Adriana in the Non-Profit Sector
Abstract:
Adriana, a Brazilian learning design professional based in Brasília, has a 15-year career in education and technology. With degrees in history, an MBA in digital communications, and a master’s in design, she has spent the last decade focusing on how design thinking can enhance K-12 education. In her learning design practice, she navigates Brazil’s rigid academic pathways and cultural misconceptions about design to foster innovation in education.
We have kind of a translation problem in Brazil around the word and expected definition of the word design. In English [in the United States], it is easy when you say design because in English when you say design we have the notion of creation or thinking about creation. For someone in Brazil, design is more about using physical artifacts. So it’s hard for Brazilians to understand design for invisible things like learning. So, we have kind of a struggle understanding what we mean by learning design. Learning design is not obvious for teachers in Brazil. Normally, teachers follow a book and that’s it. So for me, the basic and the most common denominator that I can work with teachers is to highlight that learning is an intangible and invisible experience. Because of that we need to put in a diagram and make it visible for them. Then we will take this journey together with a high level of consciousness.
Adriana highlights storytelling as a vital instructional design competency, enabling creativity, communication, and reflection to engage learners emotionally and cognitively. Adriana advocates for adopting design thinking to improve teacher preparation programs. She also suggests integrating pedagogical references like Paulo Freire’s methods to make design thinking relatable for educators.
I think learning design is about a helping story and interdisciplinarity. I read a lot. Because I’m interested in lots of disciplines like humanities, technology, innovation, and neuroscience. Education is complex and it’s a complex issue. So, I think in order to design the best learning experiences, you need to navigate in more than one field. You need to understand how people learn, understand how people build their relationships and how people use technology. I think there is knowledge related to anthropology, ethnography, history, and social studies. But as well in technology like UX and the integration of human computer interactions. I think it is hard. I think it’s a kind of a highly sophisticated discipline. In my practice, all my studies and all my curiosity, helps me to navigate it well.
Romero-Hall, E. (2025). Learning Designers in Context: Examining Practices Across the Global South. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003270591
Photo by Henry Rodrigues on Unsplash
Design Goodiness 