How can we help learners synthesize what they read at home?

In short: ask learners to show in 3- 5 sketches the key things they learned. The translation from written to visual language forces synthesis.

An illustration showing that sketching what we read creates clarity

Option 1: synthesize by teaching

Reading is great but it doesn't mean you have understood yet what you've read. A nice way to help learners learn more deeply is to teach back what they've learned. I love this approach but it often takes a lot of time in the class and in a world of AI generated presentations it's easy to make it without getting the benefits of the learning.

Option 2: make them sketch

This semester in the Master Service Design of the HSLU, we have asked the learners to come each week with a visual synthesis of what they had to read. 3-5 hand made visuals.

Benefits of sketching to synthesize reading

There are a few things I love about this approach:

Push translation: learners can't just say back what they have read they need to translate in another language. From words to visuals. It's really when the translation is done that the true learning happens.
AI ready: asking people to make by hand the sketches pushes them to not use AI for this part of the learning.
Teaches visualisation: a side benefit is that it helps learners get comfortable in quickly visualizing complex ideas. A skill very useful in Service Design work.

Backstage of this article

This article was illustrated and written by hand on a refurbished Remarkable II tablet. The handwriting was converted to typed text with the connect service of Remarkable. If you are curious you can download the original note below.

Original note.pdf (285 KB)