Specialties
Learning Designs Learning Services helps students unlock their academic superpowers through individualized tutoring and executive-function coaching. Whether your child needs reading intervention, math support, or strategies to stay organized and confident, our experienced instructors use research-based methods and compassionate guidance to help every learner succeed. We specialize in Orton-Gillingham literacy support, Executive-function skill-building, Singapore Math support and customized tutoring for K-12 students in every subject. Every plan is personal—because learning isn’t one-size-fits-all.
History
Established in 1995.
Learning Designs was founded in 1995 and operated initially from a store front location in northeast Minneapolis. When Karen had her own young children, she chose to downsize Learning Designs for a few years until her children had grown and were better able to care for their daily needs. Learning Designs relaunched as a storefront business in October of 2011 in Linden Hills, an area we consider to be a perfect place to have a business. Rich with shops, restaurants, and other attractions, the Linden Hills neighborhood is peopled by many like-minded Minneapolis citizens who care deeply about their children and the quality of education they are provided.
Learning Designs exists to help our clients to understand difficult subjects and to teach them "how they learn" so they can incorporate new concepts into their repertoire as they mature into young adults.
Meet the Business Owner: Karen S.
Karen Swanson, a mother of three children, has been following her passion of tutoring children for over twenty years. A 1992 graduate of Augsburg College with a degree in education, Karen started tutoring while still completing her undergraduate studies. It was during this period she discovered the rewards of working with and teaching children in a personalized setting, and she has been dedicated to and an advocate for academic coaching ever since. After college, Karen was hired as a tutor at Groves Academy and, while there, word spread of her success in tutoring both remedial and fast-track students. Within a short time she had dozens of clients throughout southwest Minneapolis. After 10 years providing private tutoring in clients' homes in southwest Minneapolis, Karen decided to focus her efforts in her home neighborhood in northeast Minneapolis. In 2002, Karen opened a storefront location for Learning Designs which primarily served the northeast Minneapolis area with tutoring