This report describes the approaches of three elementary teachers in a one west-side Vancouver elementary school. All three are using visual images to engage their students in learning, whether by the use of traditional drawing, computer-generated drawing, collage, or digital photography.
This report describes three teachers' exploration of teaching social responsibility in an elementary school in Vancouver, Canada. The relevance of the teachers' work to the Multiliteracies project is that each of the three teachers gives a prominent place to visual images in promoting students' learning and communication skills in this particular context.
In the majority of Case Studies undertaken in the Multiliteracies research project, the Case documents the practices and context of classroom practices in light of the contribution which the teachers believe the practice makes to the students' education. Teachers, reflecting on their own practices are encouraged to examine the claims they would make with respect to innovative practices, while then looking for evidence in the classroom work to assess the validity of such a claim. In the three cases which follow, the claims that the teachers and researchers are making are very tentative and speculative, in light of the highly exploratory nature of aspects of the teachers' work. So for these teachers, the claims are more akin to a questioning and exploration of the possibilities of innovative practices. And the principal question in this case, is whether the creation and use of images in three elementary classrooms can improve student communication skills, which in turn might lead to better conceptual understanding and higher-order thinking.
Three Case Studies follow this brief introduction, followed by a discussion of the reports. In the discussion section we consider the evidence, (based largely but not exclusively on teachers' observations and reflections,) of the approaches described in each case, as to whether the approaches support student learning and how they connect to the concept of Multiliteracies.
This case study provides information about my classroom-based action research and reflection on how the practice of using visuals links to develop communication skills and conceptual understanding (in this case of the concept of social responsibility). I am also exploring whether the use of visuals to promote communication connects to the concept of Multiliteracies. Will encouraging students to create and interpret visual information make them more visually literate or aware of how communication can be visual as well as verbal? Will visuals spur conversation and discussion, which might in turn promote engagement, conceptual understanding and oral communication skills? This research represents a first step for me in considering the utility of visuals in my Grade 5 classroom through a research process. While I am cautious about any definitive claims, I am tentatively stating a claim that the use of visuals can build conceptual understanding and support the development of improved communication skills.
Specifically, I have looked at a variety of teaching and learning used to enhance traditional literacy and communication skills while teaching aspects of Social Responsibility. An example of this was visiting a school in a different school district where a teacher had built some experience and expertise on using visual images, combining these images with children's writing to promote literacy and social responsibility. A second example was when I team-taught, and observed and discussed techniques and approaches used by my partner, and a third involved participation in Vancouver School Board Pro-D activities focusing on Social Responsibility goals. These experiences of observing and working with peers have been significant influences on my approaches to teaching in general and to the building of literacy and the teaching of social responsibility.
The classroom based research focuses on a two week period of time which is typical of the types of instructional activities used in this grade 5 classroom. Two unanticipated benefits have emerged during the course of this research: the utility of student-generated visuals and student negotiation skills. By negotiation skills I am referring to the skills which is being developed in students where they engage in discourse with other students and through such discourse learn to offer ideas and receive suggestions during a process where they collectively produce a product. Negotiation, in this case study, refers to a style of oral communication, spurred by visual imagery, that is intended to promote the development of conceptual understanding. In this particular case, the product of this use of visual imagery and negotiation is a poster which visually communicates the shared and negotiated consensus of an area of social responsibility. The process of negotiation and the product of the poster have proved crucial for engaging students and for building their communication skills.
Negotiation skills represent an extension of oral language use. The act of students negotiating with each other to build a shared understanding of a concept in the classroom can change the kind of learning taking place, in a way that is significantly different from learning derived from the more traditional teaching approaches I have used more often in the past. By this I mean that traditional teaching approaches often require less articulation of concepts and nuance by students, with more direct responses to the teacher rather than exploratory conversations between students. When the focus of oral communication is a concept such as social responsibility, and students may hold different understanding and perspectives on such a concept, I believe that the articulation and negotiation of this concept leads to richer concept development, and richer use of language. The use of visuals therefore provides both a representation of the concept and a focus for communication through negotiation which extends the range and subtlety of oral language.
Students began a short unit on the topic of respect and how that is reflected in students' behaviour in school hallways. This topic had previously been identified as an area of concern by staff at a Professional Development day. The students involved in this case study were all in grade 5 and in my class. Of the 28 students in the class, 8 were girls and 20 students were boys. One student was designated an ESL learner and 12 more students had unique learning styles identified through testing and resulting in 10 Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). The range of learning needs included the "Q" designation (high incidence learning needs) and "P" (gifted learner) and "GLD" (gifted learning disabled). Eight of these students had some type of "written output problem" identified on their IEPs. With such a large proportion of particular learning needs in one classroom (nearly half of all students), it is important that all students' learning styles and needs be addressed on a regular basis to ensure the highest quality of education for all students. This class, I believe, is typical of the school and in terms of varied learning needs throughout the district, may very likely contain fewer and less severe exceptionalities than many classes in other schools.
Our work with Multiliteracies entailed exploring visual communication linked to negotiated understanding. In this case, the visual images are collaboratively created in students' artwork, the final product resulting from negotiation within the group. While not involving technology or digital media-oriented work, this work nevertheless represents an important form of expression and communication, one form of the "diverse modes of representation" discussed by the New London Group (1996). It also links to the concepts of "viewing" and "representing" discussed in Begoray (2001) and identified by western Canadian provincial governments in developing a (1998) curriculum framework:
Viewing is an active process of attending to and comprehending visual media such as television, advertising, images, films, diagrams, symbols, photographs, videos, drama, drawings, sculpture and paintings. Representing enables students to communicate information and ideas through a variety of media.
The first instructional activity was a shared reading assignment from a publication called The Virtues Project on the topic of respect. This was a two-page reading with headings such as:
What is Respect?
Why practice it?
What would respect look like if
Under each heading was a brief paragraph expanding the question and posing questions to promote class discussion, and a list of reflective questions such as "How do you feel when people treat you respectfully?"
Following the reading, students were asked to apply the principles of the article to their own behaviour at different times of the day in a class discussion there was no monitoring or documenting of students actual behaviour in any way. I then asked the students to apply the concept of respect to hallway behaviour and we recorded their ideas on a chart that developed into a poster. The resulting "Respect in the Hallways: What it Looks Like" poster was completely student generated.
Once our class poster was generated, I informed students that our assignment, as a class, was to create a hallway display on the bulletin board that would quickly and effectively teach other students about the hallway behaviour expectations. In partners or small groups, they chose one (or more) behaviour expectation from the list on the class poster and signed up to be responsible for that part. In small groups of two or three, they created visuals for our class display after going through a process of negotiating within the group. This involved each group discussing details, preferences and ideas, with the understanding that they needed to achieve consensus that would result in a product (the visual and written display) which included ideas from each member of the group.
The visuals were 11" by 17" coloured posters with pictures and short word messages and clear, simple hallway behaviour statements printed from the computer in large font. All posters were worked on collaboratively during class time. To conclude the unit, students were asked to write a short essay on the topic of respect in which one paragraph was to detail the ideas of hallway respect. Students also participated in a reflections survey which provided me with valuable insight about their learning. Some of these reflections are shared below:
The activities that helped me learn the most were the hallway respect posters and the typed respect reminders because there were so many things that people did that made you learn.
