Photographs in U.S. Schools



Running head: Use of Photographs in U.S. SchoolsResearch on Photographs in U.S. Schools Melissa SnellUniversity of West GeorgiaArticle 1The first article is titled: A world of difference: Teaching tolerance through photographs in elementary school. The author is Timothy Litner. In this research, Timothy attempts to study how photographs can be used to teach diversity and tolerance in elementary settings in the United States. He mentions the importance of doing this with elementary aged students because they are in the process of creating their own perceptions about differences among people. If students can learn tolerance when they are young they will become better citizens in the future. The literature reviewed in this article stems around children’s attitudes towards differences as well as how photographs have been used in classrooms in the past. The Federal Bureau of Investigations reported in 2002, that there were 7,463 prejudiced crimes reported, and adolescents committed most of these crimes. While America hopes to produce students that celebrate the differences of each person, this is not necessarily the case. Research shows that students learn about differences through their family, peers, media, and school. There are many instances of photographs being used in classrooms for a variety of ways in the past. They have been used to teach geography, visual vocabulary, promote self-esteem, and enhance reading and language arts classes. Several studies have been done with secondary school students using photographs to study diversity, but none with elementary students. The author not only wants students to understand differences through the photographs, but also be able to explain culture, physical, and economic differences that exist between different people in the world today and in the past. In addition to understanding these differences, Litner hopes that students will gain a tolerance or acceptance of differences that currently exist. The methods used took place during a half-hour lesson. One hundred seventy-five students in grades one, three and four participated in the lesson over a fourth month period of time. The student population consisted of 40% of minority students. Litner took great care in choosing photographs that helped show cultural, physical, and economic differences among children of the world. In the first part of the lesson, students discussed how they felt about people that are different from them. In the second part of the lesson, they were shown the photographs. As the students viewed the photographs they wrote downs their impressions from the pictures. The lesson was extended with a narration with the photos, explaining some of the differences they might have seen, as well as giving some basic history information and facts behind each photo. Several outcomes happened after the lesson. Students began to discuss the situations they saw and relate them to their own experiences, forming connections. There were many facts that shocked the students. In the beginning the students seem to feel threatened by the different pictures and thought they were strange, but in the end they began to feel much more passionate about the children in the photographs. Some students were able to comprehend that while the children were different in the photos, they were also similar to themselves as well. This article falls more into a category of a study rather than full-fledged research. What Litner did any competent teacher could easily replicate. In the midst of meeting the many standards that teachers are given for each grade, character building often gets pushed aside. Using photographs to teach tolerance with students can bring a newfound meaning to social studies lessons. The author notes how the students shared more information after they also listened to the narratives with the photographs. This reinforces Mayer’s multimedia principles of modality, multimedia, and temporal continguity. In addition to that, it also uses dual-coding principles, which will help students enter this new information into their long-term memory bank because of the visual and verbal tasks done simultaneously. While this study may not be solid research material, it is a great example of how photographs can be used to elicit thought provoking conversations and engaging learning experiences in the classroom. Article 2The second article is titled: Assessing ways of seeing the past: Analysis of the use of historical images and student performance in the NAEP U.S. History Assessment. Yonghee Suh and Leslie W. Grant are the authors. This research focuses on studying how visual images can be used to assess history knowledge in students. This study revolves around the NAEP U.S. History Assessment, which is given to elementary, middle, and high school students in various states in the U.S. In this particular research study the authors focus on the use of visual images within the test, and the ways in which students can interpret their meaning, as well as how well students can show off the historical thinking skills they have gained. Visual skills are reviewed in the literature as highly important because of amount of time that students are subjected to visual images throughout an ordinary day. The way students interact and interpret the images that they see each day has become a vital life skill. Students must be taught to critically think about the images they see, not just absorb them meaninglessly. Images are critical to studying past historical events that those students have not witnessed firsthand. This research used a mixed method approach using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Two hundred and forty-nine questions from past assessments for eighth and twelfth grades were collected. Out of these questions, forty-nine questions had visual images such as photographs, paintings, and political cartoons. These questions were coded and categorized and chi-square tests of independence were done. After this a coding taxonomy for the cognitive bases of the questions was created and an analysis of each image was conducted. The results from the category part of the study suggested that the questions are not evenly distributed. Most of the visual images assessed historical analysis and not historical knowledge. They also found that while these questions often revolved around higher-level thinking, they were not found to be difficult because of the use of visual images. In most circumstances it was shown that the questions