Sketch Your Thinking

Most people stop drawing somewhere around fourth grade. Not because they lose the ability, but because they start believing drawing is only for artists.

In this keynote, Manuel Herrera invites educators and school leaders to pick up a pen again. Not to create perfect pictures, but to make thinking visible. Through simple sketches, visual frameworks, and playful exercises, participants explore how drawing can support learning, deepen understanding, and help students communicate ideas in new ways.

Along the way, the audience will take part in a quick sketch activity that demonstrates how even the simplest drawings can help clarify thinking and spark new ideas. No artistic experience required. Only curiosity and a willingness to try.

By the end, participants will see how visual thinking can become a powerful tool for learning, reflection, and idea development in classrooms and schools.

Themes

• Drawing as a Learning Tool
Simple sketches help students organize ideas, explain their thinking, and make learning more visible.

• Process Over Product
Learning grows when students focus on exploring ideas rather than worrying about getting the “right” answer.

• Creative Confidence in the Classroom
Drawing can help students build confidence as thinkers, creators, and problem solvers.

Audience Takeaways

• A simple drawing activity they can immediately use with students to explore ideas or reflect on learning
• A mindset shift from “drawing as art” to drawing as a learning strategy
• Practical ways to use visual thinking for brainstorming, note-taking, and student expression

Drawn Together

Schools are places where ideas grow through conversation, collaboration, and shared learning. But sometimes students and educators struggle to find ways to bring their thinking into the open.

In Drawn Together, Manuel explores how drawing can become a shared language that helps students, teachers, and school leaders explore ideas together. Simple sketches can open the door for participation, invite curiosity, and help people see how their thinking connects with others.

During the keynote, participants will take part in a short collaborative drawing experience that demonstrates how quickly ideas expand when people build on each other’s thinking.

This session highlights how visual thinking can support collaboration, strengthen classroom culture, and help learning communities explore ideas in ways that feel accessible and engaging for everyone.

Themes

• Drawing as a Shared Language for Learning
Simple sketches can help students communicate ideas and build understanding together.

• Learning Through Collaboration
When students and educators share their thinking visually, it invites others to question, contribute, and expand ideas.

• Participation Over Perfection
Drawing lowers the barrier to participation and helps more voices enter the learning process.

Audience Takeaways

• A collaborative drawing activity that can spark discussion and idea sharing in classrooms or professional learning settings
• Strategies for using visual thinking to support student collaboration and problem solving
• A new way to think about creativity as something that grows through shared exploration and community

Think. Draw. Learn.

Description
In classrooms, meetings, and conferences, we are constantly surrounded by ideas. The challenge is figuring out how to capture them in ways that help us understand, remember, and use them later.

In this interactive workshop, Manuel introduces participants to the practice of sketchnoting. Using simple drawings, words, shapes, and visual frameworks, participants learn how to listen for ideas and turn them into visual notes that make thinking easier to see and revisit.

Participants will practice a few easy techniques that help transform traditional note taking into something more visual and meaningful. The focus is not on artistic skill. The focus is on learning how to notice ideas, organize them visually, and build confidence along the way.

By the end of the session, participants will have created their own sketchnotes and will leave with strategies they can use immediately in classrooms, meetings, and professional learning settings.

Themes

• Listening for ideas
Learning how to identify key ideas and organize them visually.

• Drawing as a learning strategy
Using simple sketches to support comprehension, memory, and reflection.

• Building confidence with visual notes
Helping participants move past the belief that they cannot draw.

Audience Takeaways

• A simple framework for creating sketchnotes during lessons, presentations, or meetings
• A set of basic visual elements anyone can draw
• Strategies for using sketchnoting to support student learning and engagement

Sketch Your Thinking Workshop

Description
Sketchnoting helps us capture ideas. But drawing can also help us create them.

In this workshop, participants explore how simple sketches can support brainstorming, planning, and creative problem solving. Instead of waiting for the perfect idea to appear, drawing becomes a way to explore possibilities, organize thinking, and see connections that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Through a series of quick drawing activities, participants will experiment with visual strategies for idea generation, storyboarding, planning projects, and mapping out concepts.

The goal is not to produce polished drawings. The goal is to use drawing as a thinking tool that helps ideas grow.

Participants leave with practical visual frameworks they can use with students, colleagues, or teams to support creative thinking and collaboration.

Themes

• Drawing to generate ideas
Using quick sketches to explore possibilities and think through problems.

• Process over product
Emphasizing exploration rather than perfection.

• Making thinking visible
Using drawing to organize thoughts and communicate ideas more clearly.

Audience Takeaways

• Visual strategies for brainstorming and idea generation
• Simple drawing frameworks for planning projects and lessons
• New ways to help students and teams explore ideas creatively