Visual pedagogy in visual research methods courses
In this pedagogical project, conducted in collaboration with a co-teacher, we constructed our own framework for visual pedagogy on the basis of dialogic pedagogy, experiential learning and collaborative learning, and the idea to make each class as visual as possible. We applied this framework in two visual research methods courses: a semester-long and an intensive one-week summer school, each with a different and diverse groups of students. We collected (spring 2019) and analyzed various data sets, including students’ assignments and activities, students’ learning diaries and course feedback, and teachers’ teaching diaries. We concluded that a move toward visual pedagogy could be the response to an increasingly visual environments that require new approaches to learning and teaching. Visual pedagogy has potential for successful adaptation beyond the visual research methods courses.
This idea I further developed in the edited volume: Visual Pedagogies in Higher Education: Between Theory and Practice (2022), published in the Brill’s series: “Advances in Teaching and Teacher Education”. In the extended Introduction, I discussed the role of skilled vision and how to develop it; I also compiled the main principles of visual pedagogies for higher education.
“Visual literacy in Finnish Higher Education: Theories, Aspiration and Practices” – postdoctoral project (1.08.2021-31.12.2022)
The study examines the current state of visual literacy (VL) education in Finnish universities, by looking at the past, present and future of VL education, and by researching it from the perspectives of educational aspirations in this area, existing theories and teaching practices. Visual literacy is a group of abilities to understand, and to use images, as well as to think and learn in terms of images. In university teaching, visuals help in knowledge acquisition and assist in a better understanding of the course content; they enhance memory, which benefits the learning process. However, VL receives scant attention in scholarship in Finland, urgently calling for a ‘Finnish VL movement’. First, the project will review educational policies and curricula across institutions. Next, the Delphi study among educators and experts will be conducted to map the understanding of VL and existing theories. Finally, through teaching observations the study will focus on practices in VL education.
The work conducted in the project is funded by the MultiLEAP (Multiliteracies for social participation and learning across the life span) profiling area of the University of Jyväskylä.
Postdoctoral research project on digitally mediated transnational (visual) communication (1.01.2019-31.03.2021)
Conducted as part of the project: “What’s in the App? Digitally mediated communication within contemporary multilingual families across time and space” (PI: Prof. Åsa Palviainen), Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä; funder: Academy of Finland.
In this postdoctoral project, I was interested in the question of how family transnational relationships are mediated through mobile apps and what is the role of images in this communication. I conducted an ethnographically driven study on digital communication practices of transnational Polish families living in Finland. As part of the methodology, for the auto-driven visual elicitation interviews, I used an interactive collage as a prompt. I asked participants to create collages of their family constellations and digitally mediated communication practices by juxtaposing colored cards of adult’s and children’s silhouettes and apps’ icons.
This project expanded my research focus toward migration studies and transnationalism (kinship, virtual proximity), digital communication (in-app communication, affordances). I also studied the role of images in digitally mediated transnational communication, compiling WhatsApp iconology and discussing how to study images without images.
Postdoctoral project on visual literacy (1.01-31.12.2018)
Students’ Visual Literacy Skills across Disciplines in Finnish Higher Education
Like never before, our life has considerably changed towards more visually oriented one. Young adults frequently create and share images, but their competency in visual communication should not be taken for granted. Thus, in my postdoctoral project I will examine to what extent students in Finnish higher education are visually literate. The study aims to a) develop a method for assessing skills in visual literacy, b) conduct assessment of graduates’ visual literacy skills in various fields of study across Finnish higher education, and c) examine any differences between curricula content that may lead to the difference in the level of visual literacy skills among students. A method for visual literacy assessment will be created based on the synthesis of visual literacy theory and definitions and review of previous studies on visual literacy assessment. Results will offer significant insight into understanding of young adults’ competency in visual communication and help to develop relevant visual pedagogy(s) for higher education curricula across disciplines.
Project was first conducted at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä (1.01-30.06.2018) under the grant from The Alfred Kordelin Foundation, and later in the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä (1.07-31.12.2018) under the grant from the The Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation.
Doctoral dissertation project (1.09.2010-29.12.2016)
Interpretation of Journalistic Photographs as an Instrument of Visual Literacy Education
…photography is the language of the twenty-first century and being able to think
critically about and analyze photographs is an essential twenty-first century literacy. (Michelle Bogre, 2015)
Images are produced, used and distributed on an enormous scale. However, the skills of understanding, interpreting and using images as well as thinking and learning in terms of images are taken for granted, and thus, they are not sufficiently taught and developed, especially in higher education. The need for introducing visual literacy into the curriculum was identified in late 1960s, but no concrete guidelines have followed. This study proposes to apply interpretation of journalistic photographs as an instrument of visual literacy education. The main focus is on the image interpretation process and the kinds of meanings viewers apply to a photograph in the interpretation process. In each of the four articles included in this study, a model or approach to photography interpretation is proposed. The first method is the model for press photograph story analysis, immersed in visual semiotics. This model was simplified and improved and became the model for the interpretation of journalistic photographs. Both models were created as a synthesis of some of the visual research methods, including classical theories (elements of visual semiotics, visual rhetoric, Barthes’ concept of studium and punctum), approaches having their roots in the analysis of paintings (Barrett’s principles for interpreting photographs, compositional interpretation, iconological context analysis), methods dedicated to analysis of photographs in the press (quantitative content analysis). The concept of context of journalistic photographs is also critically discussed, indicating a context of production, context of medium and page context, and arguing for the decontextualized interpretation of journalistic photographs (proposing an intertextual approach) with a context limited to the caption. In addition, the study compiles the genre typology of journalistic photographs as an instrument for visual education. The study calls for changes in a largely textual higher education curriculum towards a more visually oriented one, which can serve as a start point for future research on the assessment of visual literacy skills.
Joanna Łucja Kędra 