Representation and Visual Culture
EDUC 5470/ARTH 5180
This blended course critically analyses issues in the history and theory of representation and visual culture. The emphasis in this course offering is on the intersection of visual culture and critical pedagogy. Jointly listed with Education and Art History, the course is interdisciplinary and practice-oriented. Students from all disciplines are welcomed , as each perspective contributes to a more complex understanding of the role of visual culture and representation in the (re) production, mediation and contestation of contemporary knowledge.
The course aims to develop an awareness of and ability to ask meaningful, thought-provoking questions about visual culture and real world issues. The student employs these questions to prompt new directions in their research and teaching, regardless of their discipline. These are applied in the classroom and in web-based classes.
“I really enjoyed posting on the blog because it allowed me to explore ideas that I hadn’t formed well enough in class and gave me an outlet to share these ideas and get feedback from my peers.”
In this particular course, the students are asked to keep a blog throughout the semester. They are expected to use the blog as an opportunity to reflect upon their experiences in the course and record a shifting and growing understanding of their cases studies, the course material, other readings. The point of the blog is to try and bring the theories from the class into the modern day. I am encouraging them to find contemporary examples and applying the concepts to these examples, talk about the material in layman’s terms or just reflect on their (mis)understandings. This portion of the course proved to be successful and useful for these graduate students. It became a way for them to interact with their peers in way that was not totally supervised or confined to the four walls of the classroom. They were able to construct their ideas with the help of multi-media and other resources. This allowed them to form complete and well-structured thoughts.
“I felt that the blog freed us the students, from the technical aspects of journal writing, and allowed us to focus more on specific knowledge and knowledge construction.”
“Through active participation, I was pleasantly surprised and my initial view of the platform was not only abolished, I found the blog to be a crucial tool in anchoring some themes explored in the classroom and in the readings”
“The online blog permitted something beyond conversation entirely…”
“I found that having the ability to comment and interact with my peers on the livejournal.com blog extremely useful, as most of my peers are from an education or art history background and would approach certain topics differently than I would. It was useful to see how they thought through certain ideas in their blog posts, and reading other people’s thoughts on the articles broadened my perspective on what different things meant to others or how they could be applied to issues in my own field.”
