Teaching Teachers: Learning through Graphic Literacy

The Educator’s Role in Preparing Visually Literate Learners
Susan E. Metros (2008)

Metros gives us a good background on how our culture has become dependant on the visual
-visual literacy: capacity to communicate instantly and universally.
-advances in technology fueled shift

- Some students and some teachers lack a vocabulary of vision to communicate non-verbally and the ability to express themselves visually

Why Visual Lit?
(Hicks & Essinger) (1991)
Research into cognitive science suggests that users prefer visual displays of information to verbal descriptions.

Not to negate written word as it is just as important. This multi-modal literaciy enhances highly cognitive thinking possibly by allowing the user to see relationships between graphics and text allowing a faster reaction to anylizing.

-The human eye-brain system automatically searches for a visual order and heirarchy in wat it perceives.

It reduces learning cognitive load by simplifying meaning and providing clarity to complex concepts.

(Some reasons above why graphic literacy, if used well, is important to facilitate pedagogical theories. Describe deep learning again?

Graphic/Visually Literacy
- connect abstract concepts to life
- direct user’s focus and attention
-aid the user’s perceptive and cognitive skills
-stimulate interest and excitement

Tang,G.
“Graphics have been shown to be efficient tools for making visible  the knowledge structures which underlie the information. In other words, graphics communicate the shape of the information, thus making it possible for students to transfer their learning beyond the immediate lesson.”

What?
It sounds a bit like student-centered learning. In this case graphics are used to stimulate learners to actively participate in their own learning and move beyond ’surface’ learning to start to think about relationships and abstraction.

“…graphics, thus, provide a context which can be recycled and reused…”