For universities, education not only means to convey knowledge alone. That would be too short. Therefore, it is not a matter of knowledge training, but study.
Because studying as education should go hand in hand with a holistic personality development of the students.
Just think of ancient times when the students still lived with the teacher to achieve this goal. On the campus, this can still be lived in a way.
When art comes into play
At this point, art now comes into play. It should play a fundamental role in emotional and social learning at the university. Nowadays, science could even prove how much easier we humans can remember with an emotional connection.
What is important to us and interests us, we can remember more easily. That makes it clear what role art can play when studying.
It is not just about admiring and getting to know art, but also about creating all kinds of works of art. The social component comes into play. Many people first think of paintings or sculptures, but any other creative task can also be used in this way:
- Compositions of pieces of music
- Writing of plays
- Multimedia presentations
- Collages of all kinds
- Creative marketing
- Film projects
- Podcasts on special topics
- Design of magazines or magazines
We think here about artistic texts from poems to stories, novels, thrillers, but also treatises on all possible topics that are currently being studied. In this regard, many students are happy to use the support in the publication of their work by the Internet.
You can even work as a ghostwriter or commit one to bring your research results into the optimal form for online publication. Because again they will never be able to deal with certain topics as intensely and undisturbed as in their studies. This can be a great enrichment for many industries.
Use double and win all
Let's think through an example in practice. A teacher gives the student or students homework on the subject of turbulence on radiation nozzles. To solve this task, this gives around an entire team of students at the university.
This creates a social form of learning and studying, because the participants of the university research group not only explore the topic itself. You also have to get along, learn to deal with other opinions. The researchers experience that apparent facts from different perspectives and different people are perceived completely differently.

the photo of Cottonbro Studio, via Pexels
This is exactly this development of the personality that we have already mentioned at the beginning. Because of the creative task in the group of projects, the students learn to exchange ideas and work together. Not only does that benefit from the economy later when clever minds come off that work well together in the team.
The results of the group research of the students at the universities can often be used in practice. This is already the case, which is why it is so important these days that they are optimally published online.
It does not play a major role if a ghostwriter helps to bring the many structured data and results for the Internet into a readable form. Fortunately, as a student, you no longer have to do everything yourself.
Further development of the teaching methods at universities
That is why it is so important that teachers at universities also recognize art more than versatile possibility.
They use them in class and think of creative tasks to support the students in the independent and joint development of knowledge.
All of this can be accommodated in the context of the existing curriculum if the teacher is available for this.
Such projects thus replace conventional homework, which often only trigger boredom, with the students and are regarded as an annoying duty. Instead, the students suddenly work on projects that they look forward to and where they like to work together to pull together.
The teachers can use the full range of options, from research tasks, as above in the example, to the design of works of art, composition of music , common paintings and much more. Each of these tasks makes lessons and education itself much more attractive and interesting for the students, which means that there is also much more memory.
Conclusion on art as a tool for social and emotional learning
At this point you should have already recognized that the creativity of the teachers is not limited in this regard either. Anyone who believes that this concept can only be implemented in certain subjects is extremely wrong.
Each subject offers countless opportunities to inspire the students with creative homework and joint projects so much for the respective topic that they will never forget it again.
So it is undoubtedly a great idea and extremely effective to use the art, in whatever form, for social and emotional learning.
This could significantly improve our education at universities for both the students and the teachers and bring them to a completely new level.

Owner and managing director of Kunstplaza . Publicist, editor and passionate blogger in the field of art, design and creativity since 2011. Successful conclusion in web design as part of a university degree (2008). Further development of creativity techniques through courses in free drawing, expression painting and theatre/acting. Profound knowledge of the art market through many years of journalistic research and numerous collaborations with actors/institutions from art and culture.