For the past two years, I have been working towards a degree in Learning Experience Design. Every time I tell someone this they look at me quizzically and I have to follow up with, 'Well, it's like instructional design, but with the learner at the forefront'. While true, I no longer want to describe it as what it's like, rather I want to describe it as what it is.
My entire educational career has been centered around the learner, what they need to be successful and how I can meet them where they are while providing educational materials, curriculum, and general support to bolster their success. The MALXD program has challenged me to think outside the box, strengthen my knowledge of learning and design principles, and even develop some of my own.
I’ve created a showcase page to highlight these aspects. While everything falls within the LXD realm, I have organized this showcase to present my favorite projects through a specific lens. Each section highlights the particular area I focused on while working on these projects. These projects demonstrate not only what I’ve created, but how I approach solving real learning challenges.
These artifacts represent the foundation of my development as a learning experience designer. Through these projects, I clarified my beliefs about how people learn and began intentionally connecting theory to practice. Each piece reflects my growth in applying learning science, motivation, and engagement principles to real design decisions. Together, they show the evolution of my thinking and the framework that now guides my work.
Understanding how learners learn is an important and foundational process of LXD. One of the first courses we had as part of this program was Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings. In the course, we learned about the various theory of learning and the different contexts in which learners find themselves. At the end of the course, based on the knowledge gained we had to create our own 'magnum opus' for learning. We needed to synthesize and provide evidence for your ideas about what learning is and how it happens.
This artifact required me to put into my own words, using research on various learning theories, my unique perspective on how learning happens. It demonstrates my ability to research, digest, and parse out relevant knowledge to build a theory that I believe works best for most learners.
Learning Design Models are structed frameworks that many designers use when creating a learning experience. While there are few that I was aware of coming into this program, like ADDIE and SAM there was a huge focus on understanding the other lesser known one. In doing so, our task was to create our own 'remixed learning design model'.
The artifact My Remix Design demonstrates my ability to understand best practices within learning design and create a personal framework that I can use as a basis for future designs. It also highlights my stance on there not being a one size fits all approach for learning design. It is important to have a core structure, but sometimes flexibility in design is how you will achieve the best result.
This section highlights projects that strengthened my ability to design with empathy and practical awareness. These experiences required me to consider stakeholder needs, learner context, and real-world constraints throughout the design process. They pushed me beyond theory and into applied problem-solving. The work here reflects growth in communication, collaboration, and strategic thinking.
As part of an effort to complete complete overhaul a training program, for the learners, I recognized that there was also a need for professional development for the trainers. This artifact is a mini course that I created to help the trainers understand the skills needed to provide the best experience for the learners. In developing this course, I knew that while it's important to create an experience that beneficial to the learner, sometimes the training starts before the learner or instructor step foot inside the classroom. In this artifact, I've demonstrated my ability to see the whole picture and properly prepare the instructors for greatness. The experience of the learner is dependent on the knowledge of the instructor.
Not every class takes place in a physical classroom thus it was important to learn and develop techniques for creating effective online learning experiences. Teaching online is not harder or easier than teaching in person, it's simply different and sometimes requires a more intentional approach when designing content. One instructional strategy we explored was flipped instruction, which focuses on intentionally building clarity and understanding into tasks so learners engage with content purposefully throughout the learning experience. For this project we needed to create an online training experience that showcased this idea. I created two artifacts for this project, again with the idea that learners would need to understand the information prior to going on site. The two activities, one individual and one group based, allow learners to engage in an experience that best suits their needs. Both artifcats demonstrated my ability to support the same objective and intended outcome while maintaining consistent content and clear instructional guidance for different groups of learners.
For this project, I was tasked with creating a solution to a common problem that my workplace was having. For each implementation that we had, various teams were assigned to the go-live, not just the training team. This meant that you could have team members who might not be in the system as frequently as those who train or support sent to support new end users. My solution was to create a crash course learning program for those members prior to them going on site. My artifact is the layout for this course, listing the objectives, outcomes, assessment opportunities and various activities. The intention for the course was to have something that while mandatory didn't feel like a burden to those needing to take it. This project allowed me to demonstrate my knowledge of how to properly structure a course to ensure that the experience of the learner was not overwhelming and deemed beneficial for them.
These artifacts showcase my ability to translate ideas into functional learning solutions. Each project involved prototyping, refining, and designing with usability and learner impact in mind. They demonstrate how I apply research, feedback, and iteration to create purposeful learning experiences. This section reflects growing confidence in my technical skills and design decision-making.
Assessments can provide a summative snapshot of learning experiences, serve as a formative checkpoint to revise or redirect learning, and act as quantifiable metrics to move learners through the system. They are tools to measure mastery, but not all tools are the same. You cannot build a house with only a hammer, and you cannot measure knowledge with only a written exam.
This project was part of a series of 12 assessments that I created. I was able to choose the content, but the technique, structure, technology, response, and design were provided using a random generator. This meant that I needed to create something tangible with the restrictions given. As a designer sometimes you have created liberties and something you're limited. Thus, this project demonstrated my ability to design a creative experience while sticking to strict guidelines.
Leadership is like completing a puzzle. A strong and empathetic leader chooses the picture we’re aiming to create and builds an environment where everyone can work together to solve it. They recognize that some people start with the edges while others focus on pieces with matching colors or shapes. They support both approaches through trust, understanding, adaptability, and patience to create a psychologically safe space. Just like working on a puzzle as a team, a good leader knows when to step up and guide the group and when to step back and allow others to lead.
For this project we had to design an artifact that housed the main projects we completed as part of a Learning Design Leadership course. This dashboard, showcased my ability to create a leadership philosophy, vision, and examples of plans for projects. It also demonstrated my ability to curate a thematic presentation of the work that was was done over the course of the semester. Some projects are connected and some are stand alone.
Even though everything is intertwined within LXD perhaps my favorite aspect is the design element. There's something special that happens when you're able to take information that some might find, boring or mundane, and present it in a way that's novel and unique. When designing you're sometimes forced to think outside the box to develop creative solutions. For this project, I was tasked with creating an interactive prototype that could be a possible solution to a problem our team was having.
This artifact demonstrates my ability to be creative and resourceful. Even though I was limited in what I could do technically and systems wise, I was still able to make due and create and experiential learning experience in Google Slides. While, the original idea was based on an amazing Virtual Escape Room, created by Elizabeth Wilson that I did in 2020, the beauty of design is that we are able to get inspiration from everywhere and everything.