The Sketchbook: a Creative Tool for Personal Development - Rome

Available in: Rome, Prague, Barcelona

Course calendar: Check the confirmed dates

Cultural activities: The number and schedule of the cultural activities depend on the location; check the location webpage to discover more.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Course Description

Despite being one of the most distinctive human capacities, drawing has been often neglected in the educational domain. In this course, we are going to rediscover it by working on a very effective, and yet overlooked tool: the sketchbook.

The course will show how keeping a sketchbook does not simply enhance drawing abilities. Instead, it will support participants in discovering the many ways in which it helps the development of many fundamental life skills.

First, keeping a sketchbook leads its owner to exploring the perceptual appearance of things, and improve their comprehension of how the world is organized visually. From this stage, the drawer is ready to reflect on their perceptions, thereby improving their meta-cognitive capacities and critical thinking.

Second, keeping a sketchbook allows connecting with people, and filling in the divide between teachers and students. To get a good grasp on this, the participants of the course will be invited to share the contents of their sketchbook. In the classroom, this can be exploited to explore others’ experiences, overcome cultural barriers, and enhance emotional connections among learners.

Third, drawing allows reconnecting to our inner self by offering the chance for auto-analysis and witnessing personal development through time. Drawing upon a series of techniques from art therapy (such as doodling, intuitive drawing, and emotional marks), participants will explore the sketchbook’s potential for self-discovery and awareness.

Fourth, course participants will explore how sketching acts as scaffolding for visualizing non-existing realities. This creates a potential for ameliorating the learning process by making thinking visible, facilitating the acquisition of concepts, easing text loads, and so forth.

Finally, course participants will discuss the principles of concept art to understand how sketching can also improve creativity and nurture imagination. Rather than teaching how to produce technically flawless outcomes, the course will primarily focus on clarifying the benefits of developing sketching and visual journaling habits and transferring these competencies to young learners.

The participants will explore the many potentialities of sketching with respect to learning and even self-discovery and personal development. By its end, course participants will master many techniques ready to be introduced to their educational contexts in order to foster individual and collective growth within their classrooms.

Continue reading: Discover the learning outcomes and the tentative schedule of this course.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Course category: Creativity and Soft Skills

Creativity and Soft Skills: By fostering critical thinking and communicative abilities, an educator can develop better relationships with students, colleagues, and students’ parents, thus obtaining higher learning outcomes. If you want to expand both your creative thinking and storytelling skills, you should check out our Creativity and Soft Skills courses. They can help you design stimulating activities which aim to promote entrepreneurship and collaboration among your students.

Discover other courses on:

• Creativity
• Communication and social skills
• Self-awareness
• Critical thinking and pubic speaking
• Self-expression and storytelling