Kristen Trader
Instructional Designer
Instructional Design, Inclusive Pedagogies, Instructional Technology, Teaching Writing, and Rhetorical Theory
Kristen Trader is the Gardner Institute’s Instructional Designer, supporting learning design initiatives within the organization and in the services offered to partner institutions. She works in collaboration with the Vice President for Teaching, Learning, and Evidence-Based Practices and the Graduate Assistant for Instructional Design as well as other Gardner Institute staff.
Kristen Trader brings 20 years of experience in higher education serving as a faculty member, academic support staff, and instructional designer. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University and taught academic and professional writing for 15 years before transitioning into instructional design in order to support colleagues in their teaching. She combines inclusive, evidence-based practice with attention to rhetorical practices and systems thinking when designing online, hybrid, and in person learning experiences.
In her free time, she gardens whenever the Wisconsin seasons allow, plays board games with her husband and young son, and has recently surprised herself by taking up crochet.
Latest Research
- “Competency-Based Education, ‘Flexible’ Learning, and the Teaching of First-Year Writing.” WPA Journal, 2017. With Holly Hassel, Cassandra Phillips, and Jennifer Heinert.
- “Assuming Differently: Posthumanism, Enthymeme, and the Possibility of Change.” JAC, 2013.
- “Writing Ecologies, Rhetorical Epidemics.” In Ecology, Writing, Theory, and New Media. Ed. Sid Dobrin. Routledge, 2011.
- “Learning to Learn On Each Other: Peer Mentoring for Teacher Development.” FormaMente: International Research Journal on Digital Future, 2008.
- “Enthymematic Rhetoric and Student Resistance to Critical Pedagogies.” Rhetoric Review, 2006.
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