Thoughts on Graphic Arts & Photography (Part II)

In this second week of the module I have had some more time to reflelct on the subjects of graphic arts and photography and how they relate to my own teaching. It is my job to create activities for my student that are compelling enough to lend themselves to memorable experiences. I strive for comprehension and retention of the material. Like a photographer, I utilize specific tools to modify my lessons in order to make them more concise and appealing to my students. I put in a great amount of effort to create a lesson design that fits the diverse needs of my learners. With this in mind, I must first think about the objective I need to teach. Then, I must consider how to present this objective in a way that engages students with the material. A photographer gauges the overall quality of their photographs based on the reactions they receive from the audience, but not everyone reacts to images in the same way. This is also true of my language arts lessons. Each student reacts differently to the lessons I present. I can tell if my lesson is successful or not based on the types of discussions that stem from the teaching and the overall level of student involvement during my small group meetings.

Now I will shift my thinking as I discuss how I can actually use images in my teaching. As mentioned in my previous post, I use photographs quite often as a added visual for my ELL population. Pictures adorn the wall of my classroom. Students who have limited background knowledge benefit from photographs in language arts as well as social studies. An author tries to paint a picture with their words, but sometimes this is not enough. These students are still mastering the language, and need to actually see a visual representation of the unfamiliar word as well as hear it out loud. I must be mindful of choosing the right image to present. I carefully select images to use during my lessons that will draw attention to the term or concept I am reviewing, as to not take away from the lesson as a whole. In addition to this, I have also used photographs to inspire student writing. At times I will display an image related to a topic I want to discuss and instruct students to free write about the image. It can be anything from a firefighter saving a building burning, to a lush tropical landscape. They use this visual to express their feelings about the subject, and then this leads me into my whole class discussion.

Overall, teachers work much like photographers as they try and achieve the right presentation. You may only get one shot at teaching a lesson, but you can go back and tweak the design as you improve the content for your specific group of learners. A teacher must have passion, patience, and time when creating lessons. These are all traits that photographers also encompass. They must keep their eyes open for students who are struggling, and take action as needed. Working through this module has made me realize how much these two professions are aligned (to a certain degree). As I continue on with my work this year, I will keep these important comparisons in mind for the benefit of my students.

PGCPS Logo, keeping graphic design in mind