Can Pictures Speak Louder than Words?
As an art educator, images are part of my instruction all day long. While my presentations contain bulleted step-by-step directions and I give verbal instructions as well, the text I present is minimal. My presentations are instead filled with images and videos. In her journal article, Prewriting Tasks for Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic Learners, Lisa Leopold states that “many instructors teach in the way that reflects their own learning style preferences despite the fact that mismatches in teacher-learner styles may result in lower student achievement” (2012). Well, that’s a bummer! Fortunately, Dunlap and Lowenthal’s article in The Journal of Visual Literacy takes a slightly different stance. They claim that visuals can “assist with cognitive processing by providing a context or metaphor… [and] they serve to help people understand abstract, complicated, and complex information.” Based on this, they claim that “we are all visual learners” (2016). WooHoo! This is great news for educators, especially those wanting to use infographics in their classrooms.
So, let’s talk about infographics. I have never used infographics in my classroom, at least not as they are described by Hicks and Turner in Argument in the Real World. To start, they cite Wikipedia's definition of an infographic. Wikipedia describes an infographic as “a graphic visual representation of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly” (“Infographic,” 2022). Infographics, where have you been all my life? These things seem right up my alley. Thinking back to my days as a student and my career as a teacher, I have been using janky hand-drawings and poorly crafted posters for infographic stand-ins. With sites like Piktochart and Canva it appears to be fairly simple, and fun, to create personalized infographics to represent almost anything. Hicks and Turner do warn that infographics have a tendency to be one-sided and therefore students need to be taught more about the design of infographics in order to “read deeply and uncover bias” (2017, pg. 44). This little caveat isn’t a isn’t necessarily a bad thing however, it’s just something to keep in mind while teaching students about infographics.
I believe students could really benefit from creating their own infographics and I wanted to try it first. I’m thinking that next year, when students have completed a long and complicated project, they can work in groups to create an infographic that will help them retain what they learned throughout the process. The infographics they create could then be used to help the next class of students understand the process better. This could be a great way to introduce them to the important design principles that are part of our curriculum, ease them into digital literacy, get them talking about the content on a deeper level, and reach those various learning styles that are addressed in Leopold’s journal. Hicks and Turner state that “creating infographics allows students to engage in inquiry in interesting ways” (2017). To test out this idea, I created an infographic of my own. Since infographics can be used to present a variety of information, it was difficult to decide what I wanted to include in my infographic. Ultimately, I decided to make an infographic on “how to create an infographic.” A bit cheesy, I know, but I decided that would be a great way to further familiarize myself with the content from Hicks and Turner's book as well as provide me with a great visual to use with my students next year. Before I began designing my infographic I created a list of things Hicks and Turner said should be included in an infographic. Next I created a list of information I wanted to include on my infographic. Both lists can be found in the table below.
Through the process of creating the above infographic, I learned more about the content covered in the book than I did from simply reading it. In order to create the infographic, I had to review the chapter and revisit it multiple times. In addition to re-reading the material, I had to work on phrasing and find appropriate images to make my content clear. Afterwards, I had to read over my finished project in order to edit and make sure everything was accurate. By the time all of this was finished I had really internalized the information. According to Dunlap and Lowenthal, “people learn and remember more efficiently and effectively through the use of text and visuals than through text alone” (2016). So in thinking about my experience, I learned from creating this infographic, and based on what Lowenthal and Dunlap have stated, my students will also learn by using my infographic. All-in-all it’s win-win!
References
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P.R., (2016). Getting graphic about infographics: design lessons learned from popular infographics, Journal of Visual Literacy, (35)1, 42-59. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.montevallo.edu/doi/full/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832
Hicks, T., & Turner, K.H. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Heinemann.
Infographic. (2022, June 16). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infographic
Leopold, L., (2012). Prewriting tasks for auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners. TESL Canada Journal, (29)2, 96-102. Teachers of English as a Second Language - Canada, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ981503
Hello Jessie,
ReplyDeleteI would love to see the way you incorporate infographics into your instruction. I feel like there are so many ways that it can be done. Experimentation is absolutely necessary and key for all writers, but especially for digital writers (Lawrence, 2022, p. 40). It is super important to encourage creativity and experimentation and what better place to do that than in art class! Studies have shown that the use of infographics in acadmics has a greater impact on increasing student achievement the more they are used (Senel & Taner, 2021). Again, I would love to hear more about your ideas!
References:
Şenel Elaldı, & Taner Çifçi. (2021). The effectiveness of using infographics on academic achievement: A meta-analysis and a meta-thematic analysis. Journal of Pedagogical Research, 5(4), 92–118. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPR.2021473498
Lawrence, D. (2022). Digital writing: A guide to writing for social media and the web. Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press.
Jessie,
ReplyDeleteInfographics can be so creative, full of color, and with outstanding design. I would love to listen to your artistic thoughts and ideas on creating aesthetically pleasing designs for infographics, especially if you use it in the classroom. Art has always been a scary thing for me since I am not good with pencils, however, your background in the field can surely add substantial creative ideas to the creation of infographics. Turner and Hicks (2017) mention several ways to apply infographics to the classroom by comparing, creating surveys, creating research projects, and the housing of infographics. However, I would love to hear your creative ideas on how these digital texts can be applied to an art course. It could possibly be something that could be used by all courses to support visual learners too.
You mentioned that students could create infographics on certain curriculum areas to make it easier for future students to understand. I find this to be an awesome Idea and I plan to apply it in my own classroom. Even better, we could assign the same infographics to students to compare to each year and form arguments whether the old digital text is good enough or if it needs updating and why! My brain is on a roll. Awesome infographic!
Reference:
Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Heinemann.
Hi Jessie,
ReplyDeleteI can relate to how we as educators are using images and creating various presentations to deliver information to our students or fellow teachers. Now as teachers, we have another tool/resource that we can add to our toolbox to help us with presenting information or creating a digital argument. I also created my first digital infographic this week as well and I do not think it was cheesy that you chose the topic of your infographic on how to create an infographic. This digital argument can be incorporated as part of your classroom instruction and a fun activity to complete with your students. Turner and Hicks (2017) discussed how "the most important component of an infographic is accurate data" (p. 62). Your infographic does just that and is also visually aesthetic as well as being easy to read. Great work and I think you did an amazing job.
Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: Teaching adolescents to read and write digital texts. Heinemann.
Jessie,
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about how I might realistically teach how to create infographics in my classroom, and your idea about having students create an infographic to recap or help retain information after a project was a great idea! You are in essence "killing two birds with one stone" in that you are having the retain content and teaching them an important skill. Turner and Hicks (2017) note that "because technology allows a writer more choices than just words on paper do, students need technological knowledge to be sophisticated digital writers. Knowledge of technology...connects to both declarative and procedural knowledge as well as to the form and substance of the writing itself" (p.11). By having students create an infographic either as a recap or review, or even the final assessment itself, you are having them connect to both declarative and procedural knowledge.
One example of using this method is explained in an article by Mark McDermott, a high school science teacher. He described teaching his students to learn the scientific method by writing out the steps and using multimodal materials to illustrate them with great results on later summative assessments (McDermott, 2010). His article is a great real-life example of how to integrate (digital) writing to learn methods with multimodal resources.
References
McDermott, M. (2010). More than writing to learn: using multimodal writing tasks in science classrooms. The Science Teacher. January 2010. https://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1HDPC8LT1-232HTG0-HKW/PA%20Discussion%201.pdf
Turner, K.H., & Hicks. (2017). Teaching adolescents to read and write digital tests: Argument in the real world. Heinemann.