Dr. Kate Shoulders, Associate Professor of Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food & Life Sciences, gave a presentation titled “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: Using Google Images to Enhance Student Reflection” at the Annual Baum Teaching Workshop sponsored by the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy.
Shoulders notes that reflection is an important part of student learning and the mode of reflection may also be just as important as the act of reflecting. Because of this, Shoulders decided to use images as a way for students to reflect on and explain how they are doing in the class. These nonlinguistic reflections allow students to better explain themselves, gives the instructor a better understanding of and memory of the student, and creates a positive relationship–often based in humor–between the student and instructor.
The assignment is simple and the rewards are high.
Weekly Visual Reflections: Each week, you will be required to submit an image (found via Google or other search engine) that portrays your feelings about the topic at hand. Along with the image, you will submit one paragraph that describes how the image portrays your feelings. These will be discussed each week during our class meetings.
Here is a sample of some of the images that students have shared with Dr. Shoulders
For more information on this activity, see Dr. Shoulders’ presentation below or email her at cshoulde@uark.edu
This content was developed from a presentation by Kate Shoulders at the Annual Baum Teaching Workshop which was sponsored by the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy.
The presentation can be downloaded and viewed as a PDF: Kate Shoulders – A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: Using Google Images to Enhance Student Reflection