Freehand drawing – a learning and teaching perspective

Freehand drawings are used frequently for ‘visual’ disciplines and have a range of benefits. Typically, for the social sciences, their utility is framed exclusively for enhancing active learning, but not necessarily as a teaching aid. Emphasising learning and teaching as a dialectical process between student and lecturer, a small-scale qualitative study explored the potential of a freehand drawing to help teach a complex primary text and assist students’ subsequent understanding. Students were taught the text in two ways – (1) verbal explanation accompanied by two static diagrams and (2) verbal explanation accompanied by a freehand drawing. Students discussed their experiences in a focus group. Despite mixed learning preferences, with interesting qualifications, students found the dynamic nature of the freehand drawing essential to understanding. Unintended variation in the delivery of each session produced insightful comment, as did the relationship between the lecturer’s learning preference and their choice of pedagogy.