Teaching Photography

Tools for the Imaging Educator

Glenn Rand, Jane Stevens, Garin Horner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317560357
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Digital Media

The photographic community is rife with talented and creative practitioners and artists. But making great photographs does not always translate into an ability to teach effectively. This new edition of Teaching Photography approaches photographic education from a point of view that stresses the how and why of the education. It includes the resources that will inspire new and seasoned teachers to help students expand their technical and aesthetic abilities and techniques, as well as their visual literacy and the way photography fits into the wider world. Fully updated to include the online/hybrid classroom environment, collaborative learning, rubrics, and using digital technology, plus techniques for inspiring conversations and critiques.

section 2

Teaching and Learning

Confident; by Christina Butler, student of Garin Horner

3

Importance of Questions

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.”

Josef Albers

Too often we assume that individuals are in the class that offers what they are interested in learning. While this is most often the case, there will be times when individuals’ attention drifts in and out of the class, all while they are sitting there. This makes helping them learn difficult. There is, however, a key event that can assist the teacher in increasing the opportunity for learning. This is when someone asks a question.

In most situations the fact that a student is asking a question is an indication that his or her mind is open for knowledge to enter. The student has identified a gap in their understanding or knowledge, sees this as a need, and wishes to fill this gap and advance their learning goals.

When students indicate their interest in filling in the gaps and rounding out their knowledge by asking a question, they are usually at the height of their learning potential. They have already identified their need and it provides the teacher with an opportunity to not only assist a single inquiring student but to also assist others. Clearing up one student’s question can perhaps expand the audience and/or the subject of the question to include more pertinent information.

“The notion that questions lead to more questioning brought life and progressive movement to my classes.”

Nicholas Hlobeczy

Who Is Asking What?

We hope that students will be asking questions to expand their learning. Primarily the teaching/learning process needs to be open to have questions interjected into the process. While this may be formally structured into the flow of instruction or informally available at random points within the process, the students will benefit from feeling comfortable about asking questions. In most evaluations of teaching there is a query that addresses the students’ ability to ask questions, and their comfort level in doing so within the course or with that instructor. The response is indicative of the effectiveness of the teaching/learning process.

“The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.”

John Dewey

In the flow of learning, early questions can be most beneficial. Within the learning process, the first learned bits of knowledge or processes mark the progress of correct learning. Questions at this point use answering to strengthen the learning process. When a “first learning” question is asked, the student’s mind is very open to take in more information and correctly learn from the interchange.

The concept of a “first learning” question assumes that the question is coming from interest in furthering learning at the first introduction to the material, but this is not the only case. There are several other reasons that people ask questions—to clarify, impress, and quarrel.

While a question asked to achieve clarification is similar to a question asked to gain new knowledge, there must be an understanding on the part of the answerer that this kind of “clarifying question” requires an approach that reinforces the learning that has already taken place. Clarifying means that parts of or all of the knowledge or learning have been gained but not totally ingrained. Often this type of answering will need to be in a form different from that of the original presentation of the material or process. If the answer is in the same terms as originally presented, then there is a good chance that the reasons that the learning did not totally happen may be revisited.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do, and I understand.”

Chinese proverb

One of the major problems with “being two weeks ahead of the students” is that the methods to answer clarifying questions may not be within control of the teacher. If the teacher has just learned the material, it may be difficult to have the knowledge to adjust the answering process to enable the student to see and learn from the new descriptive statement.

While being fresh to the materials limits clarifying answers, being stuck creates another problem. Often success, or perceived success, with the presentation of materials leads the teacher to return to this method of presenting the material again. Ineffectual instructors often fall into stressing their original presentation without clearing up the incomplete knowledge. This approach locks the student into a learning pattern that did not provide them with clarification of the materials. If the questions are clarifying, then flexibility in answering becomes important for success, for both the student requesting clarification and for others who will gain from this questioning interaction.

There will also be times when questions become avenues to assist students with their learning by being a diagnostic tool. Often students will be in a class that is beyond their preparation or abilities. In these situations, defining the students’ potential problems while they are traveling further through the course provides an opportunity to help them either to understand what avenues may assist them in their learning goals or to choose to take a different path.

From the outset we find that not all questions are designed to evoke answers. Beyond the concept of the rhetorical question, there are questions that are asked to prove the asker’s knowledge or the respondent’s ignorance. The reasons for these questions have little to do with improving the learning process but more to do with establishing status. Here, the teacher must avoid being provoked and deal with the question in a way that sets an example for the rest of the class.

“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”

Voltaire

Though the intent of the student may not be to increase their or others’ learning, questions can still be used to assist learning. If there is a caveat, it is not to get trapped by the situation. Though the instructor may not be able to satisfy the true intent of the questioner, it will be best if a similar approach to first learning or clarifying questions is taken. Consistency in approach may defuse the situation when a provoking question is asked, and it still allows the teacher to address others and their needs.

