{"id":15136,"date":"2018-03-19T11:55:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T15:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/?p=15136"},"modified":"2018-03-26T14:08:10","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T18:08:10","slug":"telling-a-complex-story-through-imagery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/telling-a-complex-story-through-imagery\/","title":{"rendered":"Telling a complex story through imagery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The power of metaphorical thinking<\/h1>\n

\"year-end<\/a>A picture can speak a thousand words and convey a complex concept that text on its own can\u2019t quite manage. And the act of crafting them is a powerful way to synthesize understanding.<\/p>\n

How would you create a visual whose goal is to capture the complexities of personalized learning?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this truth when I first read Trevor McKenzie\u2019s MindShift article How to Ease Students Into Independent Inquiry Projects<\/a>. As educators grapple with the move toward more student-centered practices and begin introducing student-driven interest projects, they often struggle with their role in this work. McKenzie’s simple illustration of students learning how to swim effectively demonstrates the gradual release of control that can happen to support inquiry work.<\/p>\n

But, don\u2019t take my word for it. Marzano, in his article The Art and Science of Teaching \/ Representing Knowledge Nonlinguistically<\/a>, points to achievement gains when students are tasked with generating representations of new learning that don\u2019t rely solely on language.<\/p>\n

Students at play<\/h3>\n

My colleagues and I find plenty of inspiration in Dan Ryder and Amy Burvall’s Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom<\/em>.<\/a> It’s full of short activities that promote deeper learning through metaphorical and visual thinking that are super fun, reflective, and easy to implement in the classroom. Check out these three examples from the their Catalog of Creativity<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

With a cohort of Vermont educators, I took on the challenge to synthesize our current thinking through imagery. Here’s the task we undertook:<\/p>\n