This paper reports changes in the Technion technology/mechanics teacher education courses aimed to enhance students’ knowledge and skills in teaching digital design and manufacturing. The two major changes are: (1) equipping the departmental laboratory of technology with modern computer aided design software tools (Creo, Mathcad) and 3D printer, and (2) upgrading the courses to meet the conceive-design-implement-operate (CDIO) approach. Our ongoing study indicates that the CDIO approach can be applied to balance learning pedagogical fundamentals, training technological skills, and teaching practice. The study provides indications that learning activities in the courses facilitate development of visual literacy skills.
The importance of visual literacy development is demonstrated using social studies examples from an innovative, collaborative arts program. Discussion of the Visual Thinking Strategies approach, connections to the Common Core State Standards, prompts for higher-order critical thinking, and the application of historical and social science ideas in the classroom are presented.
The role of the school librarian requires mastering numerous dynamic and pliable 21st-century literacies. Of those literacies, visual literacy is sometimes overlooked, yet appear in numerous standards at the state and national levels.
Academic art museums have been developing and using pedagogic approaches that support learning in the museum for many years. As with many teaching and learning practices, these have shifted from curator-centered lecturing to visitor-centered active learning techniques. Concern for how learning in the art museum can leverage learning outside of the museum (what we here refer to as learning through the museum) is a more recent consideration taken up by museum directors, curators, university teaching and learning centers, and individual faculty members.
This paper reports on a pilot study conducted at a medium–sized state university in California. An information literacy instructional method which incorporated instruction in argument analysis using both text and image-based material was used in two sections of a two unit quarter length first year information literacy course. The course was part of a first year experience cluster program that included several linked general education courses, including instruction in writing and reasoning. The information literacy course required an argument and research paper. The instruction consisted of: an analysis of an article’s argument components, a topic analysis worksheet; news photo, advertisement, political cartoon and infographic assignments, emphasizing various elements of argument and alternative perspectives. Results of the pre and post-tests and of a sampling of research papers are reported and discussed.
Mini-documentary video projects are short factual videos that can be created by students. The mini-documentary video is generally suitable for entry level skill sets and online distribution. Multiple interrelated competencies can be attained while researching a topic, collecting media assets, recording original content, composing, editing, and producing a mini-documentary video project. This paper outlines a conceptual framework for learning through mini-documentary production, which is based on experiences working with adult students in an online course featuring video editing for YouTube. Three interrelated areas where learning can occur are discussed: (1) visual and media literacy, (2) copyright and fair use, and (3) educational video design. Strategies that have worked in past iterations of the course are described as well as problems or issues to be aware of prior to implementing projects like this in the classroom.
Visual culture is becoming an increasingly prominent part of our cultural identity in the 21st century. Consequently, images have become an important tool with which to communicate science. We identify two impediments to science communicators using visual elements effectively: (1) visual material is typically treated as an add-on instead of being an integrated part of the whole and (2) there is a lack of identifying target audiences and refining visual elements for them specifically. We argue that science communicators can become more effective visual communicators if they incorporate elements of theory and practice from the discipline of design.
Visual producers have a deep and inseparable relationship with the institutionalisation and development of archaeological practice. Their role in articulating concepts, circulating knowledge, refining interpretations, and publicising sites, finds and features – indeed demarcating those sites/finds/features in the first instance – is hardly a point for contention today.
“Although finding, interpreting, and using archives is inherent in the study of history, no standard identifies the archival research competencies college history students should possess. The purpose of this study is to identify history faculty expectations of undergraduates regarding their archival research skills and, based on those expectations, to create a list of archival research competencies that could be incorporated into the history classroom or introduced by the archivist in archival literacy sessions.”
“The purpose of this paper is to investigate three tools based on principles of information visualization and measure their impact on undergraduates’ abilities to generate keywords for database research.”
“This paper aims to report early findings of the second iteration of an implicit student-generated mobile learning project that promotes visual literacy and peer mediated learning. The first iteration was conducted with first year health science students at the University of Queensland, Australia, in 2013. We found that while the video assessment task may have aided learning for each student around their specific chosen topic, overall course learning outcomes did not improve. This was perhaps due to a failure of the peer mediated learning aspect of the learning activity. Furthermore, the labour intensive nature of the task may have attenuated overall performance in the course. Acting on these findings, we adjusted the visually based, peer-to-peer mobile learning activity accordingly.”
“This paper makes a case for a direct relationship between digital literacy and nonlinear thinking styles, articulates a demand for nonlinear thinking styles in education and the workplace, and states implications for a connection between nonlinear thinking styles visual literacy, and intuitive artistic practice.”