'I don't have time to Sketchnote!'

Rachel Burnham writes: 'I don’t have time to Sketchnote!’ - is one of the comments I get when I am encouraging people to make use of Sketchnoting.

If you haven’t come across the term ‘Sketchnoting’ before – it was coined by Mike Rohde and is the name for those graphics, which are often colourful and hand-drawn, that combine both words and pictures to share information and ideas.

I have been Sketchnoting for the past 8 years or so, initially to make notes for myself at conferences and presentations, but gradually I have realised what a flexible and effective ‘learning and thinking tool’ Sketchnoting is.

Yes, Sketchnoting often seems to take more time than conventional written-only note-taking – however, if you never refer back to those written notes and find it difficult to recall what you have written, then it is worthwhile investing in the time to develop your Sketchnoting skills.  Both myself and the very many people I have worked with have found that Sketchnotes are far more memorable and the active process of creating them means that you find the information easier to recall. I think this is because Sketchnoting, with its use of both words and simple pictures makes use of dual-coding. Dual-coding has been well-researched in many cognitive psychology studies and is well established as a practice in which the combination of visuals and words help to form rich memories, thus aiding recall and learning (listen to ‘The Learning Scientists Podcast’ episode 12 for a good introduction to dual-coding).

The length of time it takes to create a Sketchnote can vary tremendously depending upon how familiar you are with the material and also with Sketchnoting, plus what the purpose is of the Sketchnote. When Sketchnoting for yourself, you can create effective Sketchnotes in 30 to 60 minutes – as an experienced Sketchnoter I frequently Sketchnote live sessions in 30 to 45 minutes.

Secondly, the very fact that creating a Sketchnote is a relatively slow process is a strength.  As you draw, embellish and colour in elements of a Sketchnote, you relax and can find yourself thinking more deeply and also differently about the topic you are capturing.  By seeking out relevant images to illustrate points and using metaphors for this, you gain a different way of looking at the subject and may find yourself with fresh insights. By taking your time to consider the topic, you become able to reflect on it - I think this makes Sketchnoting (and drawing more widely) a useful tool for aiding reflection and contributing to learning in this way.

If you are interested in how Sketchnoting can help you, your team or your organisation learn, think or work more effectively I would be happy to discuss this with you.

Rachel Burnham

24 July 2024

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.

Sketchnoting: 5 Benefits for Learning

Rachel Burnham writes: This week I have been reflecting on what the benefits are of Sketchnoting for learning.   Sketchnoting combines simple pictures, graphics, text and layout.  I also make use of colour, but some Sketchnoters just use black ink very effectively.  There are no rules in Sketchnoting.  You create a style and approach that works for you. 

Here are 5 areas where I think Sketchnoting can be a useful tool.

1. Note taking

This is the main way I use Sketchnoting, both for taking notes live from presentations and also to summarise podcasts, books and articles.  Some people may find that Sketchnoting works better for them as a way of making notes, than traditional note taking.  I always struggled a bit with note taking because I write very slowly and find spelling a bit of a challenge.  My notes always looked very chaotic.  Sketchnoting encourages you to focus on listening for meaning and key points, rather than attempting to capture everything.   With Sketchnoting, you create notes that work for you.  There is anecdotal evidence of this making a difference for some learners.

Example of Sketchhnote recorded live

Creating notes using Sketchnoting can aid recall.  It makes use of dual coding – the use of both visuals and words to capture ideas and because both are used there are two potential memory triggers. This is different to the idea of learning styles and the notion that someone has a visual learning style, which has little evidence to support it.   There is a very good exploration of dual coding and how this differs from learning styles in Episodes 12 and 13 of ‘The Learning Scientists Podcast’. 

    2. Planning

You can also use Sketchnoting for planning.  This can be helpful when planning to write an assessment, report or article or when planning a project or presentation.   I used to use Mind Maps for this, but I find Sketchnotes are more flexible.  

When I use Sketchnotes for planning, they often look much more ragged and unfinished than my other Sketchnotes, as I keep adding notes to them and often create them much more quickly than my other Sketchnotes.  I often don’t keep these Sketchnotes as they are just part of the process.  

Here is an example of a Sketchnote I used to help me prepare for a presentation I was delivering at the AGM for CIPD Manchester.  

    3.  Retrieval Practice

Sketchnotes can be a useful tool in retrieval practice – that process of actively revisiting and rehearsing material previously learnt, as part of the process of committing it to memory.   For example, you could create a Sketchnote from memory of material previously studied.   This active process of recalling material is much more powerful as a study technique than simple rereading your notes or learning materials over and over. For further information on the effectiveness of retrieval practice, let me again recommend you to the excellent ‘The Learning Scientists Podcast’ this time to Episode 2.

