Helping educators and families create meaningful, engaging, and appropriately challenging learning experiences for every child.

My Approach to Teaching and Learning

For nearly two decades, I've worked across education as a classroom teacher, virtual educator, curriculum designer, instructional coach, homeschool parent, and consultant. Those experiences have given me the opportunity to see learning from many different perspectives, but they've also led me back to the same questions again and again.

What helps students become deeply engaged in learning? What happens when the work is too easy, too difficult, or disconnected from who they are? How do challenge, autonomy, feedback, relationships, and opportunity shape the way students begin to see themselves as learners?

These questions guide much of my work today.

I'm particularly interested in educational psychology and what research tells us about how students learn, think, develop, and understand themselves. I believe that effective teaching involves more than delivering content or measuring achievement. It requires understanding the learners in front of us and creating opportunities for them to think deeply, experience meaningful challenge, develop confidence, and take ownership of their learning.

Gifted education is one of my areas of specialization, but the larger questions that drive my work apply to every learner. Students need different levels of challenge, different kinds of support, and opportunities to explore their interests and develop their abilities.

I also recognize that educators are already managing an enormous number of responsibilities. My goal isn't to introduce another complicated initiative or add more to an already full plate. It's to help educators understand the research behind effective teaching and find practical ways to strengthen the work they're already doing.

How I Can Help

Through InterestEd Educational Solutions, I offer a range of consulting, professional learning, and educational support services.

  • Instructional Coaching: Partnering with teachers and instructional leaders to strengthen instructional practices, explore differentiation, and create more meaningful learning experiences.

  • Curriculum Design and Development: Designing, reviewing, and refining curriculum and instructional resources that promote deeper thinking, engagement, creativity, and appropriate challenge.

  • Gifted Education Consulting: Supporting schools and educators with gifted identification, differentiation, programming, and strategies for meeting the academic and social-emotional needs of advanced learners.

  • Professional Development: Creating and facilitating practical, research-informed workshops and learning experiences for educators, schools, and organizations.

  • Family and Homeschool Support: Helping families understand their children's learning needs, explore educational options, develop individualized learning plans, and navigate gifted education and homeschooling.

  • Educational Writing and Resource Development: Developing articles, curriculum materials, professional learning resources, and educational content that connect research with practical application.

I approach each project as a collaboration, recognizing that schools, educators, and families bring their own expertise, experiences, and needs to the work.

Writing, Research, and Professional Learning

Writing is an important part of my professional work. I contribute to national education publications, including Edutopia and ISTE+ASCD, and write regularly through InterestEd about educational psychology, meaningful challenge, curriculum, gifted education, and intentional teaching.

I'm also completing graduate work in educational psychology and instructional coaching, which continues to deepen my understanding of learning, motivation, identity, and instructional practice.

I enjoy exploring research, but I'm most interested in what happens when we bring that research into real classrooms and learning environments. What does it actually mean for a teacher planning tomorrow's lesson, a school designing services for advanced learners, or a family trying to find the right educational opportunities for their child?

Those are the conversations I love.

My background includes:

  • Nearly two decades of experience in education

  • Educational consultant, instructional coach, and curriculum designer

  • Nationally published education writer, including multiple articles for Edutopia

  • Professional learning presenter, including presentations for the National Association for Gifted Children and the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted

  • Licensed English/Language Arts and Gifted & Talented educator

  • Co-President of the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted

  • Graduate study in educational psychology and instructional coaching at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

  • Eight years homeschooling my three daughters

  • Creator of classroom resources, curriculum materials, and professional learning tools

Beyond the work

Education is a big part of my life, but certainly not all of it. I live in Central Wisconsin with my husband and our three daughters, and much of my life outside of work revolves around family, music, art, and whatever project I've decided to take on next.

I love painting, embroidery, gardening, cooking, reading, and learning new things. Our house is also home to a dog, a cat, and an arguably unreasonable number of houseplants. I'm naturally curious and almost always have several projects going at once.

I like having a full life: work that matters to me, time with my family, and room for the creative interests and projects I genuinely enjoy.

Work With Me
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