Special Education Professional Development: Creatively Focused
Project context
For nearly five years I was an instructional designer at Creatively Focused, an education company whose axis3 platform supports educators who serve students with disabilities. Drawing on my own years working directly in special education, I produced professional development at scale: courses, resources, and curriculum that special education teachers and staff could use in the flow of their work, plus direct partnerships with school districts on their own training needs. This is the institutional, K-12 special education experience that sits behind my consulting practice.
What I contributed
More than 25 self-paced courses and mini-modules for special education teachers and staff
Hundreds of supporting resources, including job aids, classroom guides, data collection tools for evaluations and progress monitoring, and compliance-friendly templates such as IEP goal-writing and IEP self-review tools
Instructional design support for the "I Can!" social-emotional learning curriculum for elementary education, spanning lesson plans, activities, social stories, and assessments
Custom training built directly with several K-12 districts and special education cooperatives, including programs that paired self-paced eLearning with in-person sessions, year-long follow-up cohorts with facilitator guides, and the conversion of a district staff manual into usable resources
A monthly content release cadence, regular content maintenance audits, and the recruiting and onboarding of subject-matter-expert contractors, so the library ran as a maintained system rather than a pile of one-off files
The full library is proprietary to Creatively Focused and sits behind their platform, so I can describe this work but not display it. Respecting a former employer's content is the same way I treat client work.
Design decisions and approach
Built and maintained as a system, not a pile of files
At this volume, the work only holds together if it is run like a system. I set up a monthly content release cadence and regular content maintenance audits, ran resource development in planned sprints with built-in peer review, and recruited and onboarded the subject-matter experts who fed the pipeline. That habit, documenting and maintaining as you go, is the same one I carry into client work now.
Rooted in real special education practice
Because I had worked in special education directly, I built for the actual conditions of the classroom: IEP and compliance paperwork, behavior strategies, and progress monitoring. These were not generic trainings. They were tools an educator could use during the task itself, like an IEP self-review checklist or a structured data collection form.
Designed for educators with no time to spare
The audience was working educators stretched thin, so I designed for practical application: clear steps, concrete examples, enough context to apply the learning in new situations, and content chunked small enough to use in the moment. The aim was to reduce the need for extensive or costly training, not add to it.
Partnered directly with school districts
Beyond the platform, I worked with several K-12 districts and special education cooperatives on their own needs. For one regional cooperative I designed a custom training program that paired self-paced eLearning with facilitated in-person sessions, then built a year-long follow-up cohort so support continued after the initial training ended. I produced the facilitator guide, scope and sequence, monthly discussion prompts, and a plan for measuring learning and engagement, so the agency's own staff could run it and see whether it was working. For another district I turned a dense staff manual into resources teams would actually reach for. This is the closest work in my portfolio to what a district hires me to do now.
Selected examples
The Creatively Focused library is proprietary and not publicly shareable, so it is described here rather than linked.
Recommendations from colleagues and leaders at Creatively Focused (public, on LinkedIn)
"Kalin possesses a remarkable skill for transforming complex content into accessible, practical learning experiences for adult learners." — Elizabeth Orme, Founder and CEO, Creatively Focused
Project notes
This is the largest-scale work in my portfolio and the closest to what a district is actually buying: special education instructional design built for educators, delivered at volume, including direct district engagements. The reception bears it out. Across these courses, 442 educators from more than 30 districts, charter networks, and special education cooperatives in multiple states took part, and among those who completed end-of-course feedback surveys, average satisfaction was 8.5 out of 10 across 1,017 responses. Educators repeatedly described the resources as immediately applicable. My manager also credited the content cadence and audits I built with improving the team's efficiency. It is also where my current focus began. Building professional development that helped educators do their jobs showed me how little of it took work off their plates, which is the gap my special education resource now addresses.
By the numbers
- 25+ Courses and mini-modules
- 442 Educators reached
- 30+ Districts, charter networks, and cooperatives
- 8.5/10 Average satisfaction across 1,000+ responses
This work was completed as an instructional designer at Creatively Focused.