We can see that in some cases the question is an end and becomes the answer. Potentially well-constructed questions become prime avenues for self-actuating answers. As in the game of “Jeopardy,” the “Jeopardy Question” is one where the answer appears before the question. The answer exists and then there is a definitional choice to find the question that fits with the answer just given. Frequently the answer placed in the question is incorrect and compounds the problem that the question is required to solve. This may simply be a need for interaction, and not an attempt to fill a gap or clarify learning.

Regardless of why and which students ask questions, questions are important to effective learning. Therefore, one of the important roles of the teacher is to stimulate questions.

“If you do not ask the right questions, you do not get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer. Asking questions is the A-B-C of diagnosis.”

Edward Hodnett

In his book Big Russ and Me, Tim Russert wrote about a high school experience that supports the importance of asking challenging questions. During his first class in English, the students were asked to take out a sheet of paper and to describe what they observed when they walked into the building for the first time. The question stunned him. He was not being asked to memorize something, as in many of his classroom experiences, but rather to “think, to remember, and to observe.”

A Method to Ask Questions

It is curious, with the importance of question asking in education, that seldom is there any instruction in how to ask them. There is of course the admonition to “raise your hand” but little or no discussion of how to formulate a question, when to ask, or what to expect as an answer.

While this book is addressed to teachers, the “question asking” discussed here is the students’ portion of the learning process. It will be the students’ learning and their questions, thus it is their responsibility to ask and assure that their questions are answered. It may be an important part of the teacher’s ability to assist students by giving guidance how to ask questions. As an approach we can look at four ideas to effectively use question asking as a benefit to learning.

“Computers are useless. They can only give answers.”

Pablo Picasso

One...Ask Early

It is important that questions are asked when the learner becomes aware that there is a misunderstanding or gap in the learning flow. The more vertical and sequential the learning, the more important it is to use a question to clear up missing or misconstrued information. Some students are hesitant about asking questions because it shines the light on them as either “not knowing” or “lacking understanding” or because they just do not want to stand out.

It is significant that if one student is missing the point, then it is likely that others in the class will also be having some problems grasping the learning objective. Thus the student who asks the question will be assisting others, and often assisting the teacher by identifying a point that was not clearly explained.

“Students should be reminded from time to time that asking questions in class is an important part of learning, just as good test questions on an exam are.”

Hollis Todd

Asking a question to clarify the learning objective gains in importance as the information becomes embedded in other objectives. If the gap in learning happens in a concept that has sequential objectives, then missing the knowledge in an early step may make learning the entirety difficult or impossible as the learning objectives progress.

Two...Use Understandable Words

Photography and its education use specific language and jargon. This means that some students will not always be familiar with the words used to explain and answer questions. Because of the flow of instruction, subject-specific words, concepts, and jargon may all cause some learning problems for some students. While the conceptual area of learning will be what we want to address with questions and answers, the words may get in the way of both the learning and the understanding of the answers to questions.

It is important that the language of questions and answers be within the comprehension of the students. This is accomplished in two ways. First the student needs to ask questions in their own vocabulary. If a student does not know the meaning of the word “chromatic” it is unlikely that they can successfully ask a question using words such as “apochromatic lenses” or “chromatic aberration.” The jargon just gets in the way and students should be encouraged to ask the question so that they understand the verbiage of the question.

Likewise it is unlikely that learning will be complete if the answer to a question is in terms that the student does not understand. It is important for the question answerer to modify their answer to form the answer in the language that will be understood by the student asking the question. If the student asks the question that misuses the jargon, then the question needs to be answered without the jargon.

“No matter how good teaching may be, each student must take responsibility for his own education.“

John Carolus, S.J.

Three...Get an Understandable Answer

The expectation of an answer is a particularly important part of becoming skilled at asking questions. In too many situations, students ask questions that are or are not answered, but seldom expect more than words from the teacher. Because of the teacher/student relationship the expectation is often that the teacher will give an answer but that it may not expand knowledge or fill in the gaps in learning. In many situations there is an expectation for an answer but not necessarily for an understandable answer.

As simple as it seems, the quality of the experience for the student depends on their repeated fulfillment of getting usable information from their question asking. It is easy for students to give up on an answer when the teacher speaks the terms but does not connect with the students. This happens for many reasons, but fine-tuning the understandability experience will help both the asker and answerer.

Just as it is common for students to use jargon and vocabulary to ask questions that are beyond their understanding, it is also quite common for answerers to use terminology beyond the students’ level to understand totally. It becomes important for both parts of the questioning dialogue to be using the same language. It is incumbent on both parties to be aware of the issues of using understandable and meaningful words. For this reason it is best if the level of language used in the answer is the same as was used in the question asked.

Another common problem comes from the teacher’s side of the questioning process. Since questions open such a great potential to expand learning, teachers often jump in with information beyond the students’ readiness to take in the new materials. The opportunity is lost when the material extends beyond student readiness for the new materials, and instead puts up a new barrier to effective learning. In this situation the student may even tune out the answer to their own question because they are overloaded with information that confuses or pressures them.

Four...Sequencing Questions and Answers

Though questions should be asked early, students need t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Philosophy
• Teaching and Learning
• Managing Education
• Authors’ Biographies
• Bibliography
• Index