The activity that helped me learn the most was probably the poster of respect in the hallways because we had to brainstorm so many ideas and some of them I didn't know and now I do.
I think doing class discussions and charts and brainstorming made me learn a lot because everyone shared their ideas and that way you can hear lots of ideas.
Reading students' reflections makes me realize that their understanding of the collaborative process is quite sophisticated, accepting that they can hear and assimilate information from peers. While only a limited number of student reflections are quoted here, they show that students connected the collaborative creation of the visual images to the collaborative discussions, and to processes such as brainstorming. The use of visuals in a collaborative group discussion process, according to the students' reflections, supported their learning. But they also speak of 'ideas' which in some cases I would consider to be concepts of social responsibility extending the ideas led to richer conceptual understanding.
As this project progressed I gathered some evidence and data through observation and reflection. Walking around the class I would listen to and observe groups as they progressed in their discussions. Sometimes I would offer prompts or probes to encourage the extension of a particular idea or theme, and I also discussed my observations with the external researcher who visited the school. The students' reflections were also a source of data for me to consider the utility of this approach.
The creation of the visual appears to have become a bridge to communication between group members, supporting the tentative claim made at the start of this report. As students brainstormed ideas for their poster, within each group, they started to imagine the behaviour statement "in action." As a group, they had many decisions to consider such as: which hallway would they illustrate, which members of the Kitchener community would they include in their poster, what time of the day would their illustration reflect, and, how would they communicate their message in a socially responsible and effective way?
If students had worked individually, they would have gone through a similar process of decision making, answering the same questions for themselves. However, by participating in a discourse which involved negotiation, I observed that a richer comprehension, articulation and presentation was developed than could have been managed in isolation.
The act of negotiating became integral to the completion of the poster assignment as students in each group had to agree on what to put on their poster. In deciding what would go on the poster, they also made decisions about what was important to communicate to their peers. From my observations and discussions with the students it was evident that the students took this task very seriously and coming to an agreed upon poster was the result of collaboration and shared decision making. The shared decision making process (or negotiating) challenged each of the students to articulate their own ideas about what was important to include, to listen to their partner's ideas and take the best of the collective ideas when creating the end product, a poster for the hallway display. The process of determining what the "best" of other students' ideas would include was one which extended the students' understanding and negotiating skills.
Communication in this case was spurred by the joint creation of the visuals. As students engaged in the task, they were required to share their ideas and hear the ideas of others.
The discussion between group members ensured a more comprehensive development of conceptual understanding because each student's ideas were heard, considered and in some cases extended by other students. The students then built upon their existing knowledge by negotiating how the other person's ideas could "fit" into their own previous knowledge, resulting in an evolution of their understanding. The images became a focus beyond the individual, enabling collaboration to develop and negotiations to occur. The power of negotiating to enhance students' comprehension was particularly evident in the girls' groups where every last detail of the poster was decided upon jointly. The posters completed by groups of girls were typically more sophisticated than the images produced by the boys, with multiple messages.
Some of the boys' groups engaged in less dialogue than did the girls about the details of the poster. Frequently, a brief negotiation occurred, which resulted in straightforward and more basic messages communicated via the poster (see example by Jake, Chris and Tsukasa). The boys' conversation was therefore very task-oriented, with less exploration of ideas than was the case with the girls. There was also one strong leader in one particular group whose poster I have used as an example in this Case. While he was not dominant, he did direct the group towards completion of the task. In contrast the girls' group whose poster is used here had two (of three) very assertive leaders. Both these girls worked together well together but they were far more open to exploration of ideas and possibilities than were the boys. Thus it seemed that there were two types of approach, one focusing on the end product and how to produce it (male) while another (female) involved much greater consideration of the process of discussion and detail.
This leads me to reflect on addressing gender differences. How can I encourage boys to engage in a richer form of negotiation? Should I consider changing group composition where necessary to make this more feasible? In spite of these reflections, I believe that all groups worked effectively together. I also realize that I cannot make assumptions about gender based on such limited experience and data. Nevertheless, the experiences of observing the students and reflecting on the approach has resulted in my thinking more about gender in the classroom, and in particular whether I may need to initiate more observation and data collection about the engagement of boys in discussions and negotiations.
I believe it was the process of negotiation that developed the students' understanding of what respectable behaviour looked like and enhanced their comprehension and articulation of its components. This is a somewhat tentative claim based on my observations and reflections.
The act of collaboratively negotiating and creating a visual in this case appeared to be associated with students' comprehension of the key idea of respect for others and encouraged students to identify and describe, in language and in images, the most important, key components of a concept. Thus the group collaboration and negotiation developed communication skills of active listening, articulating concepts, building on ideas and achieving consensus.
Inter-personal skills, which I consider very similar to what I am defining as negotiation skills, have been recognized by the (US) Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) as one of the skills necessary in both work and personal life:
"Interpersonal Skills: can work on teams, teach others, lead, negotiate, work well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds, demonstrate individual responsibility, self-esteem and self-management and integrity."
These processes of negotiation and visual representation have been able to extend the concept and practices of literacy that I have used in the past. Through negotiation in small groups, students develop collaborative skills, and skills of negotiation. Both extend individual understanding, allowing for improved written, visual and oral communication. This is, I believe, a more comprehensive notion of literacy, encouraging students to switch between modes and to combine them, simultaneously building communicative skills and capacity.
Will the combination of image creation and discourse with peers further develop students' language capacity and their ability to think critically about images in the world around them? Can the use of visuals and classroom dialogue promote social responsibility norms, so that such norms may be developed and analyzed with the same critical acuity? Guided by these questions, I begin to see images being used in different ways and to think more critically about the use of images in my classroom.
From my classroom observations of the process of negotiation that occurred when creating the posters for this unit, the students' did indeed embody the concept of respect to varying degrees, while extending their learning. As one student reflected on the unit, she commented on the most effective classroom activities for helping her learn the most about respect:
"The poster helped me learn more because I got to show what I know but also learn more about respect."
This student's comment is evidence of her recognition of the importance of dialogue with peers in her learning, and is consistent with how I witnessed students' growing understanding of the construct of respect during the poster creation. Through authentic engagement in dialogue with each other, students developed and demonstrated respect for the diversity of perspectives and in doing so extended their own understandings, of both language and of social responsibility.
Reflecting on this experience I would argue, based on my observations, that negotiation is more effective than more "polite" conversation and sharing of ideas where students are not encouraged to be critical or come to agree upon understandings of a concept? By negotiation I refer to a more challenging, spirited discussion where students share different, possibly oppositional views, but find ways to deal with differences.
The move from basic conversation to more challenging negotiation is dependent on several factors in the school where I teach. First, there is a school-wide approach which fosters the development of communication skills by encouraging respectful dialogue and conversation. This is extended in each classroom, so that by the time students are in my Grade 5 class, they are well used to participating in discussions on a wide range of topics. This lays a base from which negotiation skills can be developed, by challenging, prompting and extending ideas while also maintaining the values of respect. Thus the concept of negotiation builds and extends from the school-wide approach while the focus on respect provides some safety and parameters with which students become acquainted, and which they practice in my class.
