WE ALL LEARN
BY DOING
Hi! I’m Emily Keener, a freelance instructional designer who partners with mission-minded organizations to design learning experiences around relevant practice. Why? Because people learn best when they try, get feedback, and try again.
Over the last decade, I’ve helped educational organizations, nonprofits, and small businesses:
- Turn content dumps into useful courses and training workshops.
- Translate expert knowledge into something novices can understand and act on.
- Bring order to complex projects, so new courses and programs launch smoothly and learners keep coming back.
Every project is different, but they all start the same way: with your learners. Here’s how I can help.
Services
Training workshops, courses, and consultation to promote real learning.
Instructor-led training workshops
I work with your trainers and experts to design hands-on sessions for staff, volunteers, customers, or the public. That includes participant workbooks and job aids, facilitator guides, and slides with presenter notes. We test it with real learners and refine it together, and I can help your facilitators get ready to teach it with confidence.
Online course and program development
I design instructor-led online courses (not click-through modules), with practice, feedback, and community built into every unit. You’ll get a clear course map, activities and rubrics, an instructor guide, and a course set up in the platform you already use.
Review and consultation
I’ve run programs myself, so I look at the whole picture: course design, learner feedback, outcomes, and enrollment. I can review an existing course, help you plan a series, pathway, or certificate, or set up simple ways to see whether your training is working. Then I’ll give you a clear, practical plan for what’s next.
How I work
Every project starts with your learners and goals. I work closely with your staff and experts, respecting their time as we move through prototypes, feedback, and testing together, so the final deliverable works with real people.
Connect with me:
Portfolio
Browse my
samples
Looking for something in particular? I’d be happy to reach into the vault to find a sample most aligned with your project needs. Let’s chat!
Strengthening business partnerships with targeted training
A community college offered business writing workshops to local organizations, but poor evaluations and lack of interest showed something was wrong. I worked with client and college leadership to diagnose the problems and overhaul the training. This led to new, repeat clients for the college, improved learner evaluations, and, most importantly, a workshop that actually helped people write better.
Extending community college youth outreach programming
A community college needed an engaging hazardous waste module for their youth environmental outreach program. The subject-matter expert had deep scientific knowledge, and limited time. Working with these constraints, and mounds of scientific text, I delivered a hands-on, standards-aligned learning module for the college to use with 5th graders.
Rolling out new learning systems without heartburn
System migrations are messy. Two system migrations at once? Potentially tornadic. But with strong planning and collaboration, I helped a university’s continuing ed program roll out a new learning management and student information system on time and with minimal disruption. On the first day of implementation, the team was finally able to take payment before a learner gained access to the course. That’s a win!
What People are saying about Emily
Relevant and useful learning
“The curriculum you developed directly addressed real pain points we’re experiencing, and our leaders see this training as highly relevant and beneficial across departments. The people-focused nature of the modules complements recent system and workflow improvements.
Thank you all for your hard work, thoughtfulness, and creativity throughout this collaboration. You’ve made this process so fun, and we are confident the training will have a significant impact on our team.”
Elise Swinford, SHRM-CP
Human Resources Business Leader
Community College/Employer Partnership
Outcomes and then some
“It has been great working with Emily! She is an excellent communicator, very diligent, and open to feedback and the review process. She was able to understand the system and move from there. While creating our help manual, we were lucky enough for her to point out a couple inconsistencies in the UI and workflow as well! We will come back to her for future instructional content.”
Jason Thompson
Founder and software developer
Early and on budget
“Emily was great. She has great communication skills and completed the project early and on budget.”
Rich Haney
Game Developer
Let’s Talk
Ready to work together?
Email me or join me for a no-obligation discovery call to discuss your next project!
