Jennifer Ashton, Ed.D.
Adjunct Faculty,
Department of Professional Educational Studies
Dr. Jennifer Ashton is passionate about developing strategies to both improve and enhance the learning experience to make curriculum enjoyable and accessible to all users. In particular, she enjoys serving students with special needs and English Language Learners (ELLs). For the past decade, she has worked in several roles in K-12 and higher education including teacher, school administrator, and Federal programs director. Her goal in each of these roles has been to ensure all classrooms provide student-centered learning experiences. She particularly enjoys including integrating STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) in the classroom. She has also had the opportunity to be a part of school accreditation processes, both as an external reviewer and lead in the school setting.
As an instructional designer, Dr. Ashton has developed hybrid, blended, and fully online courses for K-12 and higher education. All digital designs are grounded in instructional design principles and theories as well as learner-specific pedagogies. Depending on the needs of each project, she has used methods including as ADDIE, SAM, Agile, and Scrum. She enjoys working collaboratively with teams of all sizes and adapting the process to help everyone on the team feel confident. As part of this process, she has developed several training guides and templates to assist subject matter experts (SMEs) in accomplishing their goals. Dr. Ashton has worked both synchronously and asynchronously with SMEs around the globe.
Dr. Ashton’s research involves studying strategies for building a sense of community in the virtual environment, the changing landscape of instructional design, and universal design for learning (UDL). Additionally, she has started a nonprofit organization that will be focusing on educating and advocating for students with disabilities. The nonprofit will include parent training, blogs written by students with disabilities and families willing to tell their stories towards advocacy, and a site that will continue to add resources.
Education
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Bachelor's in Business and Marketing
University of Central Florida -
Doctorate in Instructional Technology and Distance Education
Nova Southeastern University -
Master's in Organizational Management
University of Phoenix -
Master's in MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION/ELEMENTARY TEACHER EDUCATION
University of Phoenix
Research Interests
- Instructional design
- Universal design for learning