A polite sharing of ideas without any challenge does not promote the development of language, critical awareness or social responsibility. The process of building consensus and decision making through negotiating reflects the utlization of an approach that encourages students to come to new and more complex understandings. I would argue that a classroom environment that is safe, respectful and with stated social responsibility expectations, offers a foundation for being able to move from polite sharing of ideas to a critical dialogue which is managed by the students themselves. This process is therefore helping to build self-directed critical thinking abilities, as opposed to critical thinking activities that are heavily dependent on teacher direction.
Not every student or group fitted smoothly into the negotiating process. One group avoided a critical dialogue or process of negotiating entirely by agreeing to divide the paper into smaller sections. Each group member worked relatively independently on her section of the shared poster space. This group, while they worked well together and found an easy way to complete the required task, did not engage in a negotiation at all. The nature of their dialogue was not substantive and in some ways lacked respect or curiosity about each other's ideas. The thinking of the members of this group was not challenged to the same extent as in the groups where one image was produced, and where that visual represented the dialogue these students engaged in during their meaning making journey. As I become clearer on how to use visuals in a collaborative way I will, in the future, also adapt group structures and my inputs to encourage participation in negotiation. This will encourage students to understand that the process (negotiation) is as critical as the product (the image) to building language and social responsibility skills.
I would argue that the process of negotiating to create a visual is more powerful at promoting internalization of the concepts taught than reading or writing could result in alone. By this I mean that students appear to be building a more comprehensive conceptual understanding which is developed through both discussion and image-creation. The evidence for this, while limited, is derived from student reflections and from my own observation and reflections. The students and I observed and reflected that the uses of visuals spurred and enriched the kinds of conversations and understanding that took place. Within the context of a literacy unit, negotiating, visuals, reading, and writing all played their own part in developing students' understanding of an idea. I believe these are some of the skills that students will continue to use for effective communication. Perhaps by developing this approach in elementary school classrooms, we as educators can provide a foundation for critical discourse which students can use throughout their lives.
I also think that there is some evidence that the process of negotiation and visual art is a multi-literacy approach that allows for greater understanding of concepts which may be hard for students to comprehend either when working in isolation, or when using only written or verbal communication. The visual image both builds and reflects conceptual understanding while the process of negotiation allows such understanding to develop by building on students' existing knowledge. It links to the view of collaborative team learning (Kalantzis, Cope & Harvey, 2003), to the engagement of all students by building on their existing knowledge (New London Group, 1996), and to the usage and utility of visual communication, (Kress, 2003), all identified in the Multiliteracies literature. It also supports inclusive education, as the visual images, whether created or accessed, immediately engage all students, and allows greater participation than might be possible with oral or written approaches which exclude the use of visual images. Students are building the skills required for future collaboration, while developing respect at the same time, and extending their capacity for effective communication
Some interesting questions remain. Should we explore why the girls appeared to engage in more extensive negotiation than the boys? Were their images more reflective of this extended negotiation than those created by the boys? How might we build team skills so that students can collaboratively negotiate and develop understanding? Why are visual images useful to promote negotiation and as ways of sharing meaning and understanding? Can we use different forms of visual images, perhaps using digital cameras or video? These and other questions will be considered in the future as we build on this experience to develop communication and literacy skills using negotiation and visuals.
Begoray, D.L. (2001). Through a Glass Darkly: Visual Literacy in the Classroom. Canadian Journal of Education, 26, 2, 201-217.
Governments of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and Yukon Territory (1998). The common curriculum framework for English language arts kindergarten to grade 12: Western Canadian protocol for collaboration in basic education (2nd ed.). Winnipeg, MB: Manitoba Education and Training.
Kalantzis, M., Cope, B. & Harvey, A. (2003). Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics. Assessment in education, 10, 1, 60-9
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London, Routledge.
New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 1, 60-91
As part of the school focus on social responsibility I decided to explore the relationship between multiple forms of media and writing, and assess their impact and influence on students' effectiveness in expressing their understanding about specific virtues. I was also hoping that using visual media might stimulate students to engage in and enhance the quality of their writing, while also making their 'product' (a combination of writing and visual images) more appealing to the audience of other students, thereby promoting further engagement with the concepts and discussion of the ideas. It seemed to me that these would all be positive educational outcomes while also extending my approach to developing students' literacy.
The virtues being represented are the desirable qualities that people (hopefully!) exhibit in their daily lives, such as honesty, generosity, empathy and courage. I, as the teacher, and the students, would evaluate the integration of a variety of media before, during, and after writing. Would such approaches enhance student understanding of the concept and/or the effectiveness of their presentation?
The students worked on three projects which combined visual media with written expression. The three projects reflect an evolution in approach, starting with a traditional assignment using print media to a second approach using web-based images. The final approach involved students digitalizing images and accessing them through a data base before sharing their chosen images with text in a computer-generated slide show.
The first activity was an individual assignment in which the students identified a virtue (e.g. love, enthusiasm), then found visuals from magazines which expressed aspects of that virtue. After collecting pictures students then wrote a free verse poem expressing their understanding of that virtue and published these using a word processor. In the final presentation the pictures were used to form a collage around the poem. During this activity, there was only a limited amount of teacher editing and guidance.
The students were engaged throughout the process of completing the activity. Unlike other times when I have taught poetry there was little difficulty getting the students to write. This was particularly noticeable among the boys. In my past experience I have found that boys were more likely to be less motivated to write poetry than are girls. During this activity I did not observe this reluctance.
Although finding an adequate n mber of appropriate pictures sometimes proved difficult for the students, all were able to complete that part of the activity, Some pictures were added after the writing to fill in spaces in the collage. One unforeseen difficulty was the relatively small number and limited variety of magazines that the students were able to bring from home. Most tended to be "People", or similar types of magazines, which offered a narrow range of pictures.
I found the completed poems and presentations to be very effective and represented in a number of cases the best efforts of the students to date. A number of ESL students completed poems utilizing some sophisticated imagery and vocabulary. The use of metaphorical language seemed stimulated by the visuals. I noticed that students would observe each other's pictures and in conversation would use descriptive language such as similes to describe their interpretations of the pictures. From observations of these conversations and of the students' work I believe that the use of visuals enabled students' use of more complex language structures. Only a small number of students had difficulty generating ideas or completing their poems
After completing the activity the students, using a teacher made questionnaire, evaluated the activity focusing on assessing the effectiveness of the activity as it related to assisting and growing their ability to express their ideas. It was very interesting to read the student reflections. A number of the most capable writers did not feel that the pictures aided them in their writing. They felt to varying degrees that their written creativity was not aided by utilizing the visuals as a pre-writing strategy. In contrast many of the less able creative writers and ESL/LD students found that the pictures aided their writing, by giving them 'ideas' or helping them develop imagery in their writing. Both groups did acknowledge that the final presentations were enhanced by the inclusion of the pictures, and that the visual elements made their poetic expression more powerful by adding additional meaning. Additionally they found the presentations visually appealing which encouraged them to read the other students' creations. Because their appreciation of each others' work was heightened by the combination of visuals with written expression, they believed that their work would, in turn, be more appreciated by others.
My initial response to these student reflections is that the combinations of visuals and text supports many students in their creative process. Reading the quality of the poems, it seemed to me that the inclusion of visual images in their representations made their expression more powerful and appealing. Feedback from parents and teachers during the school's Writer's Festival was extremely positive. As an added note, at the end of the year students were reluctant to leave their work with me as samples.
