This study presents the added value that art journaling has for Education students. Art journaling is a contemplative-pedagogical strategy we used while teaching “Assimilating Arts into Teaching,” an introductory course in an undergraduate program in Israel which emphasizes contemplation and personal growth through the arts (Ankori & Hammer, 2018). 

Barbezat and Bush (2013) stated that “reading in college today is more often a race to finish a text than a search for hidden meaning” (p. 112). They described cases of college teachers who were inspired by traditional contemplative religious reading practices and who underwent a reading process in their classes aiming at achieving personal and spiritual insights.

Furthermore, Barbezat and Bush (2013) suggested that contemplative journal writing can encourage students to generate their own fresh ideas rather than limit themselves to the academic analysis of other people’s texts. It helps them explore their emotional, intuitive, and sensorial responses to course material. Many teachers introduce mindfulness meditation practice before, during, and after periods of writing or reading to encourage their students to write mindfully and to “discover direct, honest language, without self-conscious cleverness or display of ego, a language that yearns to reveal, to lay bare the truth of the student’s insight and the details of his or her unique story” (Barbezat & Bush, p. 132).

In recent years, personal blogs have been widely used in higher education to promote reflective thinking (e.g., Garcia et al., 2019; Rennie & Morrison, 2013). Blogs can facilitate student-centered learning, support the development of academic literacies, and foster collaborations (Wankel & Blessinger, 2012). Educational blogs can be seen as an extension of academic journaling: whereas journals are personal documents (typically read only by instructors), part of the thrill of publishing a blog is its public nature (Radclyffe-Thomas, 2012). For many students, presenting their artifacts publicly is a motivational boost (e.g., Radinsky et al., 2001).

In a visual journal, individuals record their experiences using both imagery and written text. Numerous studies have shown that educational journals and blogs promote critical reflection. However, few studies address the potential of visual journaling to facilitate reflection (Deaver & McAuliffe, 2009). Deaver and McAuliffe's participants considered the combination of artmaking and responsive writing to be a particularly effective aspect of their experience.

Contemplative art takes art journaling a step further. The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (2016) described the creative “branch” (and, within it, contemplative art) as one of the major contemplative practices currently in use in academic settings. The Center stressed that the purpose of contemplative art is to observe the mind while engaging in the creative process. Thus, the process of making artwork overrides the product itself. For instance, people are encouraged to maintain an awareness not just of what they are making and the process of creating it but also how they are feeling and the way the mind jumps from one topic to another.

This study’s goal was to examine the impact of art journaling on students’ emotional and intellectual understanding of theoretical articles and on their ability to appreciate and integrate experiences and insights from theoretical papers into their professional development.

From those goals stem several research questions:

•     How would students respond to the request to create art journals while reading theoretical texts?

•     Would they be open to sharing their journals with classmates?

•     What kinds of art journals would emerge from this assignment?

•     What would be students’ evaluations of the extent to which creative art journals enhanced their understanding of a theoretical paper?

•     How would students view the potential contributions of art journals to their professional and personal development?

In this work we chose the qualitative research approach, which seems most suitable for this exploratory project that evolved as a result of “reflection in action” (Schön, 1987) of the instructors teaching the course. Qualitative research is considered particularly appropriate for data collected in naturalistic settings, where the researchers are active members of the system they study (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014). This study was conducted at a college in northern Israel, in an undergraduate program in education. The two-credit, one-semester course studied is an introductory mandatory course for students who choose to major in education through the arts. Each semester, about 60 students enroll in the course. As art journaling was an ongoing method of teaching and assessing students’ advancement, all students in the year in which this change occurred participated in the field study (120 students altogether). Art journals for this paper were chosen (with students’ consent) from journals submitted that year.

In line with previous research on verbal journals, the art journals presented and discussed in this study motivated students to read, and helped them think the articles through and connect the concepts to their own life experiences (Barbezat & Bush, 2013). The art pieces exemplars presented suggest that when students are invited to explore their personal experiences and emotions as they relate to demanding and at times difficult to understand concepts, they are happy to do so. More so, such a process might result with moving artifacts, which has the potential to encourage a rich social discourse in class and to facilitate the process of an interesting and diverse negotiation of meaning. We strongly believe that such processes meaningfully contribute to the professional development of Education students. This project helped us realize that art journaling is indeed an important process for students in search of their personal and professional identities. A prospective teacher who contemplates these issues with an open heart and a clear mind can contribute enormously to education.

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