Reflective Diagramming

 A four-year collaboration to develop visually led teaching methods on a graduate-level course.

Between 2018 and 2022 I collaborated with Adam Ramejkis in his capacity as an Intercultural Communication Trainer in my role as a Course Leader for the Graduate Diploma Graphic Design at Chelsea College of Arts. I had previously invited Adam to teach workshops that had been incredibly successful in enhancing collaboration among students. We began to collaborate in more strategic ways on workshops and methods that emphasised visual over verbal communication. The aim was to foster non-hierarchical communication and intercultural exchange. The general approach we developed was that of 'talking about things we can see'.

How we did it

We began by adapting existing workshops. In one workshop called Talking about Values invited students to consider the values that influence how they think, behave, and share with others. We incorporated an exercise where students collectively diagrammed their participation in discussions.

We further developed this approach, inviting students to 'make their thinking visible' in critical discussions. In another workshop, we asked the students to collectively respond to a text about cultural difference. Small groups responded to a text using prompt questions, each taking time to draw an individual response before collectively discussing them as a group.

The workshops made critical meaning-making collective, creative, and more enjoyable, as one student commented:

The methods were particularly helpful in reading groups where students often struggled to interpret critical theory texts. We found that asking students to diagram the relationships between concepts in the texts prior to the reading groups enhanced their comprehension of them. Discussing each other’s diagrams also enabled them to actively participate and learn from one another, regardless of their linguistic or academic background. The collaborative nature of the activities fostered a supportive learning environment where students could learn from each other.

We consistently found that students were better able to engage with complex ideas and participate in discussions regardless of their language proficiency. In many ways, visualisation was a shared language. As one student reflected:

Why we did it

Verbal critique is a signature pedagogy in design education, privileging verbally expressive students and limiting the participation of less confident ones (Shulman, 2005; Motley, 2019). The course cohort was consistently over 95% international students. I had observed the barriers students faced developing autonomous, critical, and creative thinking skills alongside the challenges of language acquisition (Crawford & Wang, 2014; Reilly et al., 2019; Xue, 2017). My previous research had adapted verbal studio-based pedagogies to visually led ones (Knight, 2019). I saw an opportunity to expand critical, visual methods into more areas of the course, supporting students through peer dialogue and learning.

This collaboration significantly shaped my practice. Where I used to be focussed on content and delivery, I came to see my role as providing contexts and framing structures through which students can actualise their own capabilities to learn (Citton, 2010). Diagramming provided minimal, accessible structures that aligned closely with disciplinary ways of knowing and being (Barnett & Coates, 2005).

Published work

Laura Knight and Adam Ramejkis (2022) Drawing on Ideas: Diagramming to encourage critical engagement with texts and contexts in Higher Education. In: London Conference in Critical Thought, 8-9 July 2022, School of Law, Birkbeck College University of London.