Reflecting on the use of images from popular culture magazines now, I wonder if we are predominantly exposed to images such as those in 'People' which reflect stereotypical and perhaps cliched images. If so, should we be using these resources in schools? Do they perpetuate such stereotypes? Are images accessible in media which do offer challenges and provoke reflection? As I began to explore the use of visuals I became more reflective of what I was using as resources, and more critical in my assessment of media stereotyping.
The second activity was a poem written collaboratively by pairs of students about a virtue that they agreed upon. The main focus of the activity was moving from print sources of visual images, used in the first activity, to web-based visual sources, which would allow manipulation of the images on the computer. I wanted to consider whether this ability to manipulate images would further enhance student expression. I believed that there would be a vast and accessible collection of appropriate images to stimulate creativity.
After writing the free verse poem on the computer the students utilized the internet and the 'Google' search engine to find images which would support the ideas in their poems. Then the students incorporated those images into their written documents and made revisions to their poems where necessary.
It was interesting to observe the roles that students assumed in their pairings. Some would share work and decisions equally, but others would split their roles, with one student focusing more on the writing and the other on choosing and obtaining the pictures. One notable pairing consisted of a highly capable writer and an ESL student with limited English communication capacity. The writer's poem was complemented effectively by his partner's choice of photographs. The choice of pictures demonstrated the ESL student's conceptual understanding of his topic more fully than if he had been asked to do the writing. In this instance I believe that conceptual understanding was developed through engagement with the images. The discussions that occurred between this pairing and others showed me the constructive way that students were able to relate images and words. The choice of images prompted conversations about their appropriateness, whether or not the concepts expressed in the poem were effectively reflected in the images.
The students worked and collaborated well on the construction of their poems although the poetry tended to be of lesser quality than the poems of the first project. A question that came to my mind was whether or not collaborative poetry writing is an effective method of creating poetry. If poetry is seen as a form of personal expression then one might conclude that poetry writing is not the best vehicle for teaching collaboration. In terms of this project however, the discourse and negotiation that occurred between the pairings did create learning beyond the poems that were written. What was very interesting to observe was the dialogue that preceded and accompanied the writing of the poems as well as in determining the choice of pictures. Students had to defend their choices of both written and visual imagery. While there were differences in opinions, which necessitated negotiation and compromise, all pairings were able to explain effectively the rationale for their choices, showing to me that they had developed a greater depth of understanding of their virtue.
My impression of the activity was that the image search on the Internet was less successful than the magazine search. It relied on fewer modalities and was less personal. Working with magazines and photographs allows both partners to be actively involved in the task, using both mental and physical modalities. When sharing a computer one student tended to be more dominant and had more control over the process and the overall learning experience. Another contributing factor may have been that the students were asked to find images which related to their written words, rather than finding images which would inspire the written expression. This seemed to be a limiting factor in terms of creativity. A third factor may have been the rather limited searching methods that the students used. Perhaps teaching the students more sophisticated Internet search strategies would have been beneficial. However, I also believe that the images generated in this activity appeared less cliched and were more diverse than images from the previous activity.
In terms of the actual activity some students had to be taught the technical methods by which to download images and paste them into a document and alter them, if needed. It is possible that students who were challenged by the technical aspects of this activity may have had their creativity constrained by the technology. If I were to redesign this activity I might utilize a software tool designed for collaborative activities where students on different computers could work on a common project simultaneously. This may provide greater opportunity for active participation.
(Note: By the end of the school year students completed similar activities with much more ease, as technology was not as great a barrier to their expression and became a tool which they used with less effort.)
Students as a group enjoyed the activity and most were pleased with their projects although they noted that lack of computer access did pose a difficulty and did interfere with the effective completion of the activity.
For me, there are two areas of reflection following this approach. The first is to consider how to ensure that students engage effectively with the technology, so that they are able to access information of utility to them. The second issue is about students' critical engagement with the images generated from such a search. Are they moving away from the stereotypical representation identified in the first approach, or are they still reproducing such representation while engaging with technology, so that the technology becomes more the focus of change than the kind of image accessed?
The third activity incorporated student photography, the computer and written language. Students were given disposable cameras and took photographs, which represented a chosen virtue. The photographs were developed and put on a CD-ROM, which the students downloaded onto a computer. Then the students chose 5 photographs that best represented their chosen virtue. Using the computer network the class created a database of photographs categorized by the virtue they represented. Then in pairs students created a 10 frame slide show using the 'iPhoto' software application, representing a variety of virtues to which they added text. The purpose of the text was to enhance the photograph's meaning or importance. Each group chose their own style of written expression.
Unfortunately the required program was months late in installation creating a less than satisfactory delay in completion. A number of students in fact did not complete this project. However the decision-making process that occurred at each step of the project focused students on examining the meaning and evaluating the suitability of their chosen photographs and written expression. The negotiation that occurred in the cooperative parts of the project challenged and reinforced students' ideas.
The original plan for this activity was to incorporate photographs, text and music into a multimedia presentation. The presentation would be viewed with only the photographs, displayed, then photographs and text, followed by photographs and music, and finally with all the components. Students would compare and evaluate the effectiveness of each type of presentation in terms of facilitating their personal expression and in terms of being an audience for other students presentations.
Despite my problems using technology during my chosen activities, I see technology as a vital aide to implementing an approach to teaching and learning that builds conceptual understanding and language development by combining images and language. It allows students a rich palette of expression, especially for those students who are less skilled in traditional literacy or communication skills, particularly when those students are communicating in English as a second language. Based on my observation of the class, and on the students' reflections, I feel that combining different forms of media and approaches reinforces learning and enhanced student expression. Students engaged quickly with the images and often entered into rich conversations, and developed thoughtful and more comprehensive expression which expanded their notion of the virtue under consideration. Such rich conversations often became negotiations where students discussed concepts and ideas before coming to consensus decisions.
There was one other important and unexpected result. It was not only in the exploration of the virtue and in the production of the poem with images, that meaning was made. When students published their work in these forms, it generated audiences of other students. It also encouraged more active participation by audiences who were attracted by presentations rich in visual and other sensory media. This subsequently generates more reflection and debate about the nature of the virtue and the forms of representation. The product, as well as the process, therefore generated learning and increased communication.
My goal is to continue exploring this and to utilize other computer-assisted forms of expression, such as music composition, to student work. But an emphasis must be on ensuring the technology is in place before I start a project. I have learned that it may be better to plan a project, which uses the currently available tools, rather than one which supposes a set of tools will become available during the timeframe of the activity. But, and somewhat contradictory, I also believe that my exploration has been just that: exploring, and some explorations require moving into areas where we learn as we travel.
As I write this report I am aware of conflict between what influences and inspires me in education, and what is mandated in our system. I have been influenced and inspired in my vocation of teaching, but rarely by what the system mandates. Our school has committed to a focus on social responsibility, for which performance standards have been developed. Could I combine what influences and inspires me in teaching what is mandated? How could I assess students' work in ways that were meaningful and authentic? This Case Study will explore these questions and dilemmas.
One influence is conversation with peers and university faculty. Prior to joining the research for the Multiliteracies project, a conversation was initiated by district teachers at the school board with UBC Education professors Margaret Early and Marilyn Chapman. The intention was to provide a 'space' for those interested to explore some of the recent research about literacies and facilitate our own conceptual understandings. The initial reading we analyzed was 'Frameworks and Workframes: Literacy Policies and New Orders' by Colin Lankshear (1998). From these conversations, my interest was piqued leading to my own questioning and linking of literacies and social responsibility and how I as teacher was assessing my students' performance with regard to social responsibility.