In Learning & Development, I want to emphasise that this technique is only valuable if employees really need this knowledge to perform better.  Often we have thrown knowledge at employees, when actually the issue isn’t a lack of knowledge, but perhaps more an issue of skill or even some other factor in the workplace.   So first we need to make sure that we have properly diagnosed what will make a real difference to workplace performance.  

Even if it there is a knowledge-component, we also need to carefully distinguish whether learners really need to learn this knowledge, so that it is internalised or is it more effective for them to be able to find it when they need it.   It is difficult and takes time & effort to really get knowledge embedded within us, plus much information that is needed for performance in the workplace changes rapidly, so it makes sense to only do this where this is absolutely essential.    And there are times when it is essential that a learner has that material always to hand – but this is far less than we have traditionally assumed. 

So with those caveats, Sketchnoting can be a tool to for use in retrieval practice.   For example, on as part of a longer programme, whether face to face or online, you could encourage learners to create a Sketchnote of key points explored at an earlier point in a programme and thus also bring in an element of spaced practice.

    4. Reflection

You can also create a Sketchnote as part of the process of reflecting on learning, whether that learning is part of a formal programme or has come from experience.   Reflection goes deeper than the recounting of information and facts that might be found within a Sketchnote created for retrieval practice, to include feelings, impact, application, implications for the future and so on.   You could encourage reflection using one of the many reflective practice models, but capture it in the form of a Sketchnote.  

In my experience, some learners like writing reflections, but some find the writing a challenge and prefer to video or capture reflections in a visual format.

    5.  Conceptualising

Sketchnotes can be a useful tool to think something through.  Many people find it useful to explore, through using pictures and diagrams, the relationships between information or ideas and Sketchnotes can be a vehicle for doing this. 

As with planning, the end result may be less finished, more back of the envelope.

Here is an example of a Sketchnote that I created to pull together some of the findings from some informal research that my colleague Niall Gavin and I did into the uses of Virtual Reality (VR) for Learning and Development.  We read articles, talked to experts, tried out different examples of VR and reflected together on what we had learnt.  As a result of this I put together a Sketchnote showing examples of the uses of VR for learning in the workplace using the degree of immersion as a rating scale.  This Sketchnote is the final polished version, as I reworked it for use in an article – if I was just sense-making for myself, I wouldn’t include such finished pictures!

I hope that this review of these five uses of Sketchnoting gives you some ideas of how you can use Sketchnotes to support learning.  I would be really interested in your ideas and examples of how you can use Sketchnoting to support effective learning – do get in touch to share your thoughts.

Rachel Burnham

16/9/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Read and Relish

Rachel Burnham writes: From time to time I see articles that remind us how assorted well known successful people all read a humongous number of books each month. I have occasionally had exchanges with individuals who report ‘reading’ or rather listening to a book a week.  I notice comments from people who have set themselves a target to read a certain number of books a year, but are confessing that they are not succeeding in doing this.  I hear people saying they aspire to read more.  I hear people apologising for not reading much.  And there are services now that claim they can abbreviate books so that you can ‘read’ the key points from 5 books in a day!

I find myself at odds with this. 

Not because I don’t thinking reading books is a good thing.  I love to read, it is my lifeblood.  I have always been a bookworm. I am never happier than when I have my nose in a book – well possibly, if listening to live jazz, played in a garden, whilst reading!  My home is filled with books of all sorts – fiction, histories, picture books, business books, books about gardening, books about physics, books about patchwork, Greek plays (my son’s influence), thrillers, poetry, books about books.  Books are a kind of extra insulation layer to the house.

I usually have several books on the go at a time – usually some fiction, often a work related book of some kind and probably some a non-fiction book. I make time in my week to read.  I turn the television off or retreat to my bedroom to read.  I have been known to take a week off work to read.   But at most I read about 40 books a year – I know, I keep a list.  I have lists going back many years now.  I will never reach the output of books read that some of these articles report or that some people set themselves as targets – I like time to think about what I read.

One of the joys of reading for me, is pausing and pondering – letting my imagination wander, seeing the world created in a work of fiction come to life in my mind or exploring the ideas and connecting them and applying them in life.   I find I can’t do that if I race through a book. 

I think reading is about the journey, not the destination.  For me it is not the ticking off of a checklist or a point towards a target.  I think there’s a risk of missing out on the delights along the way, of not digesting what has been written, so I prefer to take my reading slowly.

