Drawing out critical conversations in the management classroom

Management education, arts-based learning, community of inquiry

Arts-based methods are of increasing interest to management educators and this activity can be used to support a community of inquiry in the virtual classroom. The activity commences by asking students to draw (using no words!) a managerial or workplace experience. Students then explain their drawing to a peer. The educator-led debrief focuses on disclosing the subjectivity of experience and then triggering a reflection of the cohort’s narratives against management theory. This thirty-minute activity, designed to initiate discussion of challenging aspects of management practice, cultivates social presence in the management classroom and reveals the subjectivity of organizational life.