Build better education.

PE helps people design programs, courses, and curriculum — and find out whether the material actually helps people learn.
UX goal: draft

An educator can:

  • tell that PE understands how learning gets designed, whether or not they hire us
  • see the four ways PE can help, and pick the one that fits
  • start a conversation from the bottom of the page
Video goals

Derek walks through this page. Recorded 2026-10-30; it goes here at featured width (2 / −2).

The problem

Most online courses work pretty much the same way.

Watch a video. Read a little description. Click “Mark as complete.” Get a checkmark, maybe some confetti, and move on to the next one.

You can get all the way through a course without knowing whether you’ve actually learned anything.

The whole thing is basically a playlist with checkboxes.

And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with videos. They’re great for explaining things. But watching someone explain something isn’t the same as learning how to do it.

That’s the part we think needs more attention.

What we do instead

We think of education as a whole system, not just a collection of lessons.

There’s the bigger program, with a clear path from beginning to end. And then there’s the day-to-day work.

At PE, each day has a workshop, with its own sections, resources, projects, and exercises. Like a real day at school, except the classroom is online and always open.

Students work through problems, ask questions, share what they’re making, and help each other figure things out.

Everything builds on what came before. The exercises aren’t just there to keep people busy. They’re how you practice, test your understanding, and show what you can actually do.

And because we’re seeing the work as it happens, we can see where people get stuck and change how we teach it.

By the time you finish, you shouldn’t be wondering what to do with everything you’ve learned.

You’ve been using it the whole time.

How we see it

We have a few opinions about education.

  • Education is a team sport.

    People learn by doing things, working with other people, making mistakes, getting feedback, and trying again.

  • A video course isn’t the same as a designed learning system.

    It’s possible to make a wonderful video that teaches very little. The experience around the content matters just as much as the content itself.

  • Every lesson is a hypothesis until real people try it.

    You can have the most thoughtful curriculum in the world. Then a student gets stuck on something you thought was obvious.

    That’s useful information. We’d rather find out than guess.

Where we can help

  • Course testing

    Already have a course? Our students can test it.

    We’ll see where they get stuck, what they misunderstand, and whether they can actually do what the course is supposed to teach.

  • Course review

    Sometimes you just need another set of eyes.

    We’ll look through your existing course, from the overall structure down to the individual lessons and exercises, and help you make it better.

  • Course design with you

    Starting from scratch? Let’s design it together.

    We’ll figure out what people should be able to do, what they’ll need to learn along the way, and how they’ll practice and demonstrate that understanding.

    Then we’ll build the course around that.

  • A course at PE

    Have something you want to teach that fits with what we’re doing?

    We’re always interested in meeting people who care about education and have something worth sharing.

Question

“A course at PE” stays in soft language until the platform question is decided (audience-tracks §1.6).

Let’s talk

Tell us about the course or program you’re working on.

Design for The Web is our own working example of how we approach curriculum, from the first principles to the finished learning experience. You’re welcome to explore it.

Let’s talk

Note

Proof: DFTW as the worked example (§3.6). Who we are: Derek and Ivy, briefly (§3.2).