to a clear next step.
Frame→02
Explore→03
Build→04
Refine
Start with what learners need to do.
My work includes building graduate design courses from the ground up and refining existing course materials. I connect design knowledge with the work of making, explaining, and improving a design. My approach brings together the structure of learning experience design and the hierarchy, pacing, and clarity of visual communication.
Before shaping an assignment or a lecture, I consider the intended performance: what learners should be able to produce, explain, or judge. That gives the material a purpose beyond covering a topic.
Connect the learning experience.
I translate that purpose into a sequence of explanation, application, critique, and revision. Instructions make the task and deliverables explicit; learning activities create opportunities to make decisions; assessment criteria clarify what evidence those decisions should produce.
One important revision concerned continuity: distinguishing the decisions learners bring into a project from the work they are expected to develop next. Making that boundary explicit helps keep the assignment focused while leaving room for a justified refinement.
Build clarity into the materials.
I organize written instructions around visible actions and use a consistent heading structure so learners can locate requirements. In lecture materials, I use hierarchy, examples, pacing, and presenter notes to support the explanation and make space for application and discussion.
The design question is both instructional and visual: what does someone need to understand here, and what should their attention move to next?
Teach the judgment behind the layout.
This newly written example shows how I would turn the topic of visual hierarchy into practice, evidence, and feedback. The instructional design starts with a specific learning goal.
Compare two layouts, justify a hierarchy decision, and propose a revision that supports a reader’s task.
Same event.
Different reading order.
The reader wants to attend a workshop and needs to find its time and location. Both drafts contain the same information; their hierarchy and grouping differ.
design workshop.
Move from preference to evidence.
“Which draft makes the time and location easier to find? Identify two visual choices that support your answer. Then revise the other draft and explain what you changed.”
Respond to the reasoning.
Look for a clear claim, specific visual evidence, and a revision connected to the reader’s task. If a learner says only “it looks cleaner,” ask them to name the change in emphasis or grouping and explain its likely effect.
Created for this portfolio to illustrate an authoring approach. These drafts and prompts are not course excerpts or student work; no learner testing is claimed.
Refine the experience as well as the artifact.
Revision includes the wording, the sequence, and the presentation. A small ambiguity in the instructions can compete with the intended learning; a crowded slide can make an otherwise clear explanation harder to follow.
I revisit those details as the material develops, keeping the relationship between the goal, the task, and the expected evidence in view. The result is a connected set of learning materials designed to support both execution and informed judgment.
This entry presents my authoring approach at a general level. Institutional course materials, internal assessment documents, and student work are not reproduced here.