A second influence has been my own searching for meaningful educational approaches. One such search resulted in my discovery of a wonderful website "Making the World a Better Place" which stimulated my curiosity about what images five and six year old children would capture when given their own disposable camera and the challenge to capture images of what social responsibility looks and sounds like. Thus I found the link between what piqued my interest in teaching and learning and the concept of Multiliteracies. Could the use of visuals with language fit within the parameters of what I considered exciting and of utility for student learning, while at the same time allow me to address the mandated focus on social responsibility? If so, which visual approaches might be appropriate?
Within my own practice, I was critically reflecting on how appropriate was my assessment of students' performance on social responsibility. To illustrate: a unit of an area of social responsibility may require an assessment in the classroom where a student demonstrates a given quality, perhaps consideration for others. It takes little to demonstrate such a quality while an assessment is taking place. If consideration is required, it can be provided. But the larger question remains: is the student acquiring capacity to be considerate at times other than when the assessment is taking place? If so, how can this be assessed?
At this particular time, I had completed a process where I would assess students using the provincial performance standardson each student without any substantive conversations with students, without any collection of evidence over time, and while questioning my own ability to be truly honest about a student's performance. I thus found the performance standards very limiting. While they were adequately descriptive of desired qualities, those qualities could be presented for my benefit during the assessment. If this was the only time they occurred, then the exercise to me is shallow and of moderate utility for students' learning. I needed to go beyond the standards and consider what really counted in terms of social responsibility.
It seemed a dilemma. I felt that I was in a situation where these contradictions between the 'real' and the 'ideal' notions of practice were in conflict. The 'real', (i.e. the mandated) included measures of assessment included in the performance standards, and the areas listed by the school as part of its goals for which the school would be held accountable. Thus the concept of check-lists, ticking off or counting students' compliance with social responsibility criteria complied with the mandate and with accountability norms but failed to have any significant meaning for me as a teacher, and, more importantly, seemed to have minimal benefits for students' learning. Yes, I could count examples of consideration in November, likely again in March, but did such counts have any meaning beyond compliance with a meaningless norm? Did it actually show real accountability if we report 50 acts of consideration in November and 75 in March? Are we as teachers just 'filling our quota' while perhaps failing to develop students capacity to be socially responsible?
Shulman (1987) captures the image of teaching and learning that I strive for in my daily work.
This image of teaching involves the exchange of ideas. The idea is grasped, probed, and comprehended by a teacher, who then must turn it about in his or her mind, seeing many sides of it. Then the idea is shaped or tailored until students can in turn grasp it. This grasping, however is not a passive act. Just as the teachers' comprehension requires a vigorous interaction with the ideas, so students will be expected to encounter ideas actively as well. Indeed, our exemplary teachers present ideas in order to provoke the constructive process of their students and not to incur student dependence on teachers or to stimulate the flatteries of imitation.
Through participation in this Multiliteracies research project, I started to reflect more deeply on these issues. I felt a sense of permission to make public my private conflicts regarding the assessment of a learners' moral understandings and to experiment with different ways of creating the conditions for 5 and 6 year olds to make meaning of the language of social responsibility which was being systematically disseminated through school-wide assemblies and in daily classroom instruction. I became more interested in ideas that I discovered in the New London Group's paper (1996), in particular that there may be different ways to create meaning, comprehension and expression, perhaps using multi-modal approaches, including the use of visual images.
Some of the ideas about building teams of learners also intrigued me - could these collaborative teams extend concept development as well as language, in the area of social responsibility? Was what I saw in the Multiliteracies literature an essentially constructivist approach to education, and might it encourage students to extend and/or direct their own learning? If so, might such learning develop those qualities society might hope for in citizens who are genuinely socially responsible, and who have discussed, articulated and comprehended the meaning and forms such responsibility might take.? Having done those things, it appeared to me that people might then live in a more responsible manner, contributing to a civil society. Surely this was preferable to developing a people who comply with a checklist assessment but cannot transfer the learning into the rest of their present and future lives.
It seemed to me that by thinking through some of the ideas expressed by those in the 'New London Group', or who had extended this thinking (Unsworth, (2002).) I might develop an approach to both teaching and assessment which did inspire me, offered significant learning to students, and which allowed me to connect with and reflect on the concept of Multiliteracies. It also seemed to me that the perspective of Begoray (2001) resonated for me - to move into new ground I also needed to take some risks:
"New knowledge and risk-taking attitudes such as giving up some measure of control and certitude are necessary for teachers to help learners experience, understand, and create texts such as cartoons, films, photographs, videotapes, web sites or drum dancing." (Begoray, D. 2001)
In my own classroom, I had observed numerous times the "flatteries of imitation" Shulman refers to as students respond with the expected code of conduct they have rehearsed and behaviours they can model when in a teacher's presence. What I was not observing were the ways of being socially responsible during the other times, for instance during recess when food is shared to make friends and exclude others; on the stair well when pushing appeared to be common among older students even with little ones present because its time to get outside to play.
When I would discuss such problematic examples of their behaviour with them, the students continued to provide the expected responses and proceeded to interact with their peers in ways which are not complementary to the concept or goals of the curriculum of social responsibility. These observations concerned me in my moments of reflection and raised unattended questions such as:
Why are students not applying the lessons being continually presented?
How do students learn to internalize a moral code of conduct?
Are students not learning this stuff because we do not know how to teach it?
If language creates meaning what is the meaning our students are making from the language of monthly virtues we were teaching?
What does generosity, kindness, caring, look like and sound like to a six year old?
Are we creating the optimal conditions for teaching and learning social responsibility both in our classes, on our playground and in our school-wide assemblies?"
With these questions, and my own values and beliefs about my work as a teacher, intersecting with the introductory notions of Multiliteracies I was examining, I began to consciously attend to my own teaching, learning and assessing of social responsibility. On useful lens was the meaning of multimodal design elements put forth by The New London Group (1996), It seemed to me that the areas of multimodal design and meaning allowed for a greater incorporation of visual images, but also provided some basis for considering areas such as behaviour and gesture within teaching and learning, and that these areas might be particularly useful in considering social responsibility.
The following is a description of and reflection on three lessons the children progressed through and the evidence of their learning. My comments alongside the student work were some preliminary thinking and reflections.
The lessons with the Grade One class revolved around the viewing and representing of their understanding of social responsibility and through the year there was a gradual shift in these lessons moving from highly structured and teacher-directed to a very open ended student-directed approach where teacher was truly an observer from the sidelines and where students took increased responsibility for their own learning. The content of social responsibility seemed to lend itself to reducing control as a result of my own learning from the initial lessons. After all, to be genuinely socially responsible requires self-direction, not continual supervision and instruction.
Three lessons will be described in detail, with connecting images of the learners work, discussion of the assessment of the students' performance and both my initial reflections and my reflections over time.
In the school there is a 'buddy system' in which students work in pairs, meeting once a week for 40 minutes. The 'big buddy' from Grade 4 meets with the 'little buddy' of Kindergarten. Grade 5 buddies are paired with grade 1 students, grade 6 with grade 2, grade 7 with grade 3.
