Reclaiming the right to look: making the case for critical visual literacy and data science education

As visual cultures scholars have argued, visual expression and aesthetic artifacts largely comprise the modern world. This includes the production of the school as an institution. A critical approach to education therefore must reinscribe students with the ability to see what educational processes attempt to hide and to construct an understanding of the real for themselves. To illustrate this argument, we explore the production of visuality within data science education as one example of how the visual manifests within schools. In response, we propose a visual literacy informed approach to engaging students with data, one that expands beyond contemporary forms of critical data literacy by involving an ontological critique of educational aestheticization. To ground this work, we examine the role of visuality and aesthetics within the implementation of co-designed arts-infused data science projects in four US middle schools. In analyzing interviews with teachers and students, we uncover a series of tensions that reveal the ongoing influence of school visualities alongside the potential for student generated images to amplify their right to look. We therefore argue that critical pedagogies must not only involve reading and critiquing aesthetic artifacts but also engage students in a critique of visuality itself

Physical computing education: Designing for student authorship of values-based learning experiences

No one should have to conform or assimilate in order to participate in the design and creation of technology; however, this is the reality facing many students today. Prior research suggests that the issues surrounding lack of participation in computing and engineering education among underrepresented minorities goes beyond simply access or obtaining “critical mass”. Instead, it points to an exclusive, dominant culture that is often toxic for students outside the stereotypical mold. From being obligated to participate in activities and projects that do not speak to their values, to unspoken and unknown requirements of prior experience; non-dominant students are marginalized in ways that span the socio-technical learning environment. My dissertation investigates the design of learning activities and educational technology for physical computing in order to support inclusivity and equity. The work provides a way to conceptualize and frame the design and analysis of the learning environment from the perspective of values. The analysis of the learning environments in these studies provided an understanding of what aspects of the learning environment supported and hindered students in shaping the experience around their values. The studies captured real-world and laboratory experiences of novice learners working with physical computing tools. The investigations offered insights into the types of obstacles, breakdowns and barriers they are faced with, along with an understanding of how the tools contributed to this. By continued exploration of the learning activities and tools to support students’ values we will build our understanding for how to support a diversity of students to learn about and use computing in ways that are personally meaningful.Ph.D

Promoting students’ informal inferential reasoning through arts-integrated data literacy education

PurposeArts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However, differences in disciplinary practices and routines, as well as school organization and culture, can pose barriers to subject integration. We describe synergies and tensions between data science and the arts, and how these can create or constrain opportunities for learners to engage in IIR.Design/methodology/approachWe co-designed and implemented four arts-integrated data literacy units with 10 teachers of arts and mathematics in middle school classrooms from four different schools in the United States. Our data include student-generated artwork and their written rationales, and interviews with teachers and students. Through maximum variation sampling, we identified examples from our data to illustrate disciplinary synergies and tensions that appeared to support different IIR processes among students.FindingsAspects of artistic representation, including embodiment, narrative, and visual image; and aspects of the culture of arts, including an emphasis on personal experience, the acknowledgement of subjectivity, and considerations for the audience’s perspective, created synergies and tensions that both offered and hindered opportunities for IIR (i.e., going beyond data, using data as evidence, and expressing uncertainty). Originality/valueThis study answers calls for humanistic approaches to data literacy education. It contributes an interdisciplinary perspective on data literacy that complements other context-oriented perspectives on data science. This study also offers recommendations for how designers and educators can capitalize on synergies and mitigate tensions between domains to promote successful IIR in arts-integrated data literacy education

Tensions and synergies in arts‐integrated data literacy instruction: Reflections on four classroom implementations

Data-art inquiry is an arts-integrated approach to data literacy learning that reflects the multidisciplinary nature of data literacy not often taught in school contexts. By layering critical reflection over conventional data inquiry processes, and by supporting creative expression about data, data-art inquiry can support students' informal inference-making by revealing the role of context in shaping the meaning of data, and encouraging consideration of the personal and social relