Thinking about visuals

Low tech day today but full of visuals.

I started the day with asking teachers to select a black and white postcard from my vast collection to help with the following analogy:

"The word assessment makes me feel like (black and white photo) because....."

As luck would have it, one of the teachers was an art teacher who was teaching photography to her students and had just finished their unit on black and white photos!! I wanted to stop the workshop right then and there to tap her brain to help me take better photos but I resisted!

At the mid-way point of the day, I asked teachers to do a reflection of their learning and at this point had given them color coded shapes that corresponded to reflection prompts:

Square = This idea is square with me, it get it
Triangle = Some important points to remember
Circle = These ideas as circling in my head, I have questions about...
Cloud = Some things I am thinking about related to this are...

The teachers needed to do at least two shapes for me before they left for lunch. What was great for me about using the shapes (instead of my handout with the shapes on it) is that I had a really quick and easy visual of where the group was in terms of their learning. In this case, most of them had a square and the questions easily stood out and I could address them when we came back from the break. Since the topic was formative assessment, reflection on how I used that exercise as an assessment went to the "quick and easy" which was something the teachers wanted to do more of in their classrooms. We had a great conversation about color coding and use of visuals to help with that.

What was very interesting was that as we got to the end of the day and the planning for implementation phase, many of the teachers were thinking of ways to incorporate visuals into their planning. Whether it was a visual prompt as a reflection tool or summarizing learning using visuals or having the kids take their own pictures, we certainly had the right sides of our brains working. Even better, the collaboration with the art teacher was very high and I see some real connections happening with that group.

I did have the chance to sneak in a Flickr and Picasa reference or two but didn't want the technology to start to overshadow what was happening in the room. Thinking about how I could use the technology next time to model it as well so I have added a page to the wiki to start to capture those thoughts. If you have any others, let me know so that I can add them!!