About Heidi
Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs is internationally recognized for her seminal work in contemporary curriculum design, vertical mapping and modernizing responsive school environments. She is founder and president of the Curriculum Designers Group, providing professional services to schools and organizations internationally to upgrade curriculum and support teaching strategies to meet the needs of 21st century learners. Dr. Jacobs’s models on curriculum mapping and curriculum design have been featured in her thirteen books and are the basis for software solutions used throughout the world.
Working with a range of organizations both international and national, state and provincial education departments, professional organizations such as ASCD, NAESP, Learning Forward, the European Council of International Schools, the Near East School Association, the College Board, ADK International Sino-Canadian Schools in China, New Zealand’s Learning Network, the Kennedy Center, the Peace Corps World Wise Schools, Carnegie Hall, Australia’s EduTech,, and the United Nations Council on Teaching about the UN, the Near East School Association, the International Baccalaureate, the NY State Higher Education Commission, the CCSSO workgroup on Global Competencies, and AASA.
In 2014 she received the MAIS International Educator Award in Seville, Spain. She was an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University Teachers College in NYC from 1981- 1992 and continues to periodically teach courses and work on projects there. She has served as a program development advisor to Amazon Studios’ children’s programming division. She is currently working with the Waterford Institute on its literacy software platform and with Newsela on its curriculum collection. Core to her experience is direct work with over a thousand schools throughout the world reflecting the full range of public, private, religious, charter, and specialized settings. If an extended list sampling these school consultations is available upon request.
Her recent work on the modernization of schools appears in her book, co-authored with Dr. Marie Alcock, Bold Moves for Schools: How We Create Remarkable Learning Environments published by ASCD and Active Literacy: Active Literacy Across the Curriculum: Connecting Print Literacy with Digital, Media, and Global Competence, K-12, published by Routledge. Her four-book series on Leading the New Literacies, Mastering Digital Literacy, Mastering Media Literacy, Mastering Global Literacy, were by Solution-Tree are seminal works. Her best-selling, Curriculum Mapping: Tools and Templates and Curriculum 21 both with ASCD have been the basis for a wide range of professional services provided by a talented faculty and a robust clearinghouse giving educators resources to upgrade classroom life. Her career in education began as a high school, junior high, and elementary teacher in Utah, Massachusetts, and New York.
She received her doctorate from Columbia University Teachers College in NYC in Curriculum and Teaching on the Graduate Leadership Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education in 1981. Her M.ed. is from the University of Massachusetts completed in 1976 in Educational Leadership. Her B.A. from the University of Utah majoring in history and education with her language requirement in Russian. She and her husband reside in Westchester County outside New York City.
