I incorporate an eclectic group of educational design and cognitive science theories for the ultimate goal of creating inclusive, accessible, engaging, relevant learning experiences.
Firstly, I strive to have learner-and user-centeredness at the center of all my work, which I show through constructivism, such as situated learning and sociocultural learning. My goal is not for learners to be passive participants during their education; I want them to construct their own knowledge by connecting new information to previous experiences and participating with active interactivity vs. just listening and reading (Main, 2021). As much as possible, a course should be situated in the learner’s relevant context so they can more easily connect the material with their goals and develop a stronger, more personal motivation for engaging with it.
Situated learning, which pairs with adult learning theory/andragogy, is equally important to me (Pappas, 2025). I strive to make my learning relevant to my adult learners’ goals, authentic to their real lives and workflows, and able to be completed in their own time. This bridges into Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation, where I believe learners need to be motivated by expectancy, or an assumption that they will receive the results they seek; instrumentality, or the trust that their hard work will result in concrete outcomes; and valence, the faith that these outcomes are important to their goals (Sutton, 2024). If learners aren’t motivated to complete the learning, they simply will not learn. It can be an easy trap to fall into to think “Well, I find this interesting and useful, so they should too,” but we need to do our best to meet the learners where they are at.
Although it can be difficult in online courses, especially if they’re taken asynchronously, I believe that Vygotsky’s theory of sociocultural learning/cognitive development is crucial, because people generally learn best when they’re working with peers and mentors during their growth process, especially those who are more knowledgeable than them in a subject and can guide them through it (McLeod, 2024). Ultimately, we’re social creatures who can learn a lot from each other, and the power of an engaged mentor can be remarkable. I especially appreciate Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, which highlights how learners improve the most in that little area where they can’t quite complete the material or activity independently yet, but they can finish it with some peer or mentor help (McLeod, 2024). In this sense, I do my best to integrate scaffolding into as much of my work as I can, starting the learner off with heavier coaching and guidance so they can move through the fundamentals and gradually lessening the help until they’re pushed towards an independent assessment.
In general, when I’ve been structuring my constructivist learning content, both in my schoolwork and work-work, I’ve began to rely heavily on Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction—problem-centered, activation, demonstration, application, and integration (Merrill, 2020). This aligns with my goals that the instruction should be relevant to the learners’ goals or lives and therefore concrete (problem-centered), new knowledge should be scaffolded on top of old knowledge (activation), the instructor should first guide the learner in how to do something before encouraging them to practice on their own (demonstration), the learner should gradually work their way into independence through trial and error (activation), and finally, the learner should be able to apply their knowledge or skills to their lives (integration).
On a different note, I’m especially focused on ensuring that learners with any range of abilities and disabilities can access and equitably learn from my educational experiences. I believe in proactive accessibility, where courses are designed from the start to incorporate inclusivity, reducing the barrier later on for disabled students to have to reach out to multiple parties for their needs to be met (Lomellini et al., 2023). If courses are designed with accessibility in mind from the beginning, such as incorporating thorough alternative text, ensuring the content can be navigated without a computer mouse, checking that all pages and documents are compatible with screen readers and have understandable reading orders, and checking that all text and graphics pass WCAG color contrast standards. In my Higher Education, I’ve co-lead the team in pushing for accessibility improvements, especially to meet Title II goals in April 2026, meeting with the Office of Student Disabilities and library services.
Similarly, I’m passionate about Universal Design for Learning, which moves beyond even adjusting learning for disabled learners and involves improving the learning so it is easily accessible to everyone. I particularly love the emphasis that there is no “normal” learner—we are all varied, and the curriculum should be flexible and adaptable in response (Rao, 2021). For example, captions can be helpful for Deaf students or students who are in a crowded room and can’t turn their volume up. Or allowing students to demonstrate their performance through multiple outcomes, such as essays, presentations, or videos can help students who cannot perform in one of those categories and help students who simply are stronger in one over the other.
Lastly, I love to use storytelling elements within my design practices (Parrish, 2006). I find that adding an narrative angle to both learner profiles, storyboards, and certain instructional activities such as interactive scenarios helps to connect seemingly disparate elements. For instance, pretending a learner audience are characters allows me to imagine details that may be important to their “backstories” and “arcs.” Similarly, such as in storyboards, piecing the elements together like a storybook makes it easier for me to create what naturally comes next. Interactive scenarios, for example, can be brainstormed like two characters engaging in dialogue. Just as dialogue is supposed to move a scene along and reveal something about either plot or character development, this pushes me to make sure every single line has a purpose that benefits the learner.
Citations
Lomellini, A., Reese, R., & Grennell, K. (2023). The imperfection of accessibility in instructional design: An ethical dilemma. Applied Ethics for Instructional Design and Technology. https://doi.org/10.59668/270.17103
Main, P. (2021, August 16). Embracing the learning theory: Constructivism. Structural Learning. https://www.structural-learning.com/post/embracing-the-learning-theory-constructivism
McLeod, S. (2025, October 16). Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
Merrill, M. D. (2020). First Principles of Instruction. In First Principles of Instruction: Identifying and Designing Effective, Efficient, and Engaging Instruction (pp. 1–13). essay, Pfeiffer.
Pappas, C. (2025, October 2). The adult learning theory: Andragogy of Malcolm Knowles. eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/the-adult-learning-theory-andragogy-of-malcolm-knowles
Parrish, P. (2006). Design as storytelling. TechTrends, 50(4), 72–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-006-0072-7
Rao, K. (2021). Inclusive instructional design: Applying UDL to online learning. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.59668/223.3753
Sutton, J. (2024, February 14). Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation. PositivePsychology. https://positivepsychology.com/expectancy-theory/