Without Overcomplicating Things
Life as an Instructional Designer: A 4-Part Series Part 2: Using Creator+ Without Overcomplicating Things Creator+ includes a lot of small features that can make a big difference, especially when you’re working with long or information-heavy pages. Not sure where to start? I have found that sticking to one or two…
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And Just Like That… I Left the Classroom
Life as an Instructional Designer: A 4-Part Series. Part 1: And Just Like That… I Left the Classroom Teaching in a K-12 setting can be incredibly rewarding, but it wasn’t for me. As much as I loved the idea of “summers off,” every educator knows it rarely feels like a reward when you spend the first half recovering from…
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Choosing the Right Brightspace Creator+ Interactive: A Practical Guide for Instructional Designers
Not long ago, choosing an interactive for online learning was often constrained by media availability. Before AI image generation and before high-quality, free images were easy to source, design decisions were shaped by what visuals were on hand rather than what the content truly needed. Today, instructional designers have…
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“Overcoming AI Trepidation” or “Surviving Awkward Chats About AI Over Christmas Dinner”
As I write this, the holiday season is approaching. And as excited as I am to spend time with my loved ones, there is one thing I’m not looking forward to: talking with my family over Christmas dinner… And the loaded gun on the table: artificial intelligence. I’m dreading the moment my Uncle Joe launches into a lecture…
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Design Thinking: A Fresh Lens for Instructional Designers
When you hear Design Thinking, you might picture product developers or tech start-ups. However, the truth is that Design Thinking is just as powerful in Instructional Design (ID). At its core, it’s a human-centered problem-solving approach, and since IDs spend much of their time solving learning challenges, design thinking…
