Susannah Simmons

Hello, I'm

Susannah

Learning Designer

about me

I’m currently an online learning experience designer in higher education, which requires instructional design expertise, software and andragogy training for instructors, and relationship building/maintenance for collaborative projects. After designing the course map or learning outcomes and aligned assessment, we can discuss edtech, OER, and/or multimedia assets and solutions that would enhance the student learning experience. There are many moving parts and stakeholders in this process, which requires exceptional organizational skills and a commitment to life-long learning. To help me stay current I rely on professional learning networks such as Pedago.me for learning experience design (LXD), alumni from my master’s degree in Learning Design and Technology program, and my fellow designers at my organization.

skills

Pedagogy / Learning Strategy

Graphic Design

eLearning Authoring

HTML Editing

Educational Tech Integration

LMS Administration

experience

Work Samples

Most of my work is proprietary, but I have a few samples available. I’m also happy to share password-locked samples from the following list (those are the ones that are not linked):

Online Programs

I’ve worked in collaboration to help create the following Mines online programs, which entail four or more online courses.

– FEA Professional (Finite Element Analysis) Certificate (Lead)
– Space Resources Certificate, Masters and PhD (Support)
– Computer Science Professional Certificate (Lead)
– Cybersecurity for Cyber Physical Systems Certificate (Lead)
– Data Science: Earth Resources Certificate (Lead)
– Data Science: Computer Science Certificate (Lead)

– Data Science: Petroleum Data Analytics (Lead)

Mentorship

As an advising board member of the Education Media Design + Technology master’s program, I provided critical feedback on the curriculum and presented a day-in-the-life of an instructional designer in higher education. Here are the slides from my presentation.

Teaching Experience

I’ve designed, developed, and facilitated online and hybrid learning experiences:

– Engineering Online Learning course at Colorado School of Mines
– Instructional Design and Planning course at University of Colorado Denver

– Sales and Technical training at Viaero Wireless

Growth Mindset

I subscribe to Dr. Dweck‘s research that abilities can be improved upon and acquired through effort and study. This term is called growth mindset. As a learning designer, I must always employ a growth mindset in order to learn a new software or edtech tool integration. This mindset drives me to learn more and also strengthens tendencies, which include the following:

– embrace challenges
– persist in the face of obstacles
– see effort as a path to mastery
– learn from feedback and criticism
– find inspiration in others’ success

testimonials

I’ve enjoyed working with Susannah on multiple online course builds over the past few years. Her collaborative nature and valuable insights made the work enjoyable, productive, and together, we've created quality, interdisciplinary learning experiences for students. The first course, Data Structures, has received extremely positive feedback and is becoming a Computer Science staple with growing enrollment each semester. The second course, Introduction to Data Science, will be launching for students this fall. I am extremely appreciative for her wisdom, organizational skills, and efforts. I would highly recommend her for work in any related area!

Dr. Wendy Fisher Assistance Department Head of Computer Science

I'm completing the final steps to launch a new online graduate program this fall. Through this long and strenuous development process, Susannah has been to me both a pedagogy mentor and online instruction guru. She is patient, insightful, and very well organized at both a strategic and tactical level. I have appreciated her good humor and exceptional skill at listening... she always makes me feel like my priorities are her priorities. I'm excited about the quality of the program we will launch this fall, I know Susannah's contributions have made a critical difference.

Dr. Athony Petrella Director, FEA Professional Certificate

Susannah is a phenomenal partner and teammate! Her skills in the online area of education are broad and deep. She does an excellent job guiding course creators, helping them put their mark on things but also ensuring that they meet the standards needed for a quality course. She does this all this kindly and via humor, but with a firm hand. I would highly recommend her and her abilities to anybody looking for help in the online educational world!!

Dr. Jennifer Miskimins Department Head at Colorado School of Mines

I worked with Susannah during the development of several of my online classes at the Colorado School of Mines. Susannah was an excellent coach and instrumental in helping to bring out key course design elements. My classes were some of the first to be designed for the online program at CSM. Working with me and other professors Susannah helped grow remote online program at CSM from zero to a vibrant program with online offerings across the entire university. These are not in-person classes with thin layer of online design, but built for online education from the start. Susannah's course design practices bring out the best from the educators she coaches. Working with Susannah was a delight, which I would gladly do again at the next opportunity.

Dr. Chris Dreyer Associate Director of Engineering at Center for Space Resources Assistant Research Professor, Mechanical Engineering

contact

Please find me on LinkedIn.