Open to instructional design, training, & EdTech roles — remote-friendly

Instructional design, training & EdTech leadership.

19+ years in education, designing curriculum, training staff, and helping people adopt new tools. My work sits at the intersection of instructional design, learning technology, EdTech implementation, and education operations.

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  • 19+ years in education
  • Instructional design & LMS
  • Teacher training & PD
Jonathan Hughes
About

I design learning, train people, and build the systems to support both.

I've spent 19+ years in education — as a classroom and STEM teacher, an instructional and curriculum designer, a district Data Coordinator and Technology Director. I'm a teacher and a technologist. My strongest work comes from combining how people learn with how systems, data, and training get adopted. I also work freelance as an AI model evaluation specialist for frontier AI research labs, pairing education domain expertise with hands-on LLM evaluation experience.

On the learning side, I've built curriculum and a scope-and-sequence from scratch, launched and administered an online school on Moodle, and led and trained a team of 10 teachers. I design course structure and expectations, assessments, differentiated and data-informed instruction, and the kind of practical professional development that moves adults from confusion to confidence.

On the systems side, I lead technology for a school of ~100 staff and ~530 students — owning a $150K–$250K budget, administering LMS, SIS, and Google Workspace platforms, supporting staff adoption, and turning raw school data into reports and dashboards that drive decisions. When off-the-shelf tools don't quite fit, I build the missing workflow layer with APIs, reporting automation, and AI-assisted coding.

My approach is simple: take care of the people you support and give them the training and tools so they can take care of the clients they serve. I measure success by adoption and improved outcomes.

Case studies

Designing learning, training people, and building the systems that support them.

From an online learning program and staff training to reporting and operations — each connects a real need to the learning design, platform, and workflow that solved it.

Instructional design · LMS · online learning · leadership

Online School & LMS Program Launch

Director — Behold! Education

I founded and directed an online school serving learners from elementary through high school, leading a team of 10 teachers. I designed the curriculum and scope-and-sequence from scratch — course structure, expectations, assessments, and instructional support — then implemented and administered a Moodle LMS to deliver it. To make the program run, I designed and facilitated the professional development that helped teachers grow in course design and instruction, and I supported their day-to-day adoption of the platform.

10 teachers led, trained & coached Curriculum & scope-and-sequence from scratch Moodle LMS built & administered Operational leadership
Instructional designCurriculum designMoodle administration Teacher PDOnline learningProgram operations
Training · enablement · adult learning

Teacher Training & Professional Development

Across Behold! Education & Twin Cities Academy

I design and deliver professional development and resources that moves staff from confusion to confident use — in course design, lesson planning, instruction, and the technology tools they rely on. I plan the agenda and facilitation, build the supporting materials and quick-reference aids, and follow through on adoption rather than stopping at a one-off session.

Adult-learning focused enablement Adoption, continued support
Professional developmentAdult learningFacilitationTechnology adoption
Education data systems · LMS / SIS reporting

Schoology Reporting & Early-Warning Workflows

Technology Director & Data Coordinator — Twin Cities Academy

Teachers and administrators needed answers their LMS and SIS couldn't surface. I built reporting workflows that pull live Schoology & Infinite Campus data into the tools staff actually use — missing-assignment and current-grade reports, custom student groups, grade-distribution dashboards for administrators, and early-warning flags that help route at-risk students to intervention.

40–50 reports & dashboards delivered Early-warning → targeted intervention
Schoology API & data exportSQLSSRSScheduled data syncCustom Staff App
K–12 technology leadership & operations

Technology Operations Modernization

Technology Director — Twin Cities Academy

Owning a $150K–$250K budget for ~100 staff and ~530 students, I modernized the operations behind the school's technology use: vendor selection and contract negotiation, Chromebook/device fleet and asset management, and a migration of ~70 phone seats to a cloud platform at cost neutrality. Revamped vendor-audit procedures avoided $90K+ in costs. Improved processes throughout the school's technology ecosystem.

