Looking and Learning:

Teaching with Visuals across the Curriculum

Deandra Little, Associate Professor and Assistant Director, Teaching Resource Center University of Virginia

Chad Berry Academic Vice President and Dean of the Faculty, Goode Professor of Appalachian Studies, Professor of History, Berea College

Dorothea Lange, February 1936

“Young people learn more than half of what they know from visual information, but few schools have an explicit curriculum to show students how to think critically about visual data.” Mary Alice White, Columbia Teacher’s College

Visual Literacy

Vision

Visuality

Seeing is interpreting light

Seeing is active

Seeing is subjective

Seeing is interpreting light

Seeing is active

Seeing is subjective

"Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind." William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890)

Visual Literacy

Vision

Visuality

Visual Literacy

Visual Thinking

Visual Communication

Visual Learning

Visual Literacy

Visual Thinking

Visual Communication

Visual Learning

Wordle, Tag clouds

Visual Teaching

2D and 3D representations

garb,1 garden, 39 garden-path,1 garden-pots,1 gardener,3 gardens,1 garment,1 garment--so,1 garniture,1 gates,1 gathered,1 gathering,2 gem-like,4 … Giovanni, 98 Giovanni's,17

Collaborations between Art Museums, Nursing & Medical Programs

Image as Metaphor

Facilitate understanding

Account for brain processing

Appear in an engaging context

Good

visualizations

Visual Literacy

Visual Thinking

Visual Composing

Visual Learning

Digital Story

Multimedia project

Photo essay

Illustrate/ map concept

Photo Field Research

Timeline

Data Visualization

Analyze Image Archive

Visual Composition

Create documentary

Visual Literacy

Visual Thinking

Visual Composing

Visual Learning

Vision

Visuality

References & Inspirations: Bransford, J. D., A. L. Brown, and R.R. Cocking, ed. 1999. How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. National Research Council. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Berry, C., L.A. Schmied, and J. C. Schrock. (2008) The role of emotion in teaching and learning history: A scholarship of teaching exploration, The History Teacher, 41: 437-452.

Debes, J. 1969. The loom of visual literacy, Audiovisual instruction 14 (8): 25 - 27.

Elkins, J. ed. 2008. Visual Literacy. New York; London: Routledge.

-----. 2003. Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction. New York; London: Routledge.

Felten, P. (2008) Resource review: Visual literacy. Change Magazine. 60-63

Foster, H. (1988) Vision and Visuality. Issue 2 of Discussions in Contemporary Culture. New Press.

Hayles, N. K. 2007. Hyper and deep attention. Profession 2007. New York: Modern Languages Association of America, 187-199.

Little, D, P. Felten & C. Berry (2010, Spring). Liberal education in a Visual World. Liberal Education. 96(2). Association of American Colleges & Universities.

Little, D. & Felten, P. (2010) Seeing is Believing: Visual Teaching and Learning. NEA Higher Education Advocate: Thriving in Academe, 28(1), 5-8.

Luke, C. 2003. Pedagogy, connectivity, multimodality, and interdisciplinarity. Reading research quarterly 38 (3): 397-403.

Martinez, K. (1995) Imaging the past: Historians, visual images, and the contested definition of history. Visual Resources, 11: 21-45.

Mazur Group (2010) How the mind tricks us: Visualizations and visual illusions. Presented at University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 28 October 2010. http://mazur- www.harvard.edu/sentFiles/MazurTalk_1675.pdf

Mitchell, W. J. 1994. Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sturken, M. and L. Cartwright. 2001. Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. New York: Oxford University Press.