Purposeful Questioning /Visual Literacy

This article is summed up by the authors in the following statement “…comparing and contrasting visuals against observations during science activities promote students’ interpretative skills... See More

This article is summed up by the authors in the following statement “…comparing and contrasting visuals against observations during science activities promote students’ interpretative skills and their understanding of “how we know what we know in science”.” First in the article they describe a conversation between a teacher and students which discusses a diagram of a general plant cell. This is followed up by an activity with students examining two different types of plants cells under a microscope. Then the teacher and students discusses the likenesses and differences between the graphic representation of a plant cell and the real plants cells seen under the microscope. This comparison helps students understand why books have graphics to show a science concept and also help them to understand that it is hard to depict exactly what things look like with a graphic.

Developing Visual Literacy

This article describes how a fourth grade teacher uses good questioning skills to improve visual literacy. After viewing a textbook image of cell students actually looked at cells in a micr... See More

This article describes how a fourth grade teacher uses good questioning skills to improve visual literacy. After viewing a textbook image of cell students actually looked at cells in a microscope to discover that what they saw in the book did not match their actual experiences. What are most helpful in this article are the charts provided to help students develop better visual literacy such as the questioning strategies used with elementary students.