In this lesson, big buddies and little buddies listened to the story 'A Promise is A Promise' (by Robert Munsch and Michael Kusugak) as one of their first buddy sessions
Following the read aloud, buddies are encouraged to think about and talk about some promises they could make to one another this year and they are asked to think about these possible promises over the next week so that when they return, they can pick one each and share that promise for the year ahead
Big buddies and little buddies return and receive the poster template for making their buddy promises for their year and together they complete the poster.
I now find this kind of image and media somewhat limiting, in part because it seems difficult for the younger child to express him/herself with the kind of sophistication that is possible for the older children, and in part because of its permanence once drawn. How much is actually communicated by the drawing, and how much of a spur to the kinds of conversation about social responsibility does it provide? So if I want to provide younger students with a tool that enables them to communicate in a visual way, might the second approach that I intended to try (Kidspix, software that enables students to draw) 'level the playing field' between younger and older students? Might it offer different means and forms of expression, still using visuals but using a technology new to all the students? The exploration is outlined in Lesson 2.
Grade 1's learn to create images using the software program KidPix. This program enables students to draw using the computer, arguably reducing the expertise required and therefore encouraging meaningful expression which does not depend on acquired skills.
During computer time, students are taught to make 4 boxes using the drawing tools which are part of Kidspix. These four boxes form a frame or template for the drawings which are produced within each box.
Students are given talk time to share their ideas in a discussion of what learning looks like, what learning does not look like and what social responsibility looks like. They are then asked to represent some of these ideas in the four squares. While one image is shared here as an example, some of the reflections refer to a range of images produced by the students.
Why do the children think "playing" is not learning? Have I taught them this?
When have they learned that X ='s (i.e. an incorrect answer - see the top right box) is not learning?
Why are girls thinking that being socially responsible is picking up after another? Are we encouraging this form of socialization, and is it gender stereotyping?
Why do the children think learning is only about reading books and going to school, and that arguing is not learning? Is it not through playing, or fighting over a frisbee (lower left box) that the teachable moment occurs for the learning of how to be socially responsible? Yet the evidence from the students' drawings suggests that children do not see that as a point of learning. So there may be a disconnect between what I see as an adult and what they see as children.
How early do students learn to generate images that are "flatteries of imitation" as Shulman says? In other words, are they just offering the kinds of responses they believe are required by the teacher? Is the language of social responsibility too complex for Grade 1 students? If these images represent the 5 or 6 year olds understanding of what social responsibility loo s like then all the lessons over the past year need to be reconsidered because this evidence suggests that very minimal meaning is being made. If this limited learning is occurring, the concepts may be too difficult for Grade One students to grasp.I am finding the results of using Kidspix much more stimulating and interesting than using drawing. I am finding that children are managing to communicate some quite complex ideas using this technology which they are unable to do at this stage in language or in drawing. Yet at the same time that I see their capacity to emphasize emotions or actions, I am realizing that much of what has been taught has not really been understood. An error for me is so clearly a place of learning, but not for the students. An argument can be a place to look for lessons learned about self and others, but the students do not see it that way. That is why I am questioning whether we have gone too far trying to use language of social responsibility which may be beyond them.
Having progressed from using traditional drawing to the application of 'Kidspix' I now consider the use of photographs which will be taken by the students. Will this approach using another form of visual media engage the students both in discourse around the images and in the creation of collages that have meaning for them?
This exploration is outlined in Lesson 3.
Students were given their own disposable camera and taught how to use it.
Throughout the year, on their class helper day (where a student has a special chair for the day, may return books or messages to other teachers, provide information for a substitute teacher etc.), they could use their camera throughout the day to take photos of children "doing school the right way". (Many lessons had been shared and reinforced on what doing school the right way meant.)
As it happened, students used each other's cameras on their day to take their pictures so the original hope of having a single collection of photos that represented one particular students image of students doing or not doing school the right way had to be adjusted.
The films were developed once all the film has been used.
I explain to the students that for they will receive a collection of photos to look through and discuss. At their desks, students look over 30 to 40 photographs that they have been randomly given and there is much talk amongst the students as they remembered the taking of the images. The images therefore prompt discussion among the students - why were these images reflecting social responsibility? What were the differences in such visions?
Next session, students are given a tray holding a selection of the images and are asked to go through the photographs and collect those images that "talk to them" about 'doing school'. Collections of photos are scattered around on 5 or 6 table tops and students are encouraged to first look through those photos at their table and then to move to other tables until they have 15 to 20 selected images on their trays.
Then students are given a piece of cardboard on which to position the images and can select their own partner to create a collage using their collection of photos. The only criteria set for this task is that the images must cover the cardboard. I model this by having a partial example on display and I show how to cut and place the images to capture create a collage.
The use of cameras reflects the introduction of a new medium with the students. They are clearly excited not only because they took the images but also because they appear in them.
The images rekindled memories of events through the school year such as students who had left the class. Substantial discussion was prompted by the images.
There are some signs of personal preoccupation with the images, reflected in some students collecting images of themselves, or of images of the most popular students in their collage.
There are also signs that students are exploring ideas of both schooling and friendship, creating collages that form a basis for assessing their understanding of both. They also include images of isolation. Such images in collage form not only a basis for assessment but as a basis for further conversation, either between students or between students and myself. I realize from the image how important the Chinese New Year is to one student, and how I need to be aware of cultures in my students' lives.
Using the photographs is a natural extension of the work I have been doing, starting with drawing, moving to Kidspix, and finally using photographs. All are visual images, and each encourages students to create and discuss representation of social responsibility issues in ways that I believe are difficult to manage purely through the use of language. Thus the visual not only promotes dialogue and reflection in students, but also offers a way for the students to create images that represent their thinking about social responsibility, if still not well-formed or free from simplifications.
I am encouraged and discouraged. The encouragement stems from the realization that students can explore and express themselves in sophisticated ways through the use of various kinds of visuals. I am also excited because I am exploring new ways of generating student learning and building their capacity to understand concepts. My discouragement stems from the fact that the concepts I had hoped to communicate were minimally understood, and, even worse, I may have inadvertently been perpetuating gender stereotypes through, for example, 'girls cleaning '. However, the images also clearly show me where I can challenge such stereotyping, or where I can better respond to and incorporate different cultural perspectives into my teaching.
In terms of assessment I am similarly encouraged and discouraged. The drawings and photo-collages show much more clearly what is understood, and how this is less than anticipated. But it leaves a dilemma in terms of assessment. How do I assess work which demonstrates only limited comprehension of a social responsibility concept? There seems to be a considerable dilemma in terms of assessment. The most manageable and usual form of assessment in terms of a social responsibility unit or lesson is to consider how students either state or demonstrate their understanding of and compliance with the norms being taught. However, such short-term statements/demonstrations may be encouraging or condoning a superficial compliance which may not reflect any genuine or longer-term behaviour which is socially responsible.
If the concept may in fact be too complex for Grade 1 students, should I address the students' limited grasp of such concepts, or the curriculum which prescribes such understanding?
