IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION B

Abstract

In our digital age, human experiences, communication, and discourse are increasingly occurring online, outside of physical reality. This paper argues for the importance of tactile learning where students physically touch material as part of the learning process. Such techniques are particularly effective when used with visual and auditory stimuli, producing multi-sensory learning that grounds learning back into the physical, sensory world. In doing so, university classrooms can use tactile learning to help foster creativity, intellectual curiosity, and more dynamic group work; and this can help to counter overreliance upon AI and digital resources. Rima Al-Tawil and Debra Hoven argue that “tactile learning, often overlooked in educational research and digital pedagogies, cultivates unique ways of multi-sensory knowing and encourages holistic understanding, complementing intellectual learning and enriching research processes” (269). This paper will discuss a few examples of how I incorporate tactile learning into my courses, whether it is through 1) using rare book libraries and archives, where students touch and explore books that are hundreds of years old, 2) using location and props to explore topics in a more tactile and sensory way, and 3) providing poster-sized paper for students to mark up together with colour pens. While these techniques have been used for my Literature and Theory courses, they can be reworked for other Humanities subjects. Besides fostering creativity, these techniques aim to re-humanize education within an AI-dominated era. Works Cited: Al-Tawil, Rima and Debra Hoven, “Threading humanity back into education and educational research,” Open Praxis, 16 (2), 269-279.