Learning Design

• Learning Design

• Educational Content Through Social Media, Especially Video and Interactive Content

• Explication of Complex Intellectual and Political Ideas

• Accessibility in Learning

• Content Strategy – especially educational

• Teaching pets — even the most recalcitrant of cats — how to communicate by pressing buttons, well this is more of a hobby…

Sarah's passionate about figuring out how people learn — and then creating interactive content that challenges those engaging with it enough that they think about the world just a little differently.

Every single person, she believes, is brilliant in some way. But every single system, of course, is not designed to show that.

"Just like when airplanes were made to be ‘one-size fits all’ – many crashed because the pilots couldn’t adjust to their specific dimensions," she says.

“Success is something that can be measured in different ways — so you can choose how you're evaluated, to a certain degree.”

According to Sarah, creative work shouldn't be some mystical unknowable thing. There are ways to evaluate whether something is creatively successful whether you feel like you are creative or not.

The secret?

Make every expectation explicit.

And then write them down for everyone to see and evaluate.

(No, really, write everything down — or somehow record it. Sarah once printed out an entire education film frame by frame to see what exact part of the imagery a client didn’t like. It’s this level of detail that helps people point to exactly what they do or don’t like about a creative work.)

This might sound like the antithesis of creativity – and yet any creative work is designed on some formula, whether it’s a two-minute instructional film or an oil painting on a canvas.

(Again, no, really. Think of all your favorite movies and books. Now, think about the formula they’re playing on or with.)

Sarah, coming from the instructional design world, encourages us all to do what she does on every project – make a rubric.

A good rubric is vital. If there are no standards or model for what you’re trying to create, it’s very hard to evaluate a job well done.

Lucky for us, Sarah has developed a system to actually measure how a project or endeavor is going.

Reach out to her via her contact page, or follow her Eventbrite to be notified when her next course comes out.

Right now Sarah is working on a book about cognitive dissonance. She’s developing a framework of understanding around why it’s uncomfortable to change your mind, and how to better practice having conversations.