Hello, I’m
Chelsie Dubay
“While ‘caring about’ conveys feelings of concern for one’s state of being, ‘caring for’ is active engagement in doing something to positively affect it.” (Gay, 2018, p. 58).
I’m so glad you’re here. Instructional design gets misunderstood; it’s an ambiguous title, and that ambiguity hides how much it can do for you. I’m here to humanize the work and show how you (and everyone!) can benefit from partnering with an instructional designer.
I work with teaching and learning professionals to maximize their instructional impact, in and out of the classroom, and I partner with institutions to strengthen classroom and campus culture through culturally responsive teaching, mentoring, and learning strategies. That’s the “caring for” part — not just concern, but active engagement in making teaching and learning better.
A growing part of that work is practical AI. I help educators move past the hype and the fear to use AI in ways that actually serve teaching — saving time on the mechanical so there’s more of it for the human. I’m less interested in the newest tool than in the honest questions: where it helps, where it doesn’t, and how we use it without losing what makes a classroom worth showing up to. It’s unsettled work, and I’d rather think it through out loud than pretend I have it solved.
I care deeply about the personal connections forged inside the classroom, and how we can use those connections to spark engagement and real learning. I also mentor and guide students completing thesis and doctoral work.
