Creative visual methodologies for higher education: A transnational pedagogical project

Project Investigators: Dr. Subir Dey and Dr. Eleanor Chiari

Funded by UCL-IITD joint SEED grant 2022-2023

Our interdisciplinary collaboration stems from a joint project funded by University College London and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Our project, titled Creative visual methodologies for higher education: A transnational pedagogical project consisted of a series of research workshops taught in Delhi and London between December 2022 and September 2023. We explored ways design thinking and visual storytelling could be integrated into classroom teaching in the humanities and social sciences and developed exercises that could be used for facilitating creative thinking in the classroom and beyond. Our workshops focused on the production of graphic visual narratives while also teaching students some basic principles in visual semiotics and image analysis. Our workshops enabled joyful collaboration and meaningful connections between students through creativity. It is this aspect of our joint project that we want to take forward while continuing to explore the ways graphic visual narratives may be used as effective tools for assessment in the 21st century.

A participant showing her work during the open display of the workshop, UCL, 2023

AI and other new technologies are putting new pressures on higher education. Not only are traditional modes of learning and assessment potentially becoming obsolete (first and foremost the academic essay) but so are the ways students engage with the production and critical engagement with knowledge. More than ever, we believe, there is an urgent need to rekindle focus and creativity and to enable pedagogic thinking aimed at slowing right down in order to get to the heart of the matter. We like this play on words because it incorporates both the sense of the core of ideas but also the heart as a primary imagined organ at the center of the self. Getting students to connect to their own hearts through practices of storytelling and sharing is key to our being able to allow them to get to the heart of the ideas and lessons we urgently want them to understand. Drawing, dreaming, sharing are all key elements needed for nurturing open and creative minds and to create safe and imaginative spaces for better learning.

Brainstorming and visualisations during the workshop, IIT Delhi, 2023

Participants during the workshop, IIT Delhi, 2023

Dr. Eleanor taking a session on Visual Culture, UCL 2023

Dr. Subir taking a session on Understanding graphic narratives, UCL 2023

A joint collaboration between UCL and IIT Delhi