Jen Manly

Jen is passionate about helping the helpers maximize their work time to make time for what is most important while still being highly effective at their job. She shares strategies to make high impact work sustainable without compromising effectiveness, job satisfaction, or the work-life balance people deserve to help audiences rediscover their passion for their work, avoid burnout, and feel confident in their identity outside of their job.

As a former teacher, Jen knows what it's like to burnout - even when you're passionate about the work you do. Helper professions, like teaching, nursing, and non-profits, often attract people who want their work to have a higher impact. In addition, they often require employees to wear many hats and many different types of work (and lots of different tasks!), which can lead to burnout.

In addition, she believes that kids deserve to do BIG, meaningful work and that all students are worthy of learning that is fun, challenging, and fulfilling. Several of her programming offerings center on making differentiated, real-world learning possible for every student through student-led learning strategies and group project management systems.

She is a current college instructor, former high school and middle school computer science teacher, middle and high school curriculum developer, and served as a Project Lead the Way Master Teacher. She is a skilled facilitator and has presented to thousands at the local, state, and national levels, including at CSTA, Project Lead the Way Summit, ISTE, and International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA). She is a Certified Agile Leader K–12 Trainer, coauthor of the Agile Educator Guide, and a 2018 ITEEA Teacher Excellence awardee. She received a 2021 CS Teaching Excellence Honorable Mention and served as a curriculum writer for Code.org's AP CS A curriculum.