Graphic Thinking Research Articles

Some Like It Hot: Promoting Measurement and Graphical Thinking by Using Temperature

Looking for a hot topic of discussion? Try temperature. Although many applied-measurement activities are used in classrooms today, most focus on distance or position. The fundamental concepts of temperature and the change in temperature over time are often overlooked.

Using Fundamentals of Description: A Foundation for Historical Inquiry

Issue Students have shown a need for increased development of visual and analytic skills when confronting pictorially presented information. Material culture studies utilize descriptive technique as the foundation of their investigative methodology and provide a basic structure for a modified pedagogy of design history Courses Goal A case for teaching verbal and graphic techniques of analytic description in the context of introductory design history courses is built in this report. Application Engaging students in fundamental descriptive techniques provides a link between a synthetically experiential understanding of the built environment and the analytic, fragmented comprehension common to visually presented slide images. Students utilize information about historical examples not as passive learners but by building for themselves an active framework for understanding. Description Descriptive exercises were added to an introductory design history course to engage students in the development of visual and graphic thinking skills that become the foundation for their historical inquiries Projects incorporating descriptive inquiry for introductory history courses serve as a case study. Conclusion Descriptive exercises allow learning history to be more closely associated with skills basic to studio activity Results indicate increased student interest, deeper penetration of inquiry, and greater impor’ of histcrical content into studio work.

The Effects of Art/Drama Therapy Experiences on Rigidity, Body Concept and Mental Maturity in Graphic Thinking of Adolescents with Mental Retardation

AbstractSubaverage and rigid cognition is the primary dysfunction in mental retardation. This study focuses on the decreasing of rigidity and consequent enhancement of receptive/expressive cognitive functioning in order to clear the channel of and prepare the groundwork for communication of thoughts and ideas in the further therapeutic intervention. Only this cognitively-oriented preparatory phase was the focus of this article. An art and drama therapy program was designed for 21 Mentally Retarded (MR) students at the Kennedy Institute, a private special education facility, in Washington, DC. For this study, an art and drama therapy curriculum using Piaget's theoretical framework of cognitive development was implemented. The curriculum was designed to bombard the cognition of MR participants through graphic, movement, visual and auditory thinking as alternative modalities for verbal thinking. Drawings were assessed regarding body concept, rigidity, and mental maturity to determine the effects of the Art a...

Study Drawings in Architectural Design: Their Properties as a Graphic Medium

This paper proposes a theoretical foundation for extending our understanding of study drawings by bringing forward concepts from a number of disciplines that are concerned with the structure of knowledge. Study drawings are defined as the informal, private drawings that architectural designers use as a medium for graphic thinking in the exploratory stages of their work. Drawings from the work of Paxton through Picasso are analyzed to confirm the familiar characteristics of study drawings and to identify the properties which account for their role in the working process of design, including their use as a means of inquiry. This epistemological function is compared with certain features of written language in order to propose an internal structure for study drawings. The paper concludes that much of the origin and nature of knowledge in design can be explained in terms of the properties and processes of study drawings and that these terms should be used to evaluate proposals for new media in design.