Teaching multimodality in the museum through embodied experiences

Abstract

This reflection focuses on the integration of a museum visit into a higher education course for the purpose of teaching multimodality in an embodied way. Informed by the social semiotic approach to multimodality, the course aims to help students critically interact with multimodal texts using multimodal concepts. In this pedagogical process, exhibitions as multimodal texts gain a special place. This reflection highlights four activities which were designed to support the embodied learning of multimodality during a visit to a youth gallery with a group of university students. These activities included two types of explorations, responding to guiding questions, group discussions and map drawing. This reflection concludes with some thoughts on the benefits of the embodied teaching of multimodality through museum visits in higher education.

Keywords

Multimodal practices museum embodied modes pedagogy senses

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