Speaker · Author · Education Strategist
From her own English classroom to directing teacher education at Stony Brook, from leading a Center for Teaching and Learning through the pandemic to evaluating statewide policy for NYSED—Nicole has spent two decades in the work. She now helps K-12 districts, universities, and EdTech companies navigate AI in education through the Fourth Space framework.
Speaking
Two decades of workshops and keynotes at conferences across the world—presentations that leave audiences with frameworks they can use Monday morning.
What K-12 has learned from 18 months of AI reckoning—and what higher ed can learn before repeating the same mistakes. Moving beyond detection and toward pedagogy.
A framework for teaching that honors reflection, identity, contact zones, and justice. Practical tools for classrooms where AI is already present.
From product design to implementation—how to build and deploy educational technology that serves teachers rather than replacing them.
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The institutions that thrive won't adopt AI fastest or resist it longest. They'll ask better questions about what education is actually for.
Coming 2026
Reimagining Education
for an AI-Driven World
Mentor from the Center introduces three shifts essential for teaching in an AI-saturated world: from efficiency to humanity, from bias-as-defect to bias-as-invitation, and from teacher-as-expert to teacher-as-learner.
Grounded in Fourth Space pedagogy—a framework extending Homi Bhabha's Third Space theory—this book positions teachers as irreplaceable agents of relational, humanizing, and identity-forming work that AI cannot replicate.
When answers are instant, credibility comes from modeling learning in public.
The Framework
Fourth Space extends Homi Bhabha's Third Space theory to position teachers as "mentors from the center"—learning publicly alongside students rather than performing expertise from above. It offers a structured approach to reflection that centers identity, acknowledges conflict, and demands attention to justice.
Shift One
From efficiency
↓
To humanity
Shift Two
From bias-as-defect
↓
To bias-as-invitation
Shift Three
From teacher-as-expert
↓
To teacher-as-learner
Background
Stony Brook University
Leading a graduate program where the majority of students are working K-12 educators. Previously directed the English Teacher Education program and founded the Center for Teaching and Learning in Community.
Mosaic Instructional Planning
EdTech platform serving teachers across 19 states and internationally—UAE, Peru, England, Finland, Namibia. Developed POST, Five Es, and Multiple Entry Points frameworks.
Tangram
AI-powered lesson planning built on 15+ years of coaching teachers on the ground and virtually—since 2009. Personalization that actually works.
New York State Education Department
Co-authored the NYS Virtual Schools Handbook and the Quality Remote/Hybrid Teaching (QRT) framework. Directed evaluation of the CARES Act TRLE project to reimagine online teaching and learning statewide.
A lab, launchpad, and letter for educators, builders, and thinkers navigating education in the AI era. New essays every week.
Available for keynotes, workshops, panels, and consulting engagements. I work with K-12 districts, universities, EdTech companies, and conferences across the US and around the world.