Samantha Schmidt is the founder of the Schmidt Institute for Instructional Innovation and creator of CohortView™. Her work brings together teaching, educational psychology, business education, workforce development, instructional technology, and data-informed student success.
Samantha is a business educator, instructional innovator, researcher, and builder of practical learning solutions for educators and institutions.
Samantha currently serves as a full-time Business faculty member and has extensive experience teaching business, agriculture, workforce development, and career technical education courses in higher education.
Her work focuses on helping educators understand students earlier, design more responsive learning experiences, and use data, technology, and instructional strategy to support student success.
Through the Schmidt Institute and CohortView™, she is developing tools, courses, resources, and consulting services that help educators move from guessing what students need to planning with meaningful instructional insight.
The Schmidt Institute was created to help educators and organizations design learning experiences that are more responsive, practical, data-informed, and student-centered.
Instructors often begin teaching before they fully understand student readiness, confidence, goals, prior experience, and learning preferences.
Assessment data should not sit in a report. It should help educators plan instruction, identify support needs, and improve learning experiences.
AI, analytics, and educational technology should support meaningful teaching decisions, not create more complexity for educators.
The Institute reflects Samantha’s experience as an educator, researcher, innovator, and builder.
As a full-time Business faculty member, Samantha works directly with students and understands the real instructional challenges educators face.
As a Doctoral Candidate in Educational Psychology, her work is informed by learning, motivation, readiness, student success, and evidence-based instructional practice.
She is developing CohortView™ to help educators transform formative assessment data into actionable instructional intelligence before teaching begins.
Through the Schmidt Institute, she is building courses, resources, consulting services, and future software solutions that support educators and institutions.
Samantha’s academic background spans business, education, agriculture, behavioral science, humanities, and educational psychology.
Educational Psychology
MBA
Agricultural Education
Educational Studies
Business Administration
Behavioral Science and Humanities
CohortView™ was created from a simple instructional problem: instructors often begin teaching before they fully understand who their students are.
Students enter courses with different levels of confidence, experience, goals, learning preferences, and support needs.
Traditional course systems often show performance after students have already struggled. CohortView™ is designed to inform instruction earlier.
The goal is not just to collect information. The goal is to help educators use student data to make better instructional decisions.
Instruction should be responsive, practical, inclusive, and connected to student goals. The best educational tools help instructors make better decisions while helping students feel seen, supported, and prepared.
Instruction should begin with an understanding of students’ strengths, needs, lived experience, goals, and learning context.
Assessment data should help instructors plan instruction, identify gaps, personalize support, and improve student success.
Learning should connect academic skills with real-world applications, career pathways, and workplace readiness.
Technology, AI, and instructional design should be used thoughtfully to improve learning, not replace meaningful teaching.
The Schmidt Institute supports educators, institutions, and organizations interested in instructional innovation, student readiness, AI integration, competency-based education, workforce development, and data-informed teaching.
Conference sessions, workshops, and presentations on instructional innovation, AI in education, competency-based education, business education, and student success.
Support for course design, program development, faculty training, student readiness initiatives, assessment design, and implementation planning.
Collaboration with schools, colleges, districts, workforce programs, adult education programs, and organizations interested in piloting CohortView™.
Connect with the Schmidt Institute to discuss consulting, speaking, faculty development, instructional innovation, or CohortView™ pilot opportunities.
