Sketchnoting For Reflection

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Sketchnoting For Reflection

As a reader of my blog, you have followed my journey into exploring Sketchnoting since April 2014. I have come a long way by studying and learning from other sketchnoters: their techniques, their tools, their thinking process, their signature people, objects and metaphors.

If have gone from asking myself WHAT can you Sketchnote? to Sketchnoting as a Form of…

I am experimenting with a variety of goals, as I am sketchnoting, wanting to be aware of how I react to each form in terms of my thinking process and learning involved.

  • Reflection : “We don’t learn from experiences, we learn from reflecting on the experience” John Dewey
  • Note Taking: How can we summarize main ideas visually?
  • Visual Thinking: How can we make thinking visual and visible to others?
  • Content Creation: How can we take concepts and content, in order to be able to share visually to appeal to a larger audience
  • Memory Aid: Doodling triggers memory after the event has passed. Visual beat text when it comes to remembering
  • Process Ideation: Documenting the formation of concepts and ideas
  • Storytelling: Conveying of events through images and text
  • Mind Mapping: Brainstorming and organizing of ideas, thoughts and connections

I am specifically intrigued by sketchnoting as a FORM OF REFLECTION. As Visible Thinking Routines (by Project Zero) have proven to be very helpful in making thinking visible, I prepared am easy to follow routine to reflect when sketchnoting. Disclaimer: this is not meant to be a one- size- fits- all reflection routine, just one of many ways one can take advantage of sketchnoting to support a reflection process.

  1. TopicWhat do I know?What have I learned?How can I apply what I learned?How do I summarize in a Headline what I learned?
  2. KeywordsBrainstorm keywords about the topic
  3. Objects & PeopleHow can I make my thinking visible?How can I represent an idea?
  4. ConnectionsHow does what I learned connect to what I (or others) already knew or will do
  5. ActionsWhat conclusions will I draw?What are my goals?

Another routine is Peter Pappas‘ Taxonomy of Reflection

  1. RememberWhat did I do, hear, watch, learn?
  2. UnderstandWhat was important about it?
  3. ApplyWhere could I use this again?
  4. AnalyzeDo I see any patterns?
  5. EvaluateHow well did I do?
  6. CreateWhat should I do next?

This past week, I had the opportunity to facilitate a session about Sketchnoting for Reflection at the end of the 3 day ASCD Camp Connect21 conference in Washington, DC. It was the perfect moment to help participants become aware of their thinking and learning process as they reflected via sketchnotes of their learning experience at the conference. Next stop? How do we bring Sketchnoting for Reflection to our students as yet another tool in their toolbox.

Below find a few samples of the reflection results:

cross posted at langwitches.org/blog

Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at http://langwitches.org/blog.

Silvia Tolisano