$90K+ costs avoided ~70 seats migrated, cost-neutral
Budget & vendorsDevice fleetAsset managementCloud telephony
Experience

19+ years in education — from classroom and curriculum to data and technology leadership.

School Technology Director

· Twin Cities Academy 2023 — Present

Lead technology for ~100 staff and ~530 students: directing a $150K–$250K budget, leading vendor selection and negotiation, supporting LMS/SIS and device fleets, training staff, and building the reporting and workflow tools that connect platform data to everyday decisions.

K–12 tech leadershipBudget & vendorsLMS / SIS & dataStaff enablement

AI Model Evaluation Specialist (Freelance)

· Mercor Feb 2026 — Present

Freelance, project-based work evaluating large language model (LLM) outputs against detailed quality rubrics for frontier AI research labs (clients under NDA), specializing in the education and general computer-use domains. Author prompt and golden-response pairs used as reinforcement-learning training data, and design adversarial evaluations that surface and document specific model failure modes.

LLM evaluationRLHF training dataAdversarial testing

Founder & Builder (Side Project)

· Boreinu Education 2024 — Present

Designed and shipped a complete web and mobile study product using AI-assisted (agentic) development.

Applied automationAI-assisted devProduct

Director (Side Business, Part-Time)

· Behold! Education 2018 — Present

Founded two education programs: an online school (elementary through high school on Moodle) and a local program. Directed instructional design, curriculum, LMS administration, teacher training and professional development, staff supervision, and community engagement. Still operating today at a smaller scale than in its early years.

Instructional designCurriculum & LMSTeacher training & PD

Data Coordinator

· Twin Cities Academy 2019 — 2023

Built 40–50 reports, dashboards, and exports covering attendance, behavior, proficiency, compliance, and early-warning interventions which turned raw school data into actions teachers and administrators could take.

Education dataSSRS & SQLCompliance reporting

Physical & Earth Science Teacher

· Twin Cities Academy 2016 — 2023

Designed and delivered project-based STEM instruction with aligned assessments and differentiated support, integrated technology through blended learning, and used academic data to inform instructional strategy.

Instruction & assessmentBlended learningData-informed teaching

Educator — Earlier roles

· Bernice Mathews Elementary & Dilworth STEM Academy 2007 — 2015

Taught elementary and secondary science with a STEM emphasis, raised reading scores, aligned lessons to standards, and served on a leadership committee during a school's transition to a STEM academy.

STEMStandards alignmentStudent achievement
Capabilities

Learning, training, and education systems.

Instructional Design & Learning

  • Instructional design
  • Curriculum design
  • Learning experience design
  • Adult learning
  • Assessment design
  • Differentiated instruction
  • eLearning / online learning
  • Standards alignment

Training, Enablement & PD

  • Professional development
  • Teacher & staff training
  • Facilitation
  • Onboarding
  • Adoption support
  • Customer education
  • Implementation training

Learning Platforms & LMS

  • Moodle (administration)
  • Schoology (incl. API)
  • Google Workspace (incl. API)
  • Google Classroom
  • Infinite Campus
  • Clever

Education Data & Reporting

  • Reporting & dashboards
  • SQL
  • SSRS
  • Early-warning systems
  • Data-informed instruction
  • Compliance (MDE / federal)
  • Excel

K–12 Technology Operations

  • Budget ownership
  • Vendor RFPs & negotiation
  • Chromebook / device fleet
  • Asset management
  • Cloud telephony migration
  • Google Admin Console

Applied Automation & Development

  • API integrations
  • Reporting automation
  • Internal tools
  • Google Apps Script
  • Agentic / AI-assisted workflows
  • Python · SQL
  • LLM output evaluation
  • Quality rubrics
  • RLHF training data
  • Adversarial testing / red-teaming

Let's talk.

I'm open to roles in instructional design and training, learning technology, EdTech implementation and customer education, education data systems, K–12 technology leadership, and AI/LLM evaluation and enablement. The best way to reach me is by email or LinkedIn, and I'll respond personally.

Emailjonathan@jonathanghughes.com LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/jonathanghughes