susanmodule1

Module 1

MIT OpenCourseware: Photographing the First Year http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/architecture/4-a21-stories-without-words-photographing-the-first-year-fall-2006/syllabus/ This course seems to cycle through all principles of instruction. **Demonstration Principle:** From the syllabus, the technical sessions show learners the skill that they will be expected to learn. **Application Principle:** Through a series of assignments, students use their new knowledge to understand their new surroundings. **Problem-centered Principle:** The problem facing incoming MIT students is how to adapt to their new environment. Photography is a tool to help them understand the conditions and emotions of this new environment. **Activation Principle:** Students may reflect on earlier crossroads in their lives (new school, new friends, leaving family—even if it is only for just summer camp), and draw on their past experiences to process this newest juncture in their lives. In addition, if students have familiarity with analog cameras (even the disposable ones), they may draw on this knowledge to learn about digital imaging.

**Integration Principle:** Students have consultations and individual critiques that promote reflection, analysis and evaluation. Undoubtedly, students will have acquired a new vocabulary that expresses the nuance of this particular art form. **What level of instructional strategy is used in this course? **This course looks like a level three instructional strategy. The course recognizes a problem that is common to incoming freshman (adjusting to living on their own in a new environment), and builds the course around it.

After demonstrations in technical information (Photoshop,Dreamweaver, Flash) students record events (perhaps both literal and emotional), and create a visual commentary. Creating a visual commentary is an application of their new photographic skills to process and solve a problem.

While the major problem (documenting and processing their first year) is carried throughout the course, I don't see this as a "single problem" course. It seems that there is a "family of complex problems", that seems to progress in complexity as the course progresses. I imagine that after students learn the technical information and basic composition, their next task demands that they create a cohesive "body of work" that creates a unified emotional impact.

**How could this course be improved to move to a higher level of instructional strategy? ** This class seems to be at a level 3 **, **the highest level of instructional strategy. I felt that it struck a pleasing balance between inspiration, content, and technical information. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I would really like to see how the instructor coaches students to activate and recall previous knowledge to apply to their new problem.


 * Revision of Module 1 with Respect to Team Comments:**

Hi Eric and Elvis!

Thank you for your comments on my analysis!

Elvis posted an interesting question about problem-based instruction. I too am grappling with the concept of problem-based learning, especially in regards to photography.

As a literature geek, I tend to think of "problem" as "conflict". Every novel or story has a conflict. The conflict may be an internal one, or a conflict with society or environment, or with another character. How the main character goes about solving this problem (or not solving problem, which often enlarges the problem) forms the progression of events in the story. Story is all about problems and problem-solving.

Just as a side note, I really like the way Eric teaches religion, because it is all about problem solving. He begins the semester by asking students to list questions that they have about life, and then Eric takes those questions and structures his class around it. He looks for readings in the Bible that address those particular questions and problems. The stories demonstrate how different biblical characters solve problems.

So, getting back to photography and story, I think that there is story in photography. Even a single photograph can tell a story, or alludes to a story. I might say that the story in a photo is what makes it interesting. I think this is why I usually find candids or photojournalistic photos more interesting than studio portraits.

The MIT course doesn't emphasize story, and if this were my class, I might make that central. So the problem might be: how can a story be told without words? I think the situation of these incoming freshman students suggests a story conflict (main character vs. new environment, new culture) or problem that will be resolved by the end of the year.

Interestingly, in one of the lecture notes, the instructor mentions light as a "character" of the story. I thought this was intriguing, but there seems to be a kind of distance in the assignments. That is, the student photographer is not the main character of the story, but an observer of the environment. Perhaps through discussion or conferencing these concepts are coached into becoming more personal.

In discussing this course with Dr. Merrill, he identified the problem as "how can we help students to communicate visually, rather than verbally?" So, the students learn a series of applications that help them communicate visually. And these skills help them to tell their own story, or process or reflect on their own story.

In this way, students don't just learn technical skills, but also think about the effects of these technical skills. For example, what is the emotional and psychological effect of a blurred picture? Most of us tend to think that a focused photo is a better photograph than an unfocused one, but the //story// the student wants to tell may required a blurred photo.

Through threaded discussion posts, or in classroom discussions, students can reflect on their personal responses to photos, learning new skills, and respond to other student posts. This may be a way to activate prior experiences and promote the creation of mental models.

I found the MIT course description inspiring and intriguing. I really like the quote from Dorothea Lange,which read: "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."

Since I teach 9th and 10th graders, I might ask them to write about what they think this quote means and how they might restate it, and what might be their own, personal goal as a developing photographer.

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