This week I was working with students on a reflective activity whereby they were asked to create a poster that visually illustrated their learning journey throughout the module.

This was an attempt to move away from a written format of reflection, and to acknowledge alternative methods to represent knowledge and information. I hoped that the activity would provide an opportunity for students to tap into their creativity, and to engage more authentically and perhaps more meaningfully with the reflection process.

The students were invited to use digital tools, or to employ good old-fashioned paper and pens. I knew that most would opt for Canva, or for PowerPoint, but perhaps naively believed that one or two individuals might choose paper. And so, I took the liberty of bringing large sheets of blank paper, and an array of inviting writing tools to the class.

As the group went to work, laptops and iPads appeared around the room.  I began to circulate, and to chat with individuals about their plans for the poster.  As I did so, a pattern began to emerge. Images were being sought from the Canva library – stacks of schoolbooks, children playing, blackboards and chalk. Generic ‘educational’ images. Reflections were in turn, being mapped onto those images. This was not the plan.

So, we took a pause, and I tried to explain the brief more clearly this time round. The idea is to visually represent our experience. To reflect through imagery. So rather than searching for digital images as the initial step, could we perhaps first take some paper and pens and try sketching our experiences. Recall a moment of learning or a moment of wondering and sketch out some images that moment conjures up. And then, by all means revert to Canva and search for the images that best represent that experience.

‘But I can’t draw’. ‘I’m not creative’. ‘I’m no good at art’.

I heard the responses, and I understand them to an extent. We all want the finished product to look good, and we are not all gifted with artistic skills. So digital tools can be helpful in producing a poster that is aesthetically pleasing and polished. We do live in a world after all, of visually pleasing Instagram feeds.

But what I wondered about afterwards, was the reluctance to even sketch, to scribble or to brainstorm using the paper and pens. And I wondered if creativity is hampered by the use of digital tools, or is this just simply my own experience. Before I engage in any kind if strategic work, I reach for some paper and pencil, and I draw or I write my plan. I enjoy this part of the process, and it helps me to think, to create and to imagine.

I asked a writer friend. She agreed that she likes to use paper and pen to begin the writing process before turning to digital tools. But she reminded my that this might not be the experience of those students in my group. And so, I was left wondering.

Does creativity call for paper?