Education

In the education space I take a human-centered, socio-technical, systems thinking approach to investigating educational infrastructures, educational technologies, education reform and inductive and experiential teaching and learning practices needed for STEM and 21st century learning and teaching, and inside of emerging technology fields.  


Primary Education - Human Centered, Socio-Technical, Human Development, Immersive 

My work is highly focused on human development in education and explores vulnerabilities that exist and continue to persist as we consider technology's use, application, design, and development in this space.  


I explore the socio-technical dimensions of educational infrastructures and the vulnerabilities that threaten human development and progress towards 21st century learning in each sphere.  I am particularly interested in how technology may be designed to maximize cognitive and noncognitive skill development and interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning needed for 21st century fields, lifelong learning, and sustainable human development, how we transition teaching to new methods required to build such skills and how we design technology to assist schools and their ecosystem in this challenge.  


Secondary Education - Collaborative, Immersive, Adaptive, Socio-Technical

In the secondary education space I investigate requirements and improvements needed for teaching human centered design, engineering, and computer science approaches.  Combining collaborative learning, adaptive management and systems thinking I explore continuous  and intentional approaches to decision making and team collaboration in response to new information and constant changes in context, scope or scale, through entire product development life cycles including user research, design and development process, workflow, resource planning and development, product development practice, and innovation strategy.  


I am particularly interested in research, design, and development methodologies in emerging technology environments such as AI, ML, and VR, product development lifecycles.  Through research, teaching and practice I explore opportunities to refine, optimize, and ensure integrity, inclusiveness, and safety through collaborative, adaptive, iterative research, design, development, testing, workflows, and processes.  


Environments of focus include AIOps, MLOps, CrispDM, Agile, Lean StartUp and DevOps environments.  In addition to traditional research methods in this space I explore evolving practices in AI and ML educational technology R&D environments including designing and testing with humans-in-the-loop, developing proof-of-concept studies, learning simulations and learner and tutor simulations.  




  • My work in this area investigates barriers to STEM and 21st Century learning opportunities and how we transition to sustainable, equitable learning needed for the 21 century for all. What is needed for learners, teachers and schools to be successful in this challenging, rapidly shifting environment now, and how can we create a sustainable learning infrastructures for the future?

  • Technology has the power to transform learning, yet products must be immersive, adaptive and provide opportunity and flexibility for scale and sustainability in order to readily transition with rapidly evolving societies, economies and industries. My work explorers the design and development of immersive and adaptive learning technology environments to build skills necessary to sustain shifting global trends while promoting human development needs.

  • My work in this area focuses on how we take a human centered teaching approach to ready learners to be ethically sound, human centered practitioners in product and service design fields of computer science, engineering and innovation. It is through holistic, human-centered approach to teaching and learning that we shape the future of these professions, their practice and the societies they will ultimately serve.

  • I teach and explore the development of courses that focus on what is needed for UX, HCI, HCD design and development professionals to succeed in business environments. While customer centricity is often a desired approach for the enterprise, design and development professionals who embrace user centered approaches often struggle in business units to be effective.

Student Perspectives

  • I made a suggestion in the HCIM student survey that this class should be a requirement, or maybe a combination ... since I felt this one was more useful. I definitely felt this class was one of the most useful I've taken at UMD.

    UX Business Basics

  • Professor Polito's feedback and willingness to make the asynchronous class as feasible as possible immensely enhanced my learning.

    Foundations of Technology Innovation

  • I noticed that a lot of what we learned in this class was included in job descriptions, and they were barely touched on if at all in other courses. I think that these concepts are extremely important for working in the industry and should be incorporated more into other courses.

    UX Business Basics

  • The style of teaching. It was one of the first times in the course I was able to learn instead of having a super heavy focus on weekly homework.

    Product Management

  • This was one of my favorite classes. The instructor appropriately challenged students to think outside their box and to take in different perspectives. She's patient with students and listens to everyone. This was, hands down, my favorite course I took this semester.

    Technology, Culture & Society

  • I think you don't get exposed to this area of UX until you're higher up in a position in a role. The topics covered, felt like an added knowledge that I could bring to strengthen my approach to product early on in it's cycle.

    UX Business Basics

  • Just wanted to say THANK YOU for a wonderful product management class – I learned so much from you and had a blast while doing so. I can't wait to see where I go with my capstone project. You really set us up for success.

    Product Management

  • Today I signed with a company to start August 29. The company works with commercial real estate data, and they gave me an offer I was happy about at 6 figures. Thank you for all your help through the bootcamp and the job search. I learned so much from you.

    DesignLab

  • I started my new job and it's going well! Wouldn't be here without you so thanks again for all you did to make it happen!

    DesignLab