Professional experience
Chrissie has been a teacher, SENCO, Resource Teacher of Vision, national e-learning and inclusive education facilitator, content developer, mentor and education consultant. She is also an experienced arts practitioner and creative worker.
Chrissie’s primary focus is in facilitating clients to examine values and beliefs relating to inclusion, racism, social justice and equity, review current practices and design considerations, and make actionable plans to increase inclusivity in their own work and as a community. She is a specialist in Universal Design for Learning and it’s application across multiple contexts.
Clients have included individual teachers, leadership teams, schools, Kāhui Ako, RTLB and SENCO clusters, tertiary institutions, Ministry of Education teams, and Ministry of Social Development design teams. Chrissie is an active participant in the international Universal Design for Learning community, and an academic reviewer for the British Journal of Visual Impairment.
She is also a highly experienced content developer, and has extensive experience documenting and curating inclusive practice. Chrissie is currently the lead writer on the Ministry of Education’s Inclusive Education website.
A second and interrelated focus for Chrissie is an exploration of drawing as a valuable component of educational practice. As part of this work, Chrissie facilitates “thinking through drawing” workshops, where teachers are coached through the “I can’t draw” zone, to experience how they can use drawing to support their teaching, their reflective practice, explore values and beliefs, build understanding of new concepts and ideas and support innovation and design work.
Chrissie has overall responsibility for inclusive design and inclusive education at CORE.
Expertise
- Professional learning and development in Universal Design for Learning, and inclusive practices
- Writing and reviewing content related to diversity, equity, creativity and inclusion
- Public speaking about inclusive design and equity in education
- Consultancy in inclusive learning and workplace design
- Inclusive design of online courses and programmes
- Thinking through drawing workshops to support reflective practice, design processes, concept development and visual thinking skills.
Conference presentations, seminars and workshops
2019 Changing the Climate Conference, Department of Education and Training, Melbourne
2018 UDL-IRN Summit, Orlando USA
2017 Department of Visual Impairment, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
2017 Equity in Education Summit, Massey University, Auckland
2016 The Inclusive Education Summit (TIES), University of Canterbury, Christchurch
2016 DEANZ conference, Hamilton
2009-2019 uLearn and Learning@School conferences, various locations
2011 South Pacific Educators of Vision Impairment conference, Sydney
2010 BLENNZ Conference, Auckland
2009 Viscon Sydney and South Pacific Educators of Vision Impairment, Adelaide
Awards, fellowships and scholarships
2012 Harvard Graduate School Summer Institute - Universal Design for Learning
2010 Royal Society Awarded Teacher Fellowship - Ministry of Research, Science and Technology - culminating in the development of the BLENNZ Learning Library
Personal statement
Let’s create and grow communities where human variability is valued and seen as a source of strength.