I bring over two decades of experience across vocational training, higher education, community learning, and professional development. I understand how learning actually operates inside real constraints, with real people working within imperfect systems.

This work may involve learning strategy, instructional design, assessment design, platform decisions, creative development, or a combination of these. The method follows the problem, not the other way around.

The work I do is shaped by:

• the problems that need solving
• the teams that need supporting
• the systems that need simplification or automation
• the teachers and trainers working at the coalface, navigating compliance and diverse learner needs
• the learners using education as a pathway into the next chapter of their lives.

A UDL approach

Accessibility and flexibility are central to my approach, and as such I design using a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) method.

This supports multiple ways for learners to engage with resources, having control over their own learning journey in a safe space where they can work within ways they feel comfortable. The aim is to ensure learning works for many, not just the handful who thrive in a set traditional education environment. Read more about UDL here.

Problem-solving and solution-seeking

I like to focus on the bigger picture: what are the issues we face, the barriers we need to overcome?

Working backwards in order to find ways across to the other side. This involves having clear deliverables and outcomes, access to tools, skills or knowledge gaps that may need to be addressed within teams, time, budget and contextual barriers or speed-humps and what practical fixes we can put in place that have longevity and are not simply ‘band-aids’. I support organisations in building systems and tools that enable us to work smarter not harder. To be proactive rather than reactive and empower those making the decisions to have all the information to best educated decisions for the best outcomes.

Trainers and Facilitators

Good learning design only works if it can be delivered in practice.

I work closely with Trainer/Assessors, Facilitators and Teachers to ensure learning resources, activities and assessment tasks are realistic, adaptable and aligned to regulatory requirements and delivery realities.

This includes consideration for cohort needs, delivery methods and learning environments where the learning journeys will unfold. No one knows the learners better than those supporting them directly, and themselves. Supporting delivery through quality learning resources is not optional. It’s a must have.

Subject Matter Experts

Strong learning depends on accurate, current and relevant industry guidance and expertise.

I collaborate closely with SMEs to ensure learning content reflects real knowledge, skills and practice expected from graduates in the workplace. This work focuses on shaping industry expertise into useable learning – not overwhelming learners with information but looking at the level expected of them, what tasks they’d be expected to undertake in their role and what the latest barriers they may face look like. This way we can best prepare them to enter the workforce prepared, reflecting best practice and supporting the industries and people they will work with.

Gathering the right kind of industry information from SMEs and translating it into learning resources is an art form. So is storytelling, and that is ultimately what we seek to do. To draw upon years of experience and knowledge from professional who have dedicated so much time and passion to their industries and impart that to the next generation of workers in the same field. Translating between VET and industry is not an easy task, and it can take the right questions and framing to get the information needed.

Creativity, education and technology

I am a creative, educator and geek. Proudly.

A self-confessed education and tech nerd with a background in multimedia design, development and various forms of the creative arts. Alongside instructional design, my skill set has been gathered from experience film making, making music, writing, building websites and marketing local artists and bands, photography and visual arts.

Add to this the ability to learn and adapt to new technology rapidly, a passion for education and social awareness of supporting some of the most identified learner populations of high risk disengagement, being neurodiverse with a love for gaming and film and you’ve got a unicorn. Where required, this creative capability and network can be brought in to support the creation of learning that is truly unique and miles ahead of static content. Always in service of the learning outcomes, solving the problems and developing within context.