Sean Hickey, MA

Sean Hickey, MA, is the Deputy Director for the Assessment Program at The Ohio State University’s Center on Education and Training for Employment. As part of his role, he manages a team of workshop facilitators who conduct item-writing workshops for statewide career-tech end-of-course tests and industry credentialing exams. He also develops eLearning materials for teachers and subject-matter experts.

Hickey has more than 20 years of experience in curriculum development and learning design. Some of his past projects include writing the content and creating interactive elements for a series of middle-school science eBooks, developing workshop and exhibit programs for a nationally recognized science center, partnering with Apple on the creation of the first generation of interactive iPad textbooks, and designing multiple award-winning eLearning projects for adult learners. Some of his recent awards include the “Crystal Award” from the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Division of Distance Learning, “Outstanding Digital Artifact” from the AECT Learner Engagement Division, and “Best In Show” at the Learning Guild Learning Solutions Conference DemoFest.

Hickey is active in the learning-technologies community and has presented at several conferences related to both learning technologies and corporate/organizational learning and development. Most recently, he was invited by the Learning Guild to be a featured presenter at two different online conferences. He has also spoken at the Future of Educational Technology Conference (FETC), the Ohio Educational Technology Conference (OETC), Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) annual conference, and OSU’s own Innovate conference, on topics such as assessment strategies, gamification, branching learning scenarios, and inquiry education.

Hickey is also a PhD candidate in the Educational Studies department at Ohio State, studying Learning Technologies. Having completed his candidacy, he is actively working on his dissertation, researching how instructional designers interpret and apply learning theories and how they seek out opportunities for professional development. He has taught courses in learning technologies and digital media at both The Ohio State University and Columbus State Community College. He recently collaborated with Dr. Ana-Paula Correia and other CETE colleagues to write an article about CETE’s development of online learning materials in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has co-authored multiple book chapters related to online course design. 

One of these book chapters (Hickey, Correia, & Fergus, 2022) received the 2023 Best Book Chapter Award presented by the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT), Division of Distance Learning.

Hickey also recently collaborated with CETE colleagues on the development of a quick-reference eBook on the use of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT in learning and development.