What You Missed in the Rise Tips & Tricks Peer Pod

Have you ever seen someone use a Rise block in a way that made you think...“Wait…you can do that?”  

That reaction came up a lot in the Rise Tips & Tricks Peer Pod this past June.

Peer Pods are community learning experiences where a group of folx explore a topic together over a few weeks and share what's working, what isn't, and everything in between.

For four weeks, a group of community members dove into Rise: how to use blocks creatively, how AI is fitting into real workflows, and how to make your courses look and feel way more custom.

Check out some of the takeaways you can try in your next Rise project 👀

🧩 Rise Blocks Are More Flexible Than You Think

This was the through-line of the whole program. Participants weren’t asking “which block fits this content?” They were asking “which block creates the experience I want?” The answers got super creative:

🤖 AI Is Already Part of the Workflow

And not in a vague, “I use AI sometimes” way. Participants came in with specific, repeatable workflows they were already using:

✨ A Few More Things Worth Stealing

Block templates kept coming up in every group (ok, maybe they were a topic for one of the weeks 🤭), but people genuinely couldn’t stop talking about them. A couple of specific moves:

• Save a block as a template before deleting it so it’s there if you need it later. (SusanCCox8​)
• Build your first lesson fully, save those blocks as a template, and use it to jump-start every lesson after. (DianaPerdue​)
• Use a naming convention like “[Product Line] Hot Tip” to keep your library organized as it grows. (JenLynnRusso​)

For making Rise look more custom, participants leaned on PowerPoint as a design companion (for custom dividers, section breaks, and branded flashcard images) and a handful of free tools worth bookmarking:

That’s the kind of thinking that comes out of a Peer Pod. Not just tips, but the reasoning behind them.