About Us

Educational Solutions Provider

Optimal Learning Solutions (OLS) was founded in 2018 by Dr. Andrea Brown-Thirston and specializes in:

Curriculum Design,
Instructional Design,
Digital Learning Solutions,
Youth Leadership Models, &
Strategic Thinking for Leading Innovation

Dr. Brown-Thirston became involved in education as a response to equity and social justice issues that she experienced firsthand. She attended a prestigious Jesuit high school in Chicago with the help of a scholarship geared toward academically talented African American students. Yet, when she arrived at this school, there were very few students that looked like her. It was an isolating and frustrating experience and even then, she vowed that she would drastically improve the educational experiences for students with similar racial and economic backgrounds.

Research shows that strategic thinking helps an organization to identify strengths and opportunity areas. This strategic thinking process consists of reviewing data, conducting a needs assessment, reviewing existing curriculum, auditing external partnerships, and establishing the organization’s criteria for success.

The mission of Optimal Learning Solutions is to design innovative learning experiences that are research-based, culturally relevant, and that reflect the unique needs of the client. The goal of Optimal Learning is to train and deploy international teams of curriculum and instructional designers that will disrupt teaching and learning in under-resourced communities.

Founder and CEO

Andrea Brown-Thirston, Ph.D.

Dr. Andrea Brown-Thirston, earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Social Policy (School of Education and Social Policy) from Northwestern University and her doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction from The University of Illinois at Chicago. Her dissertation topic, “African American girls and issues of identity”, set the stage for her co-authored book, Understanding Teenage Girls: Culture, Identity and Schooling, published in 2011, by Rowman and Littlefield.

Dr. Andrea Brown-Thirston is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer for Optimal Learning Solutions, LLC. Dr. Brown-Thirston became a full-time independent consultant in 2013. For six years, she was a Lead Facilitator for a School Improvement Grant (SIG). She worked at several Chicago public high schools and provided professional development, as well as literacy support to content area teams of teachers. After this project ended, Dr. Brown-Thirston courageously stepped out on her own and Optimal Learning Solutions was founded in 2018.

Prior to this role, Dr. Brown-Thirston served as the Chief Academic Officer for Chicago International Charter School (CICS), a network of 16 campuses, serving approximately 9300 students in grades K-12. For six years, Dr. Brown-Thirston was responsible for monitoring the organization and delivery of K-12 curricular and instructional programs across the network to ensure they were aligned with best practices, as well as the district/state standards and assessments. She also developed strategic initiatives across the network, establishing high-quality partnerships with Accenture (Accenture Mentoring Program) and the Chicago Children’s Museum (CME Group Early Math Initiative).

Dr. Brown-Thirston also has experience in higher education; she was an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, IL, where she taught both pre-service and in-service teachers, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She was also the Project Coordinator for the Teacher Quality Enhancement (TQE) Grant Project, whose main goal was to prepare talented teachers to work in high need schools in Berwyn and Cicero. Dr. Brown-Thirston currently resides in the Chicagoland area, with her three children.