ABOUT ME

HEY, I'M JEN!

I love learning and I love creating. I'm an instructional designer who thrives on creating learning experiences that are both enjoyable and effective.

I'm currently available for freelance projects, and open to joining the right team. Keep reading and I'll show you how I work and how I got here!

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HOW I WORK

Design Philosophy

I design learner-centered experiences by first understanding where learners are and what they need to do. I believe effective learning combines engagement & enjoyment to encourage active participation & meaningful behavior change. My goal is to leave learners feeling confident applying what they’ve learned.

My Approach

I collaborate closely with SMEs & stakeholders to identify the gap the learning experience needs to bridge, then design practical, learner-focused solutions through an iterative, feedback-driven process. I’m a reliable, self-directed team member who manages projects effectively and works well in remote and asynchronous environments.

Tools I Use

Articulate Storyline 360
Articulate Rise 360
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Camtasia
Notion
Trello
Google Workspace
TalentLMS

HOW I GOT HERE

Travel backwards in time with me through every chapter of my career to better understand how each experience shaped me into the learning designer I am today.

Designing for Clients

Instructional Designer

JEN RAINS LEARNING DESIGN

Designing for clients means working in live production, inside someone else's process, timeline, and standards, alongside experienced instructional designers.

Through the freelance work I've done, I've built and strengthened the skills I bring to every project, including:

Task analysis with subject matter experts
Iterative storyboarding under production deadlines
Developing eLearning in Articulate Rise 360
Incorporating stakeholder feedback across review rounds
Collaborating within a project-based design team
Working asynchronously across time zones

My first instructional design contract came from working out loud. Sharing my design process publicly on LinkedIn led to an instructional designer who had been following my work bringing me in to subcontract on a client project.

The build is a globally deployed eLearning project on a fast production timeline, with four of us designing across time zones. I worked on task analysis, collaborated with subject matter experts, and storyboarded through several rounds of iteration, developing in Rise 360.

Shortly before it, I was invited to guest teach in a course for instructional designers called Making Online Content Accessible for All. My session was on designing accessible AI-generated eLearning content. Teaching this early was not something I expected, and I loved putting my classroom years back to work.

Learning by Doing

Instructional Designer, Independent Projects

JEN RAINS LEARNING DESIGN

A year and seven months of deliberate, self-directed work closed the gap between my background in education and designing for adult audiences.

I learned by designing and developing complete projects end to end, building skills in:

Applying adult learning theory to learning design decisions
Auditing & remediating learning for WCAG 2.2 accessibility
Designing accessible AI-generated learning content
Action mapping to identify performance gaps & learning priorities
Storyboarding & structuring learning experiences before development
Developing scenario-based & interactive learning experiences in Storyline 360 & Rise 360

While exploring roles that aligned with my love for learning, I was excited to discover instructional design as a profession. This industry gave me language for the work I had been doing all along and a clear direction for where I wanted my career to go.

So I gave myself the time to close the gap properly. I studied adult learning theory and instructional design methodology, then put all of it to work: designing complete projects end to end, sharing my process publicly as I went, and auditing and rebuilding my own site to meet WCAG 2.2 standards. Building is where the theory turned into judgment.

A year and seven months later, it turned into paid work.

Founding a Learning Resources Business

Learning Designer

NICE GIRAFFICS

Founding Nice Giraffics gave me the freedom to fully lean into my passion for learning design and explore ideas from concept to creation.

I was energized by the opportunity to design learning experiences exactly as I envisioned them, and in doing so, developed skills that continue to shape how I work today, including:

Graphic & visual design to support learning
Managing projects independently from idea through delivery
Strong self-management & time-management habits
Working autonomously while staying focused & accountable
Balancing structure, usability, & engagement in learning materials

Extremely excited about the possibility of creating learning materials for a living, I started my online business, Nice Giraffics. Managing projects from research and ideation through development and delivery, I created and sold learning resources for teachers and parents, including ESL modules, digital games for online teachers, and at-home phonics workbooks sold on Amazon. I spent three years working full-time on this.

While the business didn't grow the way I hoped, it taught me far more than I expected. Designing on my own showed me how much strong work depends on collaboration, feedback, and iteration, and how much I wanted to be designing alongside other people instead of in isolation. It also made clear where my time is best spent: on the design work itself, not on building and marketing a product line.

First Job in Learning Design

Curriculum Designer

LCI ACADEMY, GWANGJU, SOUTH KOREA

Stepping into a curriculum designer role at a private English academy in South Korea marked a turning point in my career.

Collaborating with the academy director and teachers to redesign a phonics program moved my focus beyond individual lessons and toward learning systems, allowing me to develop skills in:

Program-level curriculum design
SME & teacher collaboration
Evaluating & improving existing learning materials
Designing learning for print-based delivery at scale
Applying visual design & structure to support learning clarity

Returning to one of my favorite places, South Korea, I accepted a role as a curriculum designer at a private English academy. The school was ready to redesign its phonics program, and I was responsible for creating a new set of workbooks, which pushed me to think beyond individual lessons and consider how learners would move through the curriculum as a whole.

Designing those workbooks was the first time I had ever been fully lost in a creative flow state while working. I loved thinking through the learner experience and solving the puzzle of how to make learning both effective and engaging. That clarity and excitement made it obvious that learning design was the direction my career needed to take.

Teaching Around the World

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ESL Teacher

SOUTH KOREA, CAMBODIA, VIETNAM, ECUADOR, & ONLINE

Teaching learners from different cultures and language backgrounds while living independently on the other side of the world, shaped how I think about learning and adaptability.

These experiences strengthened skills I continue to use in my work as a learning designer, including:

Clear & intentional instructional communication
Designing practice-based learning experiences
Adapting learning for diverse & multilingual learners
Flexibility & adaptability in changing environments
Learner-centered facilitation

After earning my teaching degree, I wasn’t ready to settle into a classroom in the US, so I accepted a teaching position in South Korea and moved across the planet on my own. The experience pushed me to become more adaptable, independent, and comfortable in unfamiliar environments.

Over the next eight years, I taught learners both in classrooms and online while living and working across Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Teaching learners from different cultures and language backgrounds strengthened my appreciation for clear communication, flexibility, and practice-based learning, and sparked my love for designing creative, engaging ways to bridge learning gaps for diverse learners.

Where It All Began

Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education

LESLEY UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

My degree in education gave me a strong foundation in how learning works and how to design learning around the needs of different learners.

Through my coursework and student teaching experiences, I began developing the skills that still shape how I approach learning design today, including:

Learner-centered learning design
Identifying knowledge & skill gaps
Designing learning to bridge performance gaps
Facilitating & delivering learning experiences
Designing accessible learning for diverse learners

I’ve always loved learning. I was the kid who came home from school and sat down immediately to do my homework, and the big sister who set up an easel and made my siblings play school. From a young age, I enjoyed learning and helping others learn.

As soon as I was old enough, I became a tutor, and going to university to study education felt like the natural next step. Even then, I knew I wanted to help people learn, and my degree became the foundation for how I think about learning and design today.

Explore My Work

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