Develop Students' Critical Thinking...Take a Picture.

Want to develop students’ critical thinking skills? Talk to education professor Susan Holloway. Dr. Holloway engages Grades 5 to 8 students to develop their visual critical thinking skills through photography. Students are given digital cameras and taken out to natural settings where they take photographs of nature.

Preparation for the picture takes place in their English, math and science classes as well as through visits from professionals to introduce photographic techniques and elements of design. After the pictures are taken, each student must select only one photograph to exhibit in a gallery showing. This forces them to think critically as they justify why they selected that photograph.

“One teacher told me that perhaps 10% of these children would normally do a homework assignment, but 100% did every assignment as this project progressed! They were excited and motivated. They listened and questioned the professionals from the community. Photography evens the field for those students whose first language is not English,” says Holloway. Holloway hopes that the project will provide some insight into how English language learners from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are engaged in experiential learning, and if ecology and arts programs give these students access to the environment and multimodal literacies in ways they might not otherwise experience. Holloway emphasizes critical literacy at the Faculty of Education when she is preparing future teachers to teach English Language Arts.