Learning Benefits of Collaborative Drawing

Collaborative Drawing

I found this very interesting research article about the learning benefits of collaborative drawing. It demonstrates the serious application that the arts, especially the collaborative arts can have in other fields of human endeavour. You would not expect that a medical school would use such methods to teach their students. However they along with other learning institutes put it into practice to study the advantages of it.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/13/86

It covers:

• Methods
• Critical Observation
• Interdisciplinary Drawing
• Embodies Experience
• Meta-cognitive Awareness Learning
• Identity

Results

A number of key themes emerged. The complex, phased and multi-sensory nature of the ‘critical looking’ skills developed through the drawing exercises was seen as of potential value in medical education, being proposed as analogous to processes involved in clinical examination and diagnosis. The experience of interdisciplinary collaborative drawing was significant to the students as a creative, participatory and responsive form of learning. The emphasis on the physical experience of drawing and the thematic use of the human body as drawing subject led to reflective discussions about bodily knowledge and understanding. There were indications that students had a meta-cognitive awareness of the learning shifts that had occurred and the sessions provoked constructive self-reflective explorations of pre-professional identity.