Tiffany Moy, Heidi Schroeder, and Joy Wu are the George Washington University School of Nursing instructional designers and experienced faculty. They presented a session during the Quality in Action QM conference in April. The title of their session is “PhotoVoice – A Teaching and Learning Strategy for Promoting Empathy and Critical Thought.” The presenters began by polling the audience to learn about their familiarity with technology and PhotoVoice. PhotoVoice projects were described through an infographic. Participants go into a community with cameras and take photos based on the research topic and then have a discussion based on the photos. Photovoice has developed into an instructional strategy for students to think critically about photos and the social implications of their work. The sociocultural context is explored by learners. To begin, a prompt is shared with students. The prompt, according to presenters, is usually open-ended. Examples shared were: “what is leadership?” and “what is water scarcity?” Participants in PhotoVoice take photos to create a digital story. Ethical considerations, Schroeder explained, should be discussed to consider what scenarios and photos can be taken. They also shared ways of implementing this strategy online in asynchronous courses. With this activity, students benefit by learning about social problems too! PhotoVoice also promotes empathy. Moy shared how they got started with PhotoVoice. Schroeder shared prompt examples from courses. In an Educational Technology course, students learned about the “legal and ethical issues teachers face as they implement classroom technology.” The prompt was to increase social justice and address cyberbullying. In another first-year course, students were asked to take photos to capture themes related to the agency where they worked. In this course, Schroeder discussed the ethics of sharing photos. Wu shared how PhotoVoice assignments were used in a Disaster Preparedness for Underserved Communities course. The goal of this assignment was to engage the public. Students used VoiceThread to provide feedback and engage in asynchronous conversations. May shared an assignment that had writing engagements. Importantly, May urged instructors to consider participant privacy and image ownership. One question by a participant was “have you considered the accessibility and equity of this assignment?” Schroeder did mention participants have access to photo databases. Wu added that they had a blind student who completed the assignment and used caption and voice to tell a story from a different perspective. The last part of the session was open to questions and one participant mentioned teaching American Sign Language and Deaf Culture. They explained that rather than just a lecture, this assignment would be an option. As I prepare for the summer assignment for the critical and creative thinking certificate, this session gave me several ideas, including photo collages and VoiceThread discussions.