given would not accurately illustrate students’ historical thinking skills in all contexts. The methods, data, and results reported in this research are extremely precise and intelligent. The authors spent time designing a solid study, around a complex issue. While some of the research is difficult to comprehend and the results are slightly vague, throughout the entire study, one theme is apparent. That theme is the impact that visuals have on the learning abilities of all types of students. This further emphasizes the need for students to be taught how to draw meaning and perspective out of the images they see. Teachers need to embrace visual literacy as a method of teaching and those that create assessments should allow room for open response items that revolve around deciphering images. Article 3:The third article is titled: Seeing how to ask first: Photo elicitation motivates English language learners to write. This research was conducted by: Kristien Zenkov, Marriam Ewaida, Athene Bell and Megan Lynch. In this study, the authors seek to find the positive affects photos can have on the literary achievements of adolescent English Language Learners (ELLs). Their study helped to show the power images have to help adolescents explain about their experiences in school as well as appreciate the literacy assignments required in their classrooms.The literature reviews focused on language dropouts, image-based methods in literacy instruction and photo elicitation pedagogy. ELL’s consistently struggle when immersed in middle and high school environments for the first time, and they often end up dropping out of school. The rates of ELL students in United States schools had continued to rise over the past ten years. Literacy skills seem to be the most challenging for ELL students in their schooling in the United States. Both the students and their families often feel detached from the school and community that they live in. Research has shown that all types of students engage when learning is multi-modal, even ELL’s and students with special needs. Using visual and digital imagery has the power to speak to all types of students, even those with language barriers. In this research, photo elicitation techniques are used to study the perspective that ELL adolescent students have on curriculum, teaching pedagogy used, and other aspects of school. These middle grade students were from classrooms in the suburbs of a mid-Atlantic city. All fourteen students were ELL’s. Multi-stage qualitative and visual analysis methods were used in this study. Data was collected in small group and one-to-one sessions with students. Students were given point and shoot cameras and show how to use them. They were then instructed to take ten to twenty-five pictures of images that help show the purpose of school, what helps them be successful at school, and what gets in their way of being successful at school. The photographs were used for discussions and then to prompt writing assignments. Three themes were apparent from the results. Students were motivated to write when asked about topics; using their own images as well as the images of peers was helpful in inspiring writing; moving beyond the classroom to take pictures proved to be meaningful in the literacy process. The use of photographs to engage ELL’s in the writing process was a success. It motivated the students and helped reach them where they were, as taking a picture and talking about it was easier then immediately writing down thoughts on paper. The methods in the project were well thought out and were successful in teaching the ELL’s that participated in this project. This work should be replicated and used in other schools around the United States. It should be used with all levels of students, not just the middle grades. Elementary students are very capable of taking pictures and doing similar activities. Photo elicitation pedagogy is helpful for all students and should be a part of daily classroom activities around the country. Article 4The fourth article is titled: “A pencil for your thoughts”; Participatory drawing as a visual research method with children and youth. The author is Ioana Literate from The University of Southern California. This article researches using drawing and discussions from drawings to allow students to express their thoughts in an empowering way. The study touches on the benefits of visual literacy and any limitations that are found when using this strategy with youth. The literature reviews focus around the use of visual research methods in the social sciences and visual versus textual ways of knowing. Research on visual theories involving both digital and non-digital techniques and how photographs can supplement words and writing are noted. The participatory factor of actually taking a picture or drawing a picture seems to allude to more empowerment for students. “Dialogic pedagogy” or the use of pictures to tell stories and explain circumstances has proven to be worthwhile for all types of students and adults. Drawings help to represent the relationship between written and oral text in a way that often words alone cannot do. Visual elements can portray and represent emotions and concepts that are not easily explained in words. Images can also generate creative thoughts and stimulate abstract ideas. Great care was taken with this social scientific research to make sure that the children felt comfortable around the researchers. The approach is non-positivistic in nature, making sure that the researcher is the outsider and on even ground with the participants, which are children in this case. The drawing methods used are qualitative in nature. Formative and evaluative research from the Indian public schools is shared. Only data from two participants is shared. One is a thirteen-year old girl and the age of the second child is not given. The author notes that this is the type of study that can only be done with a few students at a time, which greatly reduces the validity. The interpretation of the findings is also a cause for concern. This makes the research less reliable, as a different researcher may interpret the findings differently. While many studies have been done in these areas there is a need for more to be done in the future with different researchers to get a wider range of interpretations. The detailed descriptions of the student drawings and the interviews that transpired as part of this research validates the point that drawing is an active and meaningful task for