Building Learning Cultures

I began as an English teacher in China, working directly with students to create learning environments that were engaging and culturally responsive. That early experience taught me to see design not as making artifacts, but as creating systems that help people grow, participate, and act. The question became: how could teaching itself become a scalable design practice?

I translated classroom-level experimentation into lectures, workshops, and curricula for graduate students and professionals. Over time, I taught at institutions including Stanford d.school, UC Berkeley, and Rutgers Business School. Each session was treated as a designed experience, balancing clarity, rigor, and invitation while meeting learners where they were.

Teaching at the Stanford d.school to graduate students, with David Kelley observing, marked a full-circle moment. The work demonstrated that the same principles used to design products and systems also apply to education: trust, iteration, narrative, and care. Today, teaching informs how I lead teams, facilitate alignment, and design systems people actually adopt.