My approach to instructional design is grounded in place — not just as a physical location, but as a lens for understanding how learners experience context, culture, and connection. Traditional design models like ADDIE and SAM provide strong foundations for structure and iteration, but they often stop short of addressing the emotional and spatial dimensions that shape how people truly learn. By integrating place-based and spatial thinking into these frameworks, I bring empathy, relevance, and equity to the forefront of learning design.

In the Analysis and Design phases of ADDIE, I explore where learners are — geographically, socially, and emotionally — to ensure the learning environment reflects their lived realities. In SAM, I treat each iteration not only as a design sprint but as a mapping process, identifying the human landscapes that influence how content is received, interpreted, and applied. Place becomes a scaffold for deeper engagement, allowing learners to see themselves within the learning experience rather than outside of it.

Similarly, I reimagine Bloom’s Taxonomy through a spatial lens — not just as a hierarchy of cognitive processes, but as a geography of thought. Moving from remembering to creating mirrors a journey across landscapes of understanding, where empathy grows as learners connect abstract ideas to real-world spaces and communities. By rooting Bloom’s levels in place-based examples and reflection, learners don’t just think critically — they feel contextually.

This place-based empathy transforms instructional design from a process of content delivery into an act of human connection. It turns models that are often linear and neutral into living frameworks that honor diversity, context, and the environments that shape who we are and how we learn.