Crafting Connections
Visual Notetaking as a Mode of Learning: Using Visual Arts to Enhance Literacy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Laurie Andes, Brandy Terrill
This study explores the ways in which learning is improved through the use of visual arts, specifically, the use of visual notetaking. Visual notetaking can be described as the process of representing text in a visual manner. This study explores the question, “How does visual notetaking affect literacy learning?” The sample for this study consists of fourteen teacher candidates enrolled in the course, "Integrating Aesthetic Experiences into Teaching and Learning," during the spring 2018 semester. Teacher candidates in this course are enrolled in the first phase of the Elementary Education Program at a mid-Atlantic university and are juniors and seniors. During the spring 2018 semester, teacher candidates will be asked to use a form of visual notetaking. Teacher candidates will write and reflect on the arts integrated lessons that they teach. These will be collected and analyzed. Data collection will consist of two samples of teacher candidate visual notes collected, one at the beginning of the semester, and one at the end of the semester. The samples will include two photos of visual notes. Candidates will also respond in writing to the question, “How do visual arts affect your learning?” in an anonymous format, on Google Forms. Three candidates will be invited to participate in a one-half-hour interview with the co-investigator, who is not the instructor of the course. The researchers will analyze the results and present the findings.
From Bricks and Mortar to the Mental: The Library and Cognition
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David Vampola
For decades libraries have been using the realities and possibilities of digital methods to define their function and mission. This prosaic truism has dominated much of the discussion concerning the roles and forms that contemporary - and future - libraries should take. In this view, the focus is primarily on the role that information and communication technology (ICT) should play in determining the structure, content and purposes of libraries. Yet, there is a complementary point of view that has received comparatively less attention from commentators. This perspective is based upon models and approaches found in cognitive science. This presentation will address how three perspectives that are informed by theories from cognitive science can help us understand paradigms for thinking about libraries. The first of these, based upon the theory of the "representational mind", conceives the library in its traditional role of collecting, structuring and modeling knowledge. The second, drawn upon strains found in connectionism and situated cognition, views the library as reticulated structure of associated material and online elements. The third, taken from the "enactive mind" approach, considers the library as a locus for the material production of knowledge. This viewpoint can encompass the current trend for including "maker spaces" in libraries. Rather than being strictly exclusionary, these three approaches work together to develop a holistic view of libraries that embraces and can enhance human knowledge and thinking.
Seeking Social Literacies in Librarian Praxis
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Vanessa Irvin
Public libraries are institutions of informal education. Librarians, as educators of informal education, are advocates of literacy in both formal and informal educational settings. However advocacy is just one layer of librarian epistemology in libraries. In public library settings, in particular, librarian epistemologies are interactive and intertextual. That is to say; that from a social practice perspective, such epistemologies are social, cultural, literary, digital, as well as educative. These epistemologies (as in ways of knowing in a certain place and time) are common across the public library sector, but unique and specific to public libraries located in specific places at specific times. For librarians who serve libraries in low-income communities, such epistemologies are indeed intertextual and intersect in various ways. In these communities, social practices inside library walls are informed by social literacies beyond library walls thus suggesting an understanding that begs a few questions: what are the epistemologies of public librarians? What counts as literacy for the librarian? What counts as social? literary? cultural? One overarching question can be: what makes a librarian socially literate in the community in which he/she serves? Drawing on Bartlett & Holland’s (2002) concept of “figured worlds,” the question of librarians’ “literacy identities in relation to social structures and cultural worlds” begs exploration towards an answer (p. 12).