children to participate in throughout their schooling career. Often drawing is thought of as what students can do after they have finished their writing, but this assumption needs to be revisited. There is power is using drawings to give meaning to concepts and ideas, and this should be built upon in classrooms throughout the United States. It will help engage students in their daily activities and provide meaningful experiences that they can build upon each and every day. Article 5The last article is titled: The use of urban students’ photographs as a data source and the complexity of their elementary teachers’ interpretations. The author is John Settlage from The University of Connecticut. In this study, photographs taken by urban students were shown to elementary teachers for them to use to describe the photos based on what they knew about the students. The thought is that this process would help the teachers to see ways that they can change their instructional practices to better meet the needs of their students. The literature reviews focus on teachers working in urban schools. Teachers in these environments have often struggled to make connections with their students. Much research has shown that teachers automatically make assumptions about students in urban environments before even getting to know their students. It is noted that some of these assumptions are inherent, and not deliberate in nature, but they exist. While using real-world experiences in classrooms is seen as an appropriate and meaningful practice in classrooms, the examples teacher often use in urban settings make references to items and concepts that the students have never seen or heard of, thus making this practice ineffective. Effective teaching is more than transmitting data and knowledge to students. It requires being able to change pedagogy and teaching styles based on the needs of the students in the classroom. In most urban schools there is a wide culture gap between the students and teachers, making student success that much harder. In a survey in 2001 by the U.S. Department of Education, teachers admitted to not feeling prepared to teach students from diverse backgrounds. In this research study, twenty-four third graders participated. All of the students were African American except for one child. All twenty-four children came from English speaking households. The research process was qualitative and data was collected in the form of pictures and interviews with the students and teachers. The third grade students were asked to take science pictures as well as pictures that described them. The pictures were printed and each student was interviewed about their pictures. The interviews were audiotaped. The student interviews were shared with the fourth grader teachers at the beginning of the following year (when the students that took the photos and did the interview were now fourth graders). All of the fourth grade teachers participated except one in the audiotaped teacher interviews that followed. The conclusions were varied, which is to be expected when different teachers were interviewed and gave their conclusions. The photographs perplexed some teachers and helped other teacher see into the minds of their students and their home lives and backgrounds. Regardless of the varied responses, the photographs did serve another means for each teacher to gain further insight about their students that they might not have ordinarily gained from normal classroom interactions. While this insight was helpful, the second part of the research revolved around this knowledge impacting the pedagogy and approaches that the teachers used to teach the students in their urban schools. The researcher was dismayed to note that while the teachers did seem to gain more appreciation for their students and their capabilities, this project did not stimulate new ideas for how they could better accommodate for cultural diversity within their own classrooms. This research project was very interesting. The way it followed the same group of students over the course of two years was intriguing. The thought process behind the methods had a firm base in appropriate pedagogy to be used with students in urban environments. As a pre-cursor to this project it would have been helpful for the teachers to have some training in approaches that might be successful with urban students. This might have created more pedagogy change or movement at the conclusion of the research. It appears that more training is needed for all teachers in Universities in respect to diversity and teaching a wide-range of students. Professional development in this area should be offered to teachers each year in urban school districts. The use of photographs for students to portray themselves as well as to explain science concepts is powerful. This approach could easily be used in all elementary settings, and would be a great icebreaker at the beginning of each year. All students could participate regardless of ability level, as the only thing needed is for them to take the pictures and discuss them. Other students could even make assumptions about their peers from the pictures and then discuss them. Pictures are worth a thousand words and can often provide the visuals needed for students to explain hard to grasp science concepts. The use of photography will be a source of much research in the future, as the power of using images in the classroom is becoming a prominent factor in appropriate teaching pedagogies that inspire and motivate the young students of today. References Lintner, T. (2005). A world of difference: Teaching tolerance through photographs in elementary school. Social Studies, 96(1), 34-37. Literat, I. (2013). "A pencil for your thoughts": Participatory drawing as a visual research method with children and youth. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12(1), 84-98. Settlage, J. (2004). The use of urban students' photographs as a data source and the complexity of their elementary teachers' interpretations. Journal of Elementary Science Education, 16(2), 33-50. Suh, Y., & Grant, L. W. (2014). Assessing ways of seeing the past: Analysis of the use of historical images and student performance in the NAEP U.S. history assessment. History Teacher, 48(1), 71-90. Zenkov, K., Ewaida, M., Bell, A., & Lynch, M. (2012). Seeing how to ask first: Photo elicitation motivates english language learners to write. Middle School Journal, 44(2), 6-13. ................
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