Learning Experience Design for Changemakers

Every fall, a new group of volunteers walks in, and a week later the same 10 questions are back at your desk. In this episode, Renee shows why those questions aren’t a volunteer problem: they’re a map of exactly where your training needs support. Grab a pen. You’ll sort your own list and leave with three moves for training you never have to rebuild from scratch. In this episode: Why so much volunt...

The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia closed its doors to the public after nearly 200 years. The day before, Renee took her family, along with more than 8,000 other people who showed up in the middle of a nor'easter. This episode is a personal one: why places like the Academy matter so much for kids, and what the rest of us can do to help them last. In this episode: Why a first visit...

Have you ever had someone in your program just… go quiet? No dramatic exit, no complaint — just an unopened module and a check-in that never comes back. In this episode, Renee shares the time she was that learner, what her coach did that made it safe to tell the truth, and how you can use the same approach to hear what your quiet learners are really avoiding. In this episode: Why a learner going q...

What does a swamp milkweed plant have to do with your training program? Renee's backyard ran an accidental experiment this summer, and the results are exactly the kind of data you should be hunting for in your own learning program. In this episode: Why last year's “successful” milkweed patch went completely untouched this year The unplanned A/B test that played out in Renee's own backy...

If your training feels like a pile of patches wearing a training's clothes, this episode is your permission slip to stop white-knuckling it alone — and the design method that actually fixes it. In this episode: Why most trainings break down for one very fixable reason (hint: it was never redesigned, just added to) The “shovel test pit” method Renee learned on an archaeology crew — and how it a...

You know what I do — but do you know who I am underneath it? In this solo episode, I trade the usual teaching format for my own back-to-school exercise: sharing where my work in learning experience design actually comes from — a childhood love of one-room schoolhouses, an archaeology field crew, and the shovel test pits that taught me backwards design before I had a name for it. In this episode: W...

Three years ago, our backyard was one overgrown bed and a dying greenhouse. Today it's a full ecosystem — herbs, wildflowers, tomatoes, roses, blackberries, a grapevine-wrapped patio, and enough birds, bees, and butterflies to prove it. This episode is about what got us there, and what it teaches about building a learning ecosystem people actually stick around in. In this episode: Why "if...

Most of us find out we don't have real proof our program works right when we need it most — writing a report, walking into a renewal call, or facing a board. In this episode, Renee breaks down why that's a timing problem, not a talent problem, and walks through exactly how to fix it before your next program launches. In this episode: The one-sentence test that reveals whether you actually...

A goldfinch landing on a basil plant isn't data — until it is. In this short one, Renee tells the story behind her most-requested tangent of the summer and what it taught her about the evaluation plans we build (and the ones we don't). In this episode: The true story of the goldfinches that showed up on Renee's basil plant for the first time ever How the story surfaced mid-training-cal...

What if teaching kindness was as simple as a drop of food coloring in a glass of milk? In this episode, Renee sits down with Krista Spadt, founder of The Simple Gifts Project, to talk about how one nonprofit turns small gestures into hospital care packages — and how packing those bags changes the kids doing the packing just as much as the kids receiving them. In this episode: How a 501(c)(3) nonpr...

You’ve built the milestones. You’ve built the engagement. Now here’s the last piece of the puzzle: how much content actually belongs in your course — and it’s probably less than you think. In this episode: Why "more content feels safer" is actually avoidance dressed up as thoroughness The fuel analogy that shows exactly how much content each milestone needs (hint: it’s not the same amount every ti...

Emoji drops and polls aren't purposeful engagement — they're decoration. In part 3 of the Roots to Canopy miniseries, Renee draws the line between engagement that just holds attention and engagement that actually reinforces what you're teaching, then rebuilds two real trainings live to prove it. In This Episode: Why "purposeful engagement" has to do two jobs at once — earn at...

You know your person and what you want to teach them — but do you know exactly where you're taking them? In this episode, Renee breaks down the second stage of the Roots to Canopy framework: turning your teaching sweet spot into one clear, reachable transformation, then mapping the milestones that get your learner there. In this episode: Why "teaching everything" (A to Z) exhausts you and your lea...

A live reflection exercise that turns everything you know into one clear starting point. You know you have something worth teaching — but the second someone asks what your course is actually about, everything comes out at once and it turns into noise. This episode walks you through the exact exercise Renee uses with clients to find the real starting point: the Roots stage of the Roots to Canopy Me...

You have something powerful to teach — but the moment you sit down to design it, the pull toward content takes over. You start listing everything you know, every story, every framework, every caveat. And suddenly it's a wall of water, not a river. This week, Renee shares the origin story of the Roots to Canopy Method: what backwards design gave her, where it left a gap, and the unexpected mome...

Have you ever called what you do a course, a program, or a membership — and felt like something was still slightly off? That feeling might be about more than the name. In this episode, Renee Koster gives you a clear, simple definition of a learning experience and explains why the distinction between learning experience design and instructional design actually changes what you build — not just how...

A 1774 home, a curious executive director, and the untold stories she's determined to unravel. What does it take to turn a 250-year-old log house into a living, breathing piece of its community? In this episode, Renee sits down with Molly Jobson, executive director of the Morgan Log House, to find out — from her winding path into museum leadership to the food drives and descendant volunteers t...

What a tiger at the Philadelphia Zoo taught me about course design I stood in front of the big cat exhibit at the Philadelphia Zoo and had a full curriculum design realization — and this episode is about what I learned. The Philadelphia Zoo's Zoo360 is a network of trails that lets animals roam freely through the zoo. The day we visited, a tiger was walking past the lunch tables. Ten feet away...

What does it look like when someone takes purposeful feedback, applies it in real time, and keeps building? In this inaugural episode of Learning Experience Design for Change Makers , Renee Koster sits down with Elise White — founder and executive director of the Let's Change Forward Foundation, workforce and wellness consultant, and co-host of the Queen Beauty Podcast. Elise shares how a five-day...

You built something. You know your stuff. And somewhere between your expertise and your learner's transformation, something's getting lost. That's exactly why this podcast exists. In this intro episode, Renee Koster — Learning Experience Designer and Strategist — lays out exactly who this show is for, what makes it different, and what you can expect. This is not a podcast about building fast. It's...