About

Learning Designs Consulting is an educational consultancy based in San Francisco and focused on media, technology, and other connected learning experiences. We partner with companies that make products and services for kids. We help these companies understand young people and the adults that influence how they play, learn, and create.

Using a human-centered design approach coupled with deep expertise in child/youth development and educational outcomes, Learning Designs Consulting supports product ideation, creation, and refinement that centers kids in the process of learning innovation. We love to work with kids— hearing from them in interviews and focus groups, learning from their play and engagement, and even inviting them to participate in co-design!

Making a great product takes understanding kids. But selling a great product takes understanding the adults in kids’ lives. Learning Designs Consulting knows these important grown-ups. Parents and teachers? Yes, of course. But also library staff, museum educators, afterschool and summer camp providers, and mentors. Advisement on business strategy draws from this extensive knowledge and is often further supported through interviews and reviews of scholarly research on parenting and education.

Our Founder

Elizabeth Rood, Ed.D., founded Learning Designs Consulting in 2019, after twenty years of direct service education work. Elizabeth has served as a teacher and school principal, an executive in education-based organizations, and as a trustee on both school and nonprofit boards. She currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and previously served as President of the Bay Area chapter of the Children’s Media Association. As a consultant, Elizabeth has advised media and toy companies, museums and libraries, funders, state agencies, and school districts. She brings this breadth of professional experience, coupled with her own journey as a parent of school-aged kids, to support clients to design solutions that resonate with young people and the important adults in their lives.