Our Work
Yes, our work.
Here is where you can see the work we are collaborating on or completed together.
The Project Table
In my home, all of our projects and ideas live on a long black rectangular table that we affectionately call "The Project Table." When projects are completed or ideas come to full fruition, we remove them, clean the table, and add the next one. Below is my online project table where you can see the latest projects I am working on.
01.
Go Ask Halah
As an academic advisor for high ed., I consis-tently witnessed academia gate keep resources from students when they could not afford to be a student or chose to leave school. So, I created Go Ask Halah, a professional advising service, to make high quality advising accessible to any adult (18+).
02.
HIDL Blog
In this blog I will discuss some of the models, tools, and approaches to my work. I will provide anonymized anecdotes, short stories, and assets to illustrate the concepts I cover. This blog will build on the writings in my portfolio and will include reflections. Coming soon!
HIDL
Halah's Instructional Design Lab
01
Evaluation
While researching in the Learning Strategy Lab, I joined a team of instructional designers and performance improvement specialists to evaluate a non-profit's training for areas for improvement and expansion. We used Gibson's Instructional Design approach in combination with several principles of learning (cognitive load, information processing for learning, CRAP Design principles, and Knowles' principles of andragogy) to conduct our evaluation. We wrote a paper describing our evaluation approach and the lessons we gleaned from the project. The paper was published in the Performance Improvement Journal.
Read our paper here.
Photo of the paper on the Performance Improvement Journal Website.
02
Project ManagemenT
During the summers of 2023 and 2024, I used my HIDL consultancy to project manage and strategize for the When I Glow Up: Back-to-School Extravaganza event in Denver. The purpose of the event is to support children and youth with getting ready and feeling ready for school.
Jazmond (LCSW MA), the founder of When I Glow Up, collaborated with me, Diana (creative designer), Nneka (Nail Artist), Mish (Photographer), Green Spaces & Dahlia Campus (event locations), and many others to bring When I Glow Up to life. For several weeks we ideated on ways to support youth that could meet their physical and psychological needs. We used my project management trackers, check-lists, survey approaches, and fundraising and sponsorship strategies to systematically and thoughtfully launch the event.
At the events, the children and youth were gifted unique hair styles or hair cuts, manicures, yoga, food, bags of groceries, school supplies, body care products, bookbags, plants, toys, clothes and so much more. Over the past two years, the event has served approximately 40 children and youth.
Lessons Learned: There are projects outside of the office that are just as valuable that could use you and your skills to bring to life and make an impact.
Photo of the event and some of the organizers.
Photo of the groceries donated by the People's Food Pantry.
03
Needs Assessment
In the spring of 2023, while completing my MS degree, I worked with a team of instructional designers, psychological safety experts, and policy writers to conduct a needs assessment for a national laboratory in the American West.
The subject matter experts at the lab told us the organization's main feedback mechanism needed to be updated to increase its usage and validity. After we analyzed the "need" using tools such as the Needs Assessment Planning Table (NAPT), HPT Performance Improvement Model, Gilbert's BEM, and Rumler & Brache's Nine Box model, we discovered that the feedback mechanism did not need to be updated (its was working fine). Instead, there was an opportunity (could be better) to update the feedback mechanism to maximize its benefits. Based on our analysis, we proposed 6 interventions to implement to help catalyze those benefits.
Lessons Learned: Sometimes a need is really just an opportunity to enhance something that is working good to working better.
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Graphic Collage of the six interventions we recommended to the national laboratory.
Creative
Writing
01
Intersections Zine
Publications
In 2018, Olivia Hunte (MSW), the founder of the Intersections Zine, invited me to share my Denver Reflections in Volume 3 (yellow). At the time, she was collecting writings, art, etc. on reflection and connection. In 2024, Olivia invited me again to contribute to her Zine for Volume 4 (orange), this time on healing. I wrote a series of vignettes about dreaming and meditating as a form of healing and connection with past versions of our selves.
Read my writing in the Intersections Zine Volumes 3 & 4 and purchase the Zines at the Shop at MATTER.
Photo of Intersections Zine Volumes 1-4 at Shop Matter Bookstore.
02
Ice Queen MAgazine Feature
I'm one of many travelers to cross paths with Ice Queen, the ruler of Ice Queen Magazine, an online literary magazine. Check out out what comes up during our hangout. Be careful though...you might get hooked.
Read and listen here.
Photo of my feature in Ice Queen Magazine.
03
Art Review For
Tya Alisa Anthony
In the winter of 2022, Tya Alisa Anthony, a Denver-based artist, invited me to write a review of her exhibition "Muscle Memory" at Leon Art Gallery. Below is an excerpt from the review.
"On a large wall is a print reminiscent of the wallpaper that adorned grandma’s place, just short of plastic covered couches to complete the living room, although the two leather brown seats atop green grass cut like a rug in the middle of the gallery do just as well. The prints, from afar, look like flowers..." Read more here.
04
Endless Beautiful Podcast Feature
In 2017, Carolyn Decker and Lucas Pralle invited me to discuss poetry and participate in a poetry writing exercise on their podcast Endless Beautiful. Below is an excerpt of my writing from the prompt they gave.
"Wrinkles in time only disturb the mind into small walks down lanes you tried to hide behind caution tape. What was it you were afraid of? You seem to fear everything. Your heart like a metronome ticking in time with rhythm of what you can’t escape–the new scape..." Read and listen to more here.
05
Guest POET/Post
While researching on my Thomas J Watson Fellowship, I visited Katie Ailes, Spoken Word Artist and Poet, in Edinburgh, Scotland. She gifted me the opportunity to write on her site about my experience in the city I endearingly call "the two-tier town."
"But the beautiful lights weren’t the only sources of warmth in Edinburgh. Besides the museum galleries, wall-to-wall packed bars, copious amounts of cups of tea, words warmed the minds, bodies, and souls of many in the city, including me..." Read more