My conclusion is that the use of visuals has considerable utility in terms of assessment if I view assessment as formative, helping both me and the students in my class to build understanding and to promote communication. I also can adapt my teaching based on what I observe during the assessment. If I regarded assessment as summative, then I would have to say that limited learning has taken place. Yet I think the images are promoting both forms of learning and of assessment that reflect deeper learning than would be generated through teaching which generates the "flatteries of imitation" reflected in simplistic yet limited responses from students. This is a dilemma of sorts, but one that is easily resolved. I am committed to the deeper forms of learning than the superficial, so I will continue to use visual approaches to assist students' explorations of social responsibility concepts. It is better to use assessments as a basis for adapting teaching and learning rather than it is to use assessment approaches that measure superficial gains demonstrated in simplistic and short-term ways.
References
Burnett, R. (2004). How Images Think. MIT
Gee, J. (2003). What video games have to tell us about teaching and learning. New York. Palgrave Macmillan
Holt, J. (1970). How Children Learn. Harmondsworth. Penguin Books.
Kress, G. (2003).Literacy in the New Media Age (Literacies). London. Routledge.
Lester, P.M. (1995). Syntactic theory of Visual Communication, Part One, in Visual Communication Images with Messages, Chapter 17. Wadsworth, Belmont.
For the three teachers involved in this study, the approaches creating or using visual images is experimental, tentative first steps in trying something new. All are capable professionals, with many years of teaching experience. So why are they now trying a new, and visual, approach?
First, it must be stressed that their use of visuals builds upon considerable teaching experience and knowledge. None of the three teachers has suddenly abandoned years of practice and experience to head in totally new and different directions. But each is increasingly aware of the visual stimuli prevalent in society and visual resources available in schools, and is considering how to productively use such stimuli and resources in their teaching. In addition, some attended presentations by university faculty who discussed visual approaches with them, or they read articles about visual literacy in classrooms. In some cases, peer observation and discussion were important influences. Combining their knowledge of teaching with some of the new ideas about the use of visuals led to this exploration. Their understanding of Multiliteracies and of how their work might fit within a Multiliteracies research project evolved through discussion of their approaches with university faculty prior to the project, and with the research project team. No claim is made that these project epitomize the best of Multiliteracies practices. Rather, our team is considering connections, between the practices explored here and with some ideas and themes in the Multilitearcies literature. Being tentative and exploratory, therefore, applies to the action research approach, to the Multiliteracies connections, and to any claims expressed here. In many ways, this group is still drawing the picture of their journey, not placing the framed image on the wall for critique of adequacy.
Visuals are used as part of a school-wide focus on developing students' social responsibility, such as respect and trust. How do teachers directly teach as well as indirectly promote such values? It appears that direct teaching of values may be less effective than facilitating student dialogue and reflection on the values, which promotes more in-depth discussion and understanding. When developing approaches to building social responsibility, each teacher encountered limits to how such concepts could be understood and communicated by their students through oral or written language. They considered whether the use of visuals might be one way to extend both comprehension and portrayal of areas of social responsibility. Could, for instance, students recognize an act of respect when they see it in an image such as a photograph? Could they create such an image, through their own drawings or photographs? Could they produce a collage using existing images from sources such as magazines or web sites? How might traditional and digital photography support this exploration, and how might this extend students' use of technology to develop skills of representation and communication? These are some of the questions that the teachers aimed to explore.
The teachers hoped that using visual imagery would prove to be a spur to communication and promote the development of conceptual understanding. The images that students created at Kitchener Elementary were in some cases produced by an individual student, who would engage in dialogue with others after the creation of the image. In other cases the images were collaboratively created, involving dialogue and debate with a partner or within a group. Such group discussions became part of the process of creating the image, discussions building and expanding ideas, and the ideas being translated into images. The images became a focus beyond the individual, mirroring the communal aspect of social responsibility itself. They also became a focus for reflection and dialogue, promoting communicative skills. In such processes the visual and the verbal combined to build conceptual understanding of the nature of social responsibility as well as promoting communication skills.
Social responsibility may be described using written language but it is a social construct reflected in some action or statement that is visible or audible, or both, that we notice in the actions of others, or that we reflect on in terms of our own actions. The creation or consideration of visual images, therefore, is highly appropriate to exploring the concept of social responsibility, as images portray visible actions, emotions or relationships. There is a growing understanding in the group, because of this research experience, that values cannot be directly taught and assimilated, but need to be acquired through dialogue, engagement, reflection, and lived experience. The sharing of ideas, supported by the creation of visuals, supports this acquisition.
The teachers identified a major assessment concern during the course of this research: that students may comply with societal norms being promoted by teachers during class but not take such norms into their lives outside the classroom or even beyond the curriculum unit into the classroom or school community. Social responsibility defined in terms of curriculum outcomes measured by teacher assessment reflects an approach to learning which explicitly states that measured outcomes are what counts, not what occurs in life beyond the immediate assessment. Assessment using checklists over a defined short-term period provided little evidence of utility to the teachers. Indeed, they offered evidence that students understood how to perform for assessment in ways that indicated their adherence to social responsibility norms may have been superficial. If a teacher wanted compliance for assessment, the students might provide it. But what the teachers wanted was to develop habits and approaches to social responsibility which were not performed for assessment over, say, a ten minute period, but became a part of students' personas and lives. By using visual images, group discussion and negotiation, each teacher saw more clearly whether or not those goals were being met. Some student-created visuals, for instance, reflected rudimentary comprehension of social responsibility. Others provided a rich focus for discussion and for building conceptual understanding.
Teachers in this and other BC schools face the challenge of delivering a social responsibility curriculum with recommended assessments and attempting to develop students' social responsibility for life in general. During this research, the teachers considered the larger goal and discussed whether using images provided a greater opportunity to generate a form of social responsibility beyond that immediately measurable. Their formative assessments helped guide their approach, especially where images showed that social responsibility was not being developed or well understood. Yet they also considered assessments in the provincial curriculum and performance standards which they believed encouraged the kind of superficial assessment they had found to be inappropriate.
Thus there appears to be a substantial difference between the concept of assessment encouraged by the provincial standards and the kinds of assessments identified as useful in this research.
An area of some concern among the teachers was their inexperience in several areas linked to the use of visuals. One issue involved the use of technology: how might digital imaging help such work? On a more mundane level, what exactly could students and teachers do with digital images - a new technology brings its own learning curve for teachers, removing them from a certain comfort level, making them learners as well as their students. With traditional image-creation, such as drawing or painting, what tools did the teachers have to extend their ability to critique visual images created by students, so that they might extend students' capacity to express concepts through visuals? For those teachers using collage and selecting images from traditional print media, how to avoid cliched images of values or emotions and instead promote critique of such images, or encourage creation of less traditional or stereotypical perspectives?
It is also the use of visuals and the growing use of technology that we believe makes these cases appropriate to consider as part of the Multiliteracies research project. By extending and adapting the use of visuals in the elementary classroom, the teachers' inquiry has promoted questioning and reflecting in a number of ways. How do images spur conversation and communication? Can they provide meaning where spoken or written words may not, or do they stimulate both by exploring the concept rather than the description of an idea? Might the use of visuals be more inclusive of all students because visual images reduce the initial focus on written while promoting dialogue and discourse? If so, how and why?
Burnett (2004) explored the place of images in various perceptual processes that build comprehension:
I am reversing the conventional notion (and cultural myth) that images have the power to overwhelm the viewer, and I am describing a process that is far more collaborative. I am arguing that this creative engagement with pictures begins the moment that images enter into relationships with viewers. I am making the claim that images are not outside of conventional perceptual activities, not the place where things don't happen that don't happen elsewhere. Rather, images are integral to, and are at the foundation of visual, linguistic, and perceptual processes.
