About
I was a registered nurse for five years before I began my teaching career in North Carolina in 1981. I taught Health Science for eight years, which helps prepare students for health care related careers. In 1991, I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where I spent eleven years as the Health Occupations State Consultant and North Carolina HOSA State Advisor, developing curriculum and professional development for teachers. From 2002 until 2014, I served as the National HOSA Assistant Director.
In 2005 my family and I moved to Orlando, Florida. While still working for National HOSA, I began a part-time job at Walt Disney World®, just for fun. I ended up working as a Cast Member with Disney’s Youth Education Series® (YES) programs, facilitating learning activities for schoolgroups throughout Walt Disney World®. During my 16 years with the Walt Disney Company®, I had opportunities to work with the Disney Institute®, Adventures by Disney® facilitating Backstage Magictours, and with National Geographic Live®.
My experiences with Disney “edutainment” (a Disney term that describes education that is also entertaining) were consistent with my understanding of the value of HOSA. That is – learning can be fun and rewarding! These experiences confirmed that children, teens, college students and adults all enjoy learning when teachers find and share the joy in learning. It made me want to bring similar meaningful learning experiences to the classroom.
And that's how CreativEd Services was born...
Mission
My passion for sharing the joy of teaching prompted me to build CreativEd Services and publish my first book in 2013, Learning Games: Health Science. I didn’t have many resources when I started teaching high school in 1981, and I certainly didn’t understand how to make learning meaningful and engaging. I wanted to share all the things I wish I had known BEFORE my nine years in the classroom. Creating Learning Games resources and presenting workshops was my way of giving back to the profession that has given so much to me.
For the last decade I have continued to write books for teachers in the Learning Games and Brains Games and Puzzles series. Most importantly, CreativEd Services is committed to consistently enhancing our research and our offerings, in an effort to continuously better support classroom teachers.
Vision
After CreativEd Services was up and running, I earned my Certified Professional in Learning and Performance certification in instructional design and in 2018 I started working for Integrated Loyalty Systems, Inc., (ILS) a company whose goal is to help hospitals improve the patient experience. My work with ILS gave me a chance dive even deeper into the design and construction of professional development programs.
We are in the process of developing a program that will change school culture in a way that empowers teachers to use evidence-base strategies for improving student achievement. We are currently piloting this program where we provide teachers with on-demand professional development, sharing evidence-based instruction strategies and the neurophysiology of how the brain learns! In the future, we hope to provide one-on-one coaching sessions, on-demand digital workshops and much more. Stay tuned!