Contemporary learners want and need an enhanced online learning environment to truly understand intangible concepts, like social justice. Using art to build sensory experiences in the classroom helps connect students to the material and helps humanize concepts like poverty, diversity, and other concepts that are difficult to understand in a sterile computing environment. The purpose of this session is to share best practices in building sensory experiences, through art, music, and videos to help enhance the online classroom and connect diverse students to difficult material. Students report feeling more connected not only to the material, but to the classroom as a result, which builds community online and helps retention. This type of curriculum development also helps diverse learners and promotes critical thinking in a way that transcends many cultural differences in learning.
Contemporary learners want and need an enhanced online learning environment to truly understand intangible concepts, like social justice. Using art to build sensory experiences in the classroom helps connect students to the material and helps humanize concepts like poverty, diversity, and other concepts that are difficult to understand in a sterile computing environment. The purpose of this session is to share best practices in building sensory experiences, through art, music, and videos to help enhance the online classroom and connect diverse students to difficult material. Students report feeling more connected not only to the material, but to the classroom as a result, which builds community online and helps retention. This type of curriculum development also helps diverse learners and promotes critical thinking in a way that transcends many cultural differences in learning.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will reflect on how art in the online classroom enhances students learning, builds inclusion and humanizes intangible concepts.
- Participants will review examples of the use of art and music in the online classroom and discuss the examples in groups.
- Participants will reflect and discuss how they may build sensory experiences for students at their own institutions.