Practicing Reflection and Social Justice Storytelling in Visual Culture Studies
Jillian Lerner, University of British Columbia
LEARNER OUTCOMES:
1. Build learning activities to foster student reflection and self-reflexivity.
2. Analyze strategies from the session to learn more about teaching inclusive and reparative histories.
3. Center social and ecological belonging in pedagogy and classroom culture
Keywords:
Storytelling, Reflection, Inclusive History
Key Statement:
Fostering social responsibility and belonging in teaching strategies that foreground storytelling, archival intervention, and reflective practices.
TRANSCRIPT:
My research concerns engaged- and place-based learning in humanities education, and in specific contexts where histories of art and media are taught.
This project explores social justice storytelling and pedagogies of relational accountability enacted in an undergraduate history of photography course at a public university in Canada. I seek to foster student
capacities for self-reflexivity and social responsibility, through learning activities that support personal reflection, conscientious engagements with family photographs, and interventions in local archives.
Through qualitative analysis of coursework and focus groups, we have found that the pedagogical emphasis on story and place had a positive impact on student growth and perceptions that their studies matter. Students reported increased ability to acknowledge their own positionality and privileges; awareness that knowledge is carried by community; and perceived agency to write history and speak for others.
Questions
Join the discussion!
Q&A with Presenters / Poster Reception
Thursday, January 9th, 2025
5:30 - 6:30 PM
Brickstone
Hosted bar + light hors d'oeuvres served.
Name badge required
References:
Andreotti, V. (2021). Depth education and the possibility of GCE otherwise. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 19(4), 496–509.
Ball, E.L., & Lai, A. (2006). Place-based pedagogy for the arts and humanities. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Composition and Culture, 6(2), 261–287.
Bowen, J. A. (2021). Teaching change: How to develop independent thinkers using relationships, resilience, and reflection. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Iyer, U. (2022). A pedagogy of reparations: Notes toward repairing the film and media studies curriculum. Feminist Media Histories, (8)1, 181–193.
Smith, L. T., Tuck, E., & Yang, W.(Eds.). (2019). Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education: Mapping the long view. Routledge.