Learning a Visual Language

November 4, 2020
Learning a Visual Language

Imagine a group of students holding up their drawings to the camera on Zoom. Some of the sketches used colorful markers, while others used pencils. “Is this a middle school class?” you might wonder. Not at all!

At the end of October, the Incubator hosted two virtual workshops on sketchnoting for graduate students at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Led by the Incubator’s Instructional Designer, Nina Bhattacharya, the hands-on workshops focused on the fundamentals of incorporating visualization into teaching and learning. Particularly in public and global health, visualization can be an essential tool for communicating ideas across populations and across disciplines.

“Sketchnoting is about developing a language that weaves together text, image, and scaffolding,” shared Bhattacharya in the workshop’s introduction. “You don’t have to identify as an artist or even as creative to make this approach meaningful and personal to your learning!”

Across the workshops, over 40 participants studied features of a sketchnote by Faculty Director Sue J. Goldie. What made it such an effective tool for teaching and learning? These reflections in hand, the students then engaged in a series of rapid exercises to prototype and build out a library of icons. After each exercise, students shared their different depictions for words like “mental health” and “community.” Now warmed up, participants used their new tools to sketchnote a video about adolescent mental health—which used all the words in their new visual libraries. The session culminated with interactive artist talks, wherein students walked through the thought process and design choices underlying their sketchnotes. 

Intrigued? Explore the Incubator’s Teaching Toolkit of resources for getting started with visualization in learning.