How Images Think MIT, 2004, p 32.
Burnett argues that images are fundamental to the growth and development of human consciousness, that images, whether physically visible (as in a photograph), or imagined (as, perhaps an aid to check a concept or a memory), play a role not only in seeing that which is visual but in building language. His work is one of several that have re-examined, for example, how visual images challenge the dominance of print as a form of communication (Kress, 2003), or how the visual has been fundamental in developing new approaches to learning through visuals in video games (Gee, 2003). These authors represent a new stage in exploration of the visual which was partly reflected in the early 90s in the work of Elliott Eisner (1992), who argued for an increased respect for and focus on visual and other Arts in education. Eisner argued that the visual and other Arts were fundamental to learning, and human development, not subservient to the so-called core subjects such as Language, Math, Science. There is evidence that Eisner's pleas fell on deaf ears, with the visual arts and most other Arts relegated to elective status in many schools, to be considered after the essential business of Math, Science and Language were taken care of, with student progress often measured in standardized tests. Some Arts subjects were so far relegated that they were dropped altogether, victims of credence in the supposed superiority of narrow subject focus and specialization. So there always exists a danger that the use of visuals, whether used for Art or otherwise, might be considered less relevant to supporting student learning than the focus on supposed core areas.
Visual Arts, of course, are not just images, and many images are not Art. But Eisner was arguing not only about an educational approach but also was exploring the nature of Arts, (including the visual), and their importance in the world. Burnett, Kress and Gee are following Eisner in the sense that they too are exploring the nature of the visual, but not just as Art. Their explorations take place within a changed context - the explosion and dominance of visual media and communication systems. Gee stated that at the time of writing, the video game industry is a bigger industry than film production. Multi-media communications are commonplace and accessible to large populations on a daily basis through computers and television. Telephones now routinely incorporate visual image capture and transmission. Fewer people access print newspapers as primary sources of information on current events or for entertainment. These and many other technological changes which incorporate visual images have considerable prevalence in many societies.
If we are moving towards post-industrial knowledge economies, with massive growth of visual imaging in media and communications, how might education systems explore the growing importance of the visual in communications and in understanding how children learn?
In terms of the teachers involved in this study, it would be a mistake to argue that the teachers' views of the world, or their work and efforts reflected in these reports fully recognize, or even necessarily agree, with the above contextual description. Yet they feel that their tentative steps into incorporating the visual into their classrooms are influenced by the view of the world described above.
Images have long been used in elementary classrooms because young children have traditionally been encouraged to draw and to produce images before, as Holt (1970) and Lester (1995) argue, they are socialized into believing that the visual is a lesser medium than print and the written word, and that it should be left behind as maturity develops.
So what, if anything, is different about the exploration that these three teachers have experienced? Is it the same as teachers' traditional practice, or the start of a new engagement both with visual images and with the technology that can generate, change, and present information? Each teacher's exploration started with traditional approaches: drawing, or students creating collages from existing print materials. But in two of the three cases there was a shift towards digital creation or accessing of images, with intriguing discussion and analysis of differences between traditional and digital forms of expression. The teachers also considered how some students' choice of images reflected the dominance of such images in many print media publications. All of the three teachers observed the significant engagement of their students with visual images. All noted and reflected on the various forms of collaboration and negotiation that engaged students, building skills and capacity in terms of individual communication and participation in groups.
The teachers' beginning engagement with technology in a school environment is coupled with a growing understanding of the potential utility of visual images and technology to support students' learning. Some Case Studies or research projects focus on exemplary projects in which teachers demonstrate impressive knowledge and use of technology in their classrooms. While commendable, such studies can also be dispiriting to other teachers whose knowledge of and access to technology may be limited. They show ideal, high standards of competency, often in environments with easy access to hardware and software. Their exemplary practices may be so far out of reach that no attempt is made to emulate them, and the intent of sharing good practice is not reached.
The teachers writing these reports are good, experienced teachers trying something new, not experts demonstrating their skills and capacity. The utility of this report is to share their journey and claims, however tentative, and to explore the possibilities for steps they may take after this initial experience. Can these first tentative steps both encourage them as teachers to develop their skills in using visual images, and also encourage other teachers to consider innovations which might motivate them as teachers and be of benefit to students' learning?
By describing the initial approaches of teachers engaging with visuals and technology, this study aimed to achieve two goals in addition to the use of visuals. The first was to support the teachers' research, providing time for reflection and discussion which considers the approaches and their utility. The time for teacher reflection also encourages exploration of concepts such as building negotiation skills in students. The realization that such skills were being developed was explored in the research process, allowing time for a focus on practice and for discussion with peers. In such discussions, ideas were shared, awareness and confidence increased. The second goal was met by publishing their experiences. In documenting their work, these teachers share a recognizable context in which doubts and tentative steps are more common than cutting edge practices demonstrated by teachers elevated to star performer status in environments which appear unreal to many teachers. They have started a journey which they believe has potential, and have learned much in the process. But they are also recognizing the tentative nature of their steps. We would argue that such explorations and sharing also have utility, for both the teachers involved, and to encourage others to take similar explorations, building on their knowledge of teaching by adding new dimensions to how they teach by reflection and collaborative inquiry.
In the Introduction to these reports we suggested that the nature of the claim was tentative. In reflection, we believe that we have learned much through our stating of questions and subsequent explorations, with some unexpected benefits, particularly in terms of what we learned about assessment. The evidence that we have observed in terms of student participation and work leads us to believe that the use of visuals encourages discourse and higher-order thinking. We feel that the use of checklist assessments for social responsibility have been explored and critiqued by our use of visuals as part of formative assessments and by our discussions on the nature and purposes of assessment. The engagement of students through these approaches appears much richer than in those assignments which can be marked by a simple checklist. Such lists may measure compliance but they fail to address engagement and higher-order thinking.
The process of negotiation using the visual as the product being negotiated has become a focus and a method for improving students' conceptual understanding as well as supporting more effective communication.
And while we are beginning our use of technology we have extended our capacity and thinking. Moving from traditional drawing to digital sketching we are considering what differences exist between these forms of expression. By incorporating existing media representation of human virtues we are challenging the stereotypes portrayed in some media, and encouraging more critical awareness in ourselves and in students. By providing students with digital cameras and technology we offer them an opportunity to understand both the use of technology and the messages of media incorporated in visual communication.
New technology may well pervade our society, with an ever-expanding presence of images, and we are considering how to use such technology to support student learning, and how to build the capacity and the skill to be aware of and to critique the images projected to us all.
We believe this exploration has helped us to focus on, as well as extend, how students learn, and how we teach. It has also given us greater confidence to expand our thinking and practices in terms of incorporating visual images and technology into our teaching practices.
Burnett, R. (2004). How Images Think. MIT
Gee, J. (2003). What video games have to tell us about teaching and learning. New York. Palgrave Macmillan
Holt, J. (1970). How Children Learn. Harmondsworth. Penguin Books.
Kress, G. (2003).Literacy in the New Media Age (Literacies). London. Routledge.
Lester, P.M. (1995). Syntactic theory of Visual Communication, Part One, in Visual Communication Images with Messages, Chapter 17. Wadsworth,