Samantha Black
Fifteen years leading learning and production operations at Academy of Art University, where I am AVP of Online Education Production and Innovation. Alongside that work, I design and ship AI products: Methodwise and Earnling, two consumer apps I built on my own, plus institutional systems like the Course Development Coach and an end-to-end contract automation pipeline.
Featured product, built independently
A live AI product that helps parents support learning the way teachers teach it. A parent enters a subject and grade level, gets a clear explanation, and works through the homework step-by-step, with a quick knowledge check that surfaces gaps before they compound.
I designed and built it end-to-end on my own: product flow, accounts and saved history, free and paid plans, plain-language parent guides and a video library, and a repeatable workflow for expanding topics and improving responses over time.
Usage data, knowledge-check patterns, and conversion decide what gets built next.
New product, built independently
A playful, parent-guided app that shows kids exactly when their earrings, cookies, or pottery start turning a real profit. A child logs what they make, what they sell, and what supplies cost, and a meter fills as they earn back what they spent, then turns green the moment real profit begins.
It is my first mobile app, designed and built end-to-end on my own. The break-even moment is the whole lesson, made visible, and a PIN-protected grown-up zone keeps parents in the loop with the real numbers and a talk-it-over prompt. It is in internal TestFlight now, with external availability coming soon.
Institutional AI, at Academy of Art University
An AI-assisted course development system I conceived and built at Academy of Art University. It works as a structured instructional design coach, not a content generator, using Claude with retrieval over a curated institutional knowledge base.
It interviews subject matter experts through structured coaching and produces outcome-aligned, template-ready drafts. It is not a single tool, though. It is a platform pattern: one architecture, applied to three points in the course development process, now expanding from initial pilot toward the institution's 300+ annual course builds.
Read the case studyThe pattern
SME conversation
A subject matter expert starts a guided chat, in their own words.
Structured interview
The coach asks focused questions that surface goals, scope, and gaps.
Institutional knowledge
Retrieval over a curated knowledge base grounds every response.
Formatted output
The conversation becomes a structured, usable artifact, ready for authoring.
Editorial review
A person reviews and refines before anything moves forward.
Human in the loop
Course Development Coach
A structured instructional design coach for subject matter experts, now moving from initial pilot to access across all subject matter experts.
Course outline coach
Helps subject matter experts structure a full course arc before authoring begins.
Assignment rubric generator
Draws on institutional templates, guidelines, and examples to generate course assignment rubrics aligned to course learning outcomes.
Perspective
The first version of AI in education replaces the expert: it generates a course from a syllabus or hands a student an answer. The second version amplifies the expert. It gives a subject matter expert pedagogical scaffolding, gives a parent the teacher's method and language, and meets a learner at the exact moment they are stuck. Those are very different tools, with very different implications for the field.
Everything I build follows the second path. Shape, not generate. Keep the expertise at the center, check for understanding instead of handing over the answer, and let AI carry the scale.
More of this thinking on LinkedInInstitutional AI, at Academy of Art University
I automated the entire contract process at Academy of Art University. A Claude skill I built generates each contract from our knowledge files, templates, and normed documents, so every agreement comes out correct and consistent.
The last piece is a custom MCP connector I built for Adobe Sign. It loads the finished PDFs in as drafts with the correct recipient emails, personalized messages, and signers in the right order. After I approve a pre-send batch checklist, it sends straight from the Claude chat. A manual, error-prone process is now one reviewed, repeatable flow.
Read the case studyThe pipeline
Knowledge and templates
Knowledge files, templates, and normed documents serve as the source of truth.
Claude skill
A skill I built drafts each contract, correctly populated from the right inputs.
Finished PDF
The contract renders to a clean, signable PDF, ready for signature.
Adobe Sign connector
A custom MCP connector loads drafts with the right emails, personalized messages, and ordered signers.
Approve and send
A pre-send batch checklist is approved, then it sends straight from the chat.
Human in the loop
Generation skill
A Claude skill drafts each contract from knowledge files, templates, and normed documents, so terms stay correct and consistent.
Adobe Sign connector
A custom MCP connector I built loads the finished PDFs into Adobe Sign as drafts, with the right recipient emails, personalized messages, and ordered signers.
Pre-send checklist
A batch checklist gates every send, so I review and approve before a single agreement leaves the chat.
Operations at scale, Academy of Art University
I rebuilt the operational backbone of a 23-department online education program at Academy of Art University: faster production cycles, centralized contracts, and a clean migration of thousands of courses with no content lost.
Redesigned a 30-week course production cycle across 23 academic departments into a 15-week cycle, pairing the new schedule with revised contract terms and Agile practices.
Replaced fragmented, paper-based agreements for 200+ annual subject matter experts with a centralized system that gave leadership visibility into builds, utilization, and cost.
Directed the migration of more than 3,000 courses into a new learning management system, designing a custom version-tracking layer to cover a gap the new platform did not handle.
Testimonials
Feedback from leaders I have partnered with across fifteen years at Academy of Art University.
I've worked with Samantha for nearly 15 years, and she remains a trusted and respected colleague. Her leadership is grounded in integrity, professionalism, and a deep commitment to building systems that truly work. Samantha brings clarity to complex challenges and designs solutions that are effective, sustainable, and responsive to organizational needs. Her calm, thoughtful approach fosters trust, and her insight elevates every project she's involved in.
Samantha challenges the status quo while maintaining integrity and focus. She consistently analyzes complex situations, develops practical solutions, implements them, and evaluates results with measurable impact. She is someone I rely on for process improvement, employee engagement, and organizational effectiveness.
Samantha would be a transformational addition to any team. She's exceptional in her abilities to connect, synthesize, organize, and communicate. She navigated an environment of constantly reduced resources, big personalities, and demanding deadlines, embodied integrity, and ensured our standards never slipped, always advocating for students while understanding the needs of the business.
I appreciate Sam's adeptness at keeping track of an endless string of details through custom-designed systems that keep things organized and optimized across our entire organization. She processes complex situations and communicates them efficiently with stakeholders to keep things running smoothly. She's an integral asset to our team.
Samantha is exceptionally analytical and solution-oriented as a leader. She stepped into the role seamlessly, was extremely knowledgeable and articulate, and was ready to undertake any and all challenges. She made the effort to check on her team members personally and nurture relationships with everyone. It made her an absolute pleasure to work with and for.
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Engagements
I am open to senior full-time roles and to a limited number of fractional and consulting engagements. If your work sits where learning, operations, and AI meet, we will have plenty to talk about.
Senior roles in edtech, learning platforms, and AI-for-learning companies, where operational scale and hands-on AI building both matter.
Focused engagements in AI-assisted curriculum design and learning operations, including fractional product management.
About
I am Samantha Black. For fifteen years I have built learning, content, and operational systems that make complex work feel clear and human. Today I am AVP of Online Education Production and Innovation at Academy of Art University, where I lead the production and operations behind a large online program.
My shape is a little unusual. I am an enterprise operations leader who also builds. I taught myself to ship real software with AI, and I have the products to show for it. On my own I built and launched Methodwise, a consumer homework platform, and Earnling, a mobile app that shows kids the moment their small business turns a profit. Inside Academy of Art University I built the Course Development Coach, now in expanded pilot, and automated our entire contract process end-to-end. I care about the craft on both sides, the operational system and the thing people actually use.
Contact
Whether you are hiring for a senior role or looking for fractional help with AI-assisted curriculum and learning operations, I would be glad to hear what you are working on.