Learning system
A year-long Pre-Algebra learning system
A connected set of explanations, visual models, guided practice, and checks for understanding gives learners a path from introduction to independent work.
Read the design storySarah Layton · Learning Design
The spacebetweeninformation andunderstanding.
I design learning that makes complex ideas click—and helps people put them into practice.
Explore my workDesign for the learner.
Start with what people know, where they get stuck, and what they need to do next.
Make complexity usable.
Turn complicated content into clear steps, examples, practice, and feedback.
Build the system around it.
Connect the materials and workflows so the learning holds together over time.
How I design learning
- Find the gapIdentify what is missing between the starting point and the goal.
- Design the bridgeBuild the sequence, explanation, practice, or system that helps people move forward.
- Refine through useWatch what happens in practice and improve what causes friction.
Selected work.
Accessible design
One lesson, three language versions
The original Missing Dimensions page and its Spanish and Mandarin versions keep the same examples, questions, values, and mathematical challenge.
Compare the missing-dimension problemsWorkflow concept
Instructional support tracking
A prototype organizes daily support records around quick teacher entry and useful views for teachers and support teams.
Explore the tracker prototypeAbout
I design for the space between being given information and actually understanding what to do with it.
After 17 years in education, I’ve learned that the hardest part of learning usually isn’t the content itself. It’s finding the missing step, the unclear explanation, the badly timed prerequisite, or the system that makes something harder than it needs to be.
That’s the work I love.
I build learning experiences, curriculum, visual supports, assessments, and practical systems that turn complicated ideas into something people can actually use. I think carefully about sequence, language, accessibility, cognitive load, and what happens when the plan meets a real human being.
Teaching Pre-Algebra has also made me an unapologetic iterative designer. When something doesn’t work, I don’t defend the original version—I figure out why, redesign it, and try again.
I’m especially drawn to complicated problems with a lot of moving pieces: the places where content, people, process, and technology all have to work together.
Now I’m looking to bring that same approach to learning experience design, curriculum, training, implementation, and education technology—building things that are clear, thoughtful, useful, and designed for the people who actually have to use them.
View my work ↗Contact
Let’s make learning easier to use.
I’m interested in remote or mostly remote opportunities in learning design, curriculum, training, implementation, and related roles.
Email Sarah