Design Challenge

The coaching session looks at how  nervous systems and neurodiversity influence participation, learning, and belonging, and how group experiences can be designed to support emotional safety, connection, and responsiveness for the program Robin is designing. Together, they focus on the overall learning arc so each session builds intentionally toward lasting shifts in how participants understand and work with people.

What we Talked About

Alex brought a three-hour workshop for journalists focused on creativity, mental health, and resilience. A major part of the session was breaking the workshop out of one long continuous sequence of activities and instead seeing it as distinct stages, each doing a different job. Erica Marx worked with her on the Five-Step Transformational Design Process and on moving away from organizing around content toward designing around what participants are being invited to contribute, experience, and do. Alex later described having something like 17 realizations during the session.

Design Takeaways

A workshop is not one continuous flow of content. It has stages with different purposes. Designing those stages deliberately gave Alex a much clearer architecture for the whole experience.

Resources