About
The person behind
the design.
Instructional designer, educator, and lifelong learner. I build learning experiences that are honest about what they're trying to do.
Thomas Starr
Instructional Designer
Background
I design learning
with purpose.
My path to instructional design ran through the classroom. I came to this work as an educator first — someone who had experienced firsthand both the power of a well-designed learning experience and the frustration of curriculum that checked boxes without building understanding.
I hold a Master of Science in Applied Learning Sciences from the University of Miami, where I developed deep grounding in cognitive theory, learning design, and the science of how people acquire knowledge. That foundation informs my practice every day — particularly my commitment to backward design, evidence-based multimedia principles, and assessment that tells learners something true and useful.
"I came to instructional design through teaching. I stay because design lets me build the thing I always wished existed for my learners."
Current Work
I'm an instructional designer at The DiSTI Corporation. I came to this role from the classroom: at City Church Academy in Deltona, Florida, I designed and delivered a full two-semester after-school program for Grades 3–5. That program — Forces & Structures in the Fall and Earth & Energy in the Spring — represents sixteen sessions of hands-on science and engineering, built from scratch using Understanding by Design.
Alongside that work, I am completing an Ed.D. in Instructional Design at National University, focusing on applied design and development, project management, and the ethical dimensions of learning design.
My Approach
I am committed to designing learning experiences that are accessible, equitable, and honest. That means applying universal design principles not just to the content I create, but to the presentation of that content. It means naming the communities my work serves rather than presenting design as if it were context-free. And it means being willing to critique my own practice — publicly, with evidence — rather than presenting only polished outcomes.