My session description: Developing visual literacy is a key skill for student success with Common Core State Standards. Students also need clear feedback about their progress. Using data displays, such as charts and graphs, we can integrate these goals and increase student achievement. In this interactive session, you will learn strategies that increase visual literacy and foster communication. You will also learn to effectively use data collected in classrooms as feedback with students. Both digital and analog tools for organizing and integrating data into lessons will be provided.
Session descriptions are written at least 10 months before the actual presentation happens. This extended timeline can explain why many sessions are not as promised, which is very frustrating for attendees. You pick something from the catalog that looks like it is the most perfect thing ever, only to show up and discover that the presenter has something different in mind. I try to stick as closely as possible to my submitted description, but I admit that I end up taking a little birdwalk here and there. It's hard not to---you learn so much in between submitting a proposal and actually presenting it. For me, a lot of that growth in learning has occurred to changing jobs this year and getting a much better on the ground view of the lack of visual literacy among students and teachers.
My logic model that framed my presentation was
I started the presentation with a brief look at visual communication in general---pictures have been used far longer than text. Then, we talked about how graphics used as feedback have a larger impact on student achievement than nearly any other type of feedback (e.g., marking answers right/wrong). All of this was to build a case for becoming visually literate.
I won't bore you with all the details. I fused together some previous presentation materials and pulled a lot of pieces of this blog in as examples. But if you want a look at things, I have it all stashed on the same wiki as my other resources.
I was slated for 8 a.m. on the last day of the conference---not quite the worst possible time slot, but just about. So, I had a small, but awesome crowd. Lots of comments afterward made me feel good, from one gentleman who said it was the best hour of the entire conference (and asked if there would be a Part II) to another with a very heady offer I'm kicking around.
Proposals for next year are due in a month, so I am already kicking around things to share. I think that I will put in something about using questions to focus data use...and something similar to this year on visual literacy skills. We have to expand our conversation about visual literacy. We work so hard in schools to be literate in other ways. We practice rules for grammar, punctuation, and different forms of writing...all with the goal of improving communication. But for the most part, the visuals developed are junk. And that needs to change.
In the meantime, there is SO much I want to learn. I would love to try and go to the Eyeo Festival next year. Or somehow wrangle an invitation to the Tapestry Conference. I'm feeling a need to get beyond the borders of education and exchange ideas and resources. I continue to do lots of reading and thinking (no matter how quiet I am here) and am always pondering what to learn next. Isn't that what we want for our schools, too?
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