Refereed articles

Volume 5, Number 1 : 2010

ISSN:

The Importance and Loss of Studio-based Education in Australian Universities 

Adam Newcombe

Physical, studio-based skill learning is being curtailed in Australian universities and studio activities are being lost across the university curricula. Indeed, academic managers are constantly reducing the time spent in skill-based physical activities by expanding compulsory student time spent in textual and digital communication activities. Sensorimotor or bodily-kinesthetic development and cognitive or spatial development are inextricably linked.

The manual skill of holding a marking tool and learning spatially to write defines the entire edifice of academic thought and communication. The simplistic notion that we only have to write about something misses the profound importance of learning complex bodily- kinesthetic, visual, phenomenological, interpersonal and creative skills. 

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