Abstract
The workshop introduces arts-based learning as a pedagogical bridge between individual perception and shared meaning-making across cultural and disciplinary contexts, underscoring its value in professional development programs. Arts-based pedagogies create transformative experiences for critical reflection, empathy, and meaning-making across disciplinary boundaries. Across professions, such pedagogies invite learners to engage with ambiguity, consider multiple perspectives, and connect to their own lived experience as sources of learning. Quantitative results from workshops with healthcare professionals showed significant gains in knowledge and self-reported learning across domains of critical observation, reflective practice, and professional application. Similarly, in art museum-based mindfulness retreats for educators, participants demonstrated significant improvements individual perception and shared meaning-making across cultural, disciplinary, in participants’ knowledge of pedagogical applications, confidence in facilitating arts- and mindfulness-based activities, and implementation readiness. This workshop offers an experiential introduction to arts-based pedagogies that can be incorporated into varied educational formats, including Visual Thinking Strategies (Hailey, Yenawine, & Zimmerman, 2023; Housen, Yenawine, and Brookshire, 2018), which is a structured discussion method for interpreting artworks that enhances observational acuity, communication, and evidence-based reasoning (Hailey, 2014; Housen & Yenawine, 2000; Lieberman & Parker, 2018), as well as art-based reflection practices and mindfulness activities. By situating teaching and learning in arts-based pedagogies, participants will learn how art-centered inquiry, including VTS, can strengthen professional skills that are essential for navigating complex and intercultural educational landscapes (Bae & Choi, 2025; Gaufberg & Williams, 2011; Gaufberg, Evans, Rutberg, & Chisolm, 2023).
Presenters
Katherine SouleAcademic Administrator, Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Education and Learning Worlds of Differences
KEYWORDS
Transformative Learning, Experiential, Critical Reflection, Arts-based Learning, Visual Thinking Strategies
