Learning by doing

Anne Wilson

Interlocking plastic bricks, modelling clay, coloured card and sparkly pipe cleaners — can playing with craft supplies and children’s construction toys really help improve your academic writing? I think it can. I use them in my workshops – even with senior academic staff – with surprising results. In a session to help Occupational Therapy staff develop creative approaches to support student writing, I asked the participants to construct a plastic-brick model to answer the question: ‘How does the social model of disability relate to the practice of occupational therapists?’ This was an undergraduate assignment that I knew their students found difficult and I wanted the staff to explore their expectations of how the essay should be structured. They found it challenging to ‘write’ the essay in a medium other than words, but their models – and the way they explained the models to their peers – was illuminating. The participants said they found the conversations the exercise triggered both stimulating and thought provoking. This simple kinaesthetic task helped them to express their thoughts about how the essay should be structured and to see how their approach differed from their colleagues’. It also helped them to appreciate some of the challenges faced by their students.

I believe that a successful workshop should be engaging, participative and should cater to a range of learning styles. Learning by touching, making and doing does not suit everyone, but by tapping into a different part of the brain, it can help you overcome some of those knotty problems that get in the way of writing. It can be a powerful tool for understanding key concepts, organising ideas and planning the structure of an academic essay, dissertation or article. I find that the sight of colourful construction pieces in a serious academic workshop lightens the mood and makes people feel that the workshop promises to be exciting and fun. And when high-achieving academics throw themselves into a construction task, it often lives up to that promise.