Read for pleasure.  Read for learning.  Read to share with others.  Read for information.  Read to be amused.  Read to have your mind boggled.  Read out loud, for the sounds and rhythms.  Read for the pictures and diagrams, for the bindings and design.  Read for the smell of a new book. Read to be provoked.  Read to critique.  Read to have your bias confirmed or challenged.  Read to inform your own writing. Read to apply.  Read to inspire.  Read to fire up your experimentation.  Read to hear other voices.  Read to visit other places or times. Read to escape.  Read to relax.  But above all read and relish.

Rachel Burnham

9/9/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Silence, Space and Sense-making

Rachel Burnham writes: Back in the autumn there was a slew of blog articles about the value of silence and the importance of having space in our lives to think and consider.  In some of these pieces the author related this to meeting their needs as an introvert and as a fellow introvert this interested me.  I began to contemplate this article then, but somehow never found the space to write it…

Now, feeling the benefits of the break over Christmas and the space that gave me, I have made space to write this.

It is a commonplace when thinking about silence and the need for space in our lives to begin by acknowledging the sheer business of our lives and the myriad of information flows competing for our attention.  Particularly if you are into social media, like to read and have the usual array of electronic devices pumping radio, TV, and online options into your home and phone.  So I will take that as a given.

In the autumn, I started to switch off from the computer and social media for one day a week on a Saturday.  I felt I would benefit from time away – a proper break from work - and partly so that I could fully concentrate on other stuff.   I didn’t do this in a conscious ‘turning over a new leaf’ sort of way, it sort of emerged and then I found I liked it and did it more consciously.  I don’t have a hard and fast rule, so I might dip into Twitter, but I try hard not to have to turn my computer on.

And I have found interesting the different space it has created in Saturdays.   The different rhythm for the day.   And the different times it creates within the day.

I have been enjoying having silent times on Saturdays – not always possible when family is in and around our small house – but I like having even small pools of silence – shutting the kitchen door when cooking for example or working quietly on the allotment in the afternoon, when most of the regulars have already finished for the day.

I like have a task to do, one that engages my hands, but not is not too demanding – weeding always works, washing up is a good standby and during the winter I have been mending by hand a piece of upholstered furniture – just for the sheer pleasure to be quiet and contemplate.

One day in October, when I was in the house alone, working on that furniture, I just listened and thought about the ‘silence’.  It was still warm and I had the windows throughout the house open.  Here is what I heard:

Constant noises – the washing machine downstairs, water through the pipes, the soft drone of traffic on the nearby arterial road out of Manchester, a zooming noise – possible hoovering by a neighbour.

Intermittent noises – sounds like someone hammering, a vehicle slamming on the breaks, a car swerving, children laughing, person calling out, person shouting, bottles clanking in a crate – perhaps someone loading up the recycling bin, a door within the house creaking open, bird song (various), the sound of the wind – leaves rustling and my favourite the sound of a leaf falling (well, maybe a twig).

So, not silent at all.  And how much we miss, when we don’t pause and listen!

Often, it is when I’m silent that I really have time to think, recall, remember and make sense of what has happened, what I have read, heard, seen, said and done.  And can learn from it.  This links to Harold Jarche’s ‘Seek, Sense and Share’ framework.

My 'sense-making' image of Harold Jarche's 'Seek, Sense, Share' Framework

Yesterday I began reading ‘Cat’s Eye’ by Margaret Atwood.  It begins by reflecting on time ‘You don’t look back along time but down through it, like water.  Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing.’

And that’s how it seems to me in those moments of silence and space that memories surface – sometimes old and often more recent.

One day in that silence in the autumn, I found myself seeing again my grandad’s hands – brief but vivid scenes of time spent with him when I was a child – he died when I was about 8.  His hands planting young leek plants, puddling them in and his thumbs and fingers firming the rich dark soil around the slender green slip.   Entranced, as he tied string around the neck of a jam jar to create a handle so my sister and I could collect and pick blackberries with him.  Stretching up to reach a shrub hanging over a redbrick wall of a garden and taking a cutting with the small olive green pruning scissors, I now have as my own – and my feelings of deep embarrassment at a church minister cutting at someone’s plant in the street!  You can tell that he influenced my love of gardening.

And sometimes in the silence, it is things that I have read – blogs and articles, or heard, questions asked and unasked, things I have said, things I wished I had said and things I wished I hadn’t said – that surface.  Sometimes connections are made or contradictions become clear – previously unnoticed.   Patterns emerge.  Ideas or new questions to ask or chasms of understanding appear.  Sometimes, it is possible to see how my actions contributed to something positive or played a part in something less successful and it is possible to identify different options, alternative courses of action that I could take in the future.  Reflections. Sense-making of the past, sense-making for now, sense-making for future actions.

But for me, none of that sense-making possible without silence and space.

Rachel Burnham

17/1/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD