At our first session of the CATO May Seminars on 12.05.2026, I presented my talk Encouraging Offline Learning Experiences in Online Creative Arts Degrees. In summary, I made the case that even though an online degree works through the interface of the screen, and is digitally based in terms of exchanging information, creative arts degrees online can and should maximise the potential of offline learning.
Research generally points to the pros and cons of online versus campus-based (or “residential”) learning with “hybrid” learning sometimes promoted as the ideal compromise. However, if we build in as much offline learning in relay with the online experience this can help mitigate some of the problems of online learning such as “feelings of isolation and disengagement” (Watjatrakul, 2014).
We know that the online cohorts that are emerging look quite different to the campus cohort in terms of demographics and geographical spread. We have moved on from the covid-enforced version of online learning where it was important to quickly find solutions and imitate the campus as closely as possible. Our cohorts now have a huge range of experience between them and a wide range of localised resources to draw upon.These need to be built into the online curriculum as an opportunity rather than a limitation.
I presented the Level Four Illustration Module Explore on our BA Illustration Online, and showed how mostly working from home, with limited space and limited uninterrupted time, our students successfully navigate two practice projects which ask them to experiment with two- and three-dimensional media and methods.
Through innovation and resourcefulness, students in this module are able to use low-cost materials and objects locally available to them to create a wide range of experimental outcomes. In a preliminary exercise to formal thinking the students simply build a topography with household objects which they can light and film in different ways. This allows a kind of free thinking about form without any kind of consumption of materials. Over the course of two projects they will explore printmaking and then extend into their own experiments – we see monoprinting, photo exposure prints, stencil techniques, gelli printing, linocut, model making with clay, cardboard, objects, textile and yarn-based techniques, work with metal, wood, leather and synthetic materials. Therefore, the absence of traditional workshops and facilities encourages resourcefulness and in no way diminishes the quality of the outcomes. To be resourceful with materials and methods is to innovate and thus is inherently creative. To find your materials and create an unknown outcome from what is available to you is a qualitatively different learning process than starting with a set of materials for an known outcome, as for example in a guided workshop scenario.
The module further encourages offline learning in that students are asked to undertake a “field trip” to think about what is going on locally through public discourse, and to use this as a way in to initiating ideas for the project. Many students base their work on their geographical situatedness. They often live in rural locations and use the project to get closer to the natural environment, becoming more observant through walking and sketching outdoors. Observation of the real world, away from the computer, is continually encouraged. And yet, as illustrators, we want them to develop imaginative and narrative powers too. Therefore, these real-world connections can take them anywhere they wish to go with the work.
In my talk I noted the variety of highly imaginative and diversified outcomes, which I believe is positively connected to not spending most of the working time in a shared physical space. Through an analysis of students’ comments in their process notes uploaded with final submissions, I was able to analyse the forms of learning that take place through Bloom’s taxonomy of educational goals. Whilst this is now viewed as a somewhat blunt categorisation of domains, – psychomotor, affective and cognitive – it is possible to identify these broad areas and where they overlap through the students’ self analyses of process. In particular the psychomotor and the affective are synchronised when students are experimenting with new materials. These learning types are possible through the range of stimuli and the balance between material, digital and cognitive work.
I noted how there was a productive relay between online and offline learning, individual and collaborative learning, taught material, and learning through discovery. Much of the learning is self-initiated, where the student becomes motivated to find out more and learn new techniques. Students often know their way around online resources and quickly pick up how to find a resource for a skill they need.
Finally, I talked about the values we share in the module: A subtext of the whole module is to think critically about environmental and social systems both now and historically and to encourage progressive values. By working with both fictions and real existing environments, a consciousness for values which are of existential importance can be encouraged.
Through ongoing social, tactile, embodied and material contact with the real world, both physical and social can we achieve better social cohesion and respect for all kinds of real-world environments. There are undoubted mental health benefits in encouraging online students, where social anxiety or limited mobility may well inform the choice to study online, to come into contact with tactile, natural, and social environments in their own locality. There is plenty of evidence for such benefits, as nicely expressed here by Løvoll and Torrissen:
“Participation in arts and nature based practices offers the chance to move from equilibrium to disequilibrium through exposure to new environments, new practices, and new social roles. This process fosters a possibility oriented mindset, promoting growth and positive change.”(2)
I would welcome any other examples from others working in this field of the successful use of offline learning for online creative degrees.
(1) Watjatrakul, B. (2014). Factors Affecting Students’ Intentions to Study at Universities Adopting The “Student-As-Customer” Concept. International Journal of Educational Management. 2014;28(6):676-693, quoted in International Journal of Research Vol. 11 Issue 08 August 2024 “The Efficacy and Acceptance of Online Learning vs. Offline Learning in Higher Learning Institutions: A Systematic Review” Chanda Chansa Thelma1, Edwin Vinandi Phiri.
(2) Helga Synnevåg Løvoll and Wenche Torrissen (2025). “Frameworks for creative wellbeing: Arts and nature meet positive psychology”, 31 in Exploring Creative Wellbeing Frameworks in Context Nature, Culture, and Sustainable Futures, Eds. Torrissen and Synnevåg Løvoll
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