Design an immersive pre-program learning experience that prepares students for a Normandy-based academic program — building historical understanding, geographic awareness, and emotional connection to World War II events before arrival.

The experience needed to move beyond content delivery and instead create a foundation for deeper, place-based learning once students engage with historical sites in person.

Students often arrive at historically significant sites with limited context, making it difficult to fully engage with the complexity and weight of what they encounter. The design challenge was fourfold.

• Build essential background knowledge without overwhelming learners
• Engage students emotionally and intellectually — not just informationally
• Prepare students to think critically about historical events in real-world settings
• Function independently as a self-paced, digital experience with no live facilitation

Normandy Academy was developed as a modular, interactive e-learning experience built in Articulate Storyline and delivered through Canvas. I served as the sole instructional designer — leading the project from initial concept through stakeholder review, content development, and final delivery. The course blends narrative, interactivity, and primary source analysis to create an experience that is both historically rigorous and genuinely engaging.

• Narrative-driven learning anchored by Claire, a guiding character who creates emotional continuity across the entire experience
• Interactive exploration that promotes active rather than passive engagement
• Scaffolded content that builds understanding progressively — from geographic orientation through liberation and legacy
• Deliberate connection to place, preparing students to engage meaningfully with Normandy's physical sites

1. 1

   Orientation to Normandy

   Students are introduced to the geography, historical context, and significance of the region. Claire establishes the emotional and intellectual frame for everything that follows.

2. 2

   Wartime Context

   Modules explore the broader conditions leading to the Normandy invasion — the strategic stakes, the human cost, and the weight of the decision-making that defined the campaign.

3. 3

   D-Day and the Invasion

   Students engage directly with soldiers on D-Day through an interactive scenario — placing them inside the perspective of those who planned and executed the invasion. A gamified "Break the Code" segment deepens engagement with the strategic complexity of the operation.

4. 4

   Aftermath and Liberation

   The experience examines the invasion's impact on both soldiers and civilians, foregrounding human stories and long-term consequences alongside military outcomes.

5. 5

   Reflection and Connection

   Students are prompted to reflect on what they've learned and consider how their understanding will shape their on-site experience — bridging the digital and physical learning environments.

• Deployed as the required pre-program experience for students participating in the Normandy academic trip
• Increased on-site engagement by giving students a shared historical and emotional foundation before arrival
• Supported deeper primary source analysis and site-based discussion throughout the program
• Established a replicable pre-program design model now being adapted for additional travel programs

Note: Outcome data collection is ongoing. Learner completion rates and pre/post knowledge measures are being integrated into the next cohort.

Screenshots from the course as built in Articulate Storyline, showing the visual design and module structure delivered to educators nationally.

Course Overview — Teaching World War II: A Classroom Companion

Design a flexible, self-paced professional development course that allows educators to engage deeply with World War II content while building practical instructional strategies they can immediately apply — all without requiring synchronous participation or live facilitation. I led this project end-to-end: curriculum architecture, content development, Storyline build, and Canvas deployment.

• Module 1: War in the Pacific
• Module 2: War in Europe
• Module 3: The Home Front
• Module 4: Liberation & Legacy

The course was built to balance depth with flexibility. Educators move at their own pace while engaging with content that is both rigorous and immediately applicable. Every design decision prioritized three things: clarity, usability, and alignment to instructional goals.

Rather than treating asynchronous delivery as a constraint, the design uses it as an advantage — allowing for richer media, self-paced exploration, and reflection time that live sessions rarely afford.

• Sole instructional designer — responsible for all curriculum architecture, content writing, and Storyline development
• Collaborated with curatorial and subject matter experts to ensure historical accuracy and pedagogical rigor
• Managed stakeholder review cycles and incorporated feedback across multiple revision rounds
• Deployed and maintained the course within Canvas, including learner enrollment and resource distribution

Historical Accident Reconstruction is an inquiry-based instructional strategy that asks learners to analyze historical events as if they were reconstructing an accident. Participants examine causes, perspectives, and consequences to build a deeper understanding of complex events — moving beyond surface-level recall toward genuine historical reasoning.

The framework works because it gives learners a clear investigative role. Rather than passively receiving information, they actively interrogate evidence, weigh multiple accounts, and construct their own interpretation of why and how things happened.

I integrate this strategy across multiple learning environments, where it serves as a consistent framework for guiding learners through critical analysis regardless of the specific content or context.

• In teacher professional development sessions as a modeled strategy educators can take directly into their classrooms
• In classroom instruction and demonstration lessons to show the framework in action with actual students
• In museum-based and public history programming, where it supports engagement with primary sources and artifacts

This strategy was deployed as the core instructional framework of the national WWII & Freedom of Expression webinar — a live, one-hour professional development session I designed and facilitated for a national educator audience.

Participants applied Historical Accident Reconstruction to the suppression of artistic expression under Nazi Germany — identifying contributing factors, examining the perspectives of artists, regime officials, and audiences, and tracing the broader implications for culture and resistance. The framework gave educators a repeatable model they could immediately adapt for their own classrooms.