Marcela Gutierrez

Transformative Learning in Social Justice Education: Integration of Photovoice Methods into a Diverse Populations Course

Marcela N. Gutierrez, LMSW

Assistant Professor in Practice
School of Social Work

This project built upon previous efforts to apply transformative learning methods in an asynchronous online social work course. I previously adapted the techniques of Photovoice research into a journal assignment, resulting in duplication with existing weekly discussion boards while students fell short of expected levels of engagement and critical reflection. I modified the course in the following ways: (1) Moved all discussion boards and journals out of the institution’s learning management system, creating two distinct virtual workspaces that better aligned with the goals of each assignment; (2) Added an interactive training module that reviewed the principles, guidelines, ethics and instructions for the Photovoice journals, (3) Added a concept map assignment to synthesize course content, (4) Staggered assignment deadlines within each content module in alignment with Bloom’s taxonomy, and (5) Integrated a midterm experiential learning assignment into the final project as an alternative to a portfolio project. At the end of the semester, course effectiveness will be assessed through a student survey measuring authentic learning, critical thinking, engagement and interaction. The course design will be modified based on the results and future efforts will compare the effectiveness of the course to other sections of the same course.

J. T. Dellinger

Hi Marcela - great job overall! Was this the first semester that you used VoiceThread? If so, do you find that students gave a more authentic response than if they typed for the same prompt? Or were they possible more reserved?
- Marcela Gutierrez
  
  It was the first semester I’ve used VoiceThread! I found that VoiceThread really allowed students to engage very freely, much more than they had in Blackboard Discussion Boards in the past.
  - J. T. Dellinger
    
    That’s cool! I figured that it would be successful overall. Did anyone ask to do a written response? I have had some students that were less comfortable putting their face or voice in a recording than typing out text.
    - Marcela Gutierrez
      
      There are 15 total VoiceThreads throughout the course, and overall I would say there is only 1 person (out of 21) that consistently did a written response. It was definitely less detailed and thoughtful. Others seemed to alternate between the written and recorded response. Though nobody has yet opted to do a video response. almost everybody did a voice recording. I think it helps that the VoiceThreads were essentially asking people to reflect about the topics from a personal perspective, and since people love talking about themselves in general, this probably helped. I also recorded weekly videos within the VoiceThread giving them the instructions for this week and recorded an introductory audio comment to get them started, so I’m thinking that might have also helped encourage them to record themselves.
      - J. T. Dellinger
        
        Yeah, I could definitely see that happening. Modeling definitely seems to help with comfort level in online environments. It’s very cool that you were able to make it so personal, but rigorously focused on academic outcomes. Great for overall student outcomes, I’d assume.
  - Peggy Semingson
    
    This is encouraging! I am glad to hear of your good experience with it.
Martin Wallace

Hi Marcela. I’m impressed by your thoroughness, this is the most detailed project overview I’ve viewed so far. I like that you are continuing to make tweaks/improvements to a project that you used in a previous PLC (unless I’m misunderstanding), inching it further toward that transformative learning goal that you hope to assess.

On the slide beginning at 13:15, you list a final project option of “Call to Action”. I’d be curious to see how many students take that option (my guess is that not many will… I’d like to be proven wrong!). I’m also curious to see what types of actions are taken (or that have been taken in past iterations of this course). I personally would be hesitant to assign such an ambiguous final project. So many things can be considered “calls to action”, but I assume you have more specific details on what counts and what doesn’t count in the syllabus or assignment. Lastly, I wonder what would happen if someone took a fairly drastic/radical call to action (i.e. dropping a banner from a bridge, chaining themselves to a bulldozer, splashing red paint on someones fur coat, etc.) and then told authorities “I did this for my final project in my Diverse Populations social work class.” Do you have any concerns about that?
- Marcela Gutierrez
  
  Actually it’s been roughly 50/50 so far. They are required to let me know which option they will choose, and for those that are choosing a call to action, they have to run it by me exactly for that purpose-to ensure that it is appropriate and doesn’t create a risk of harm for themselves or others. However, you are right that it is definitely ambiguous, and intentionally so. I give them a list of resources about what forms this project can take (i.e. blog, infographic, letters to editor, etc.) but generally the call to action is expected to be one of the potential actions that they’ve identified in their Photovoice Journal. For example, one person’s Photovoice Journal talked about Sexism and this person identified a restaurant with scantily-clad waitresses that are contractually prohibited from gaining weight. This person is working with a group to write a letter to the owner to explain how such a policy is sexist and to ask them to revise their policy to remove this stipulation from their contracts.
Peggy Semingson

Hi Marcela! I enjoyed hearing about your presentation that involved authentic learning and allowed students to reconsider their privilege. The visual aspects of the photography idea really encourages multimodal learning! I may try this in my own course on literacy studies. Did you have examples of the Photovoice artifacts or did students work from the guidelines?
- Marcela Gutierrez
  
  Yes-I’ve got some examples that I shared in my presentation, and hope to get students’ permission to share a few more.
Maria Trache

I like the Photovoice idea. I imagine students should bring some photographic evidence from observing a phenomenon and be able to reflect on it.
Sharon Johnson

Marcela, very interesting study…..and I can see how this
definitely enhances student engagement.
In your survey, from the comments you received from the students have
you considered doing a qualitative study on your research topic?
- Marcela Gutierrez
  
  Yes! I initially hoped to do that this semester but I had too many other projects going on and didn’t have enough time to get the IRB protocol in before the semester started. I hope to do this next time I teach the class, and fortunately I was able to go ahead and put in many of the pieces this semester (i.e. training module, consent form).