Mental Pictures in HE Rutherford – University of Chester

The soul never thinks without a mental picture. Aristotle The question is not what you look at, but what you see. Henry David Thoreau Experience is not possible until it is organized iconically; the brain’s record of everything is iconic. Oliver Sacks

The use of ‘mental pictures’ is the oldest form of human cognition – our most basic way to assign meaning and to know what something ‘is’. In other words, what we think of something is determined by the way in which we mentally ‘picture’ it.

Close your eyes

As Boulding (1956) wrote, the way in which we ‘picture’ or IMAGinE what something ‘is’ determines its purpose (what it is ‘for’)

and the way we define its purpose determines how we behave towards it

Influenced by the way in which parents, popular entertainment, politicians, media pundits and (God help us all, even Vice- Chancellors and some of our colleagues) IMAGinE and therefore describe Higher Education, our students have ‘learned’ to ‘see’ HE very differently than we might wish

Two propositions: 1.That students’ current mental pictures of HE represent a major obstacle to ‘meaning-full’ learning 2.That an investigation of their – and our – mental pictures can provide a basis for fostering deep learning

Central to Art, Design & Media practice is the notion of ‘compelling narratives’: the ‘stories’ we tell about things, places & ideas If they are to be able to produce materials that will move others, we must lead our students to consider how media products have shaped their mental pictures…

Two reasons to do so: 1.Our ‘mental pictures’ of HE will shape the way in which our students define their objectives 2.The materials our graduates will produce will shape the way their audiences define & pursue their own

In small groups of 2, 3 or 4: Describe to the group your ‘mental picture’ of a “successful lecture”; what does it look like? (What visual details connote this “success”?) Do the details of this picture describe your success (meet your needs) or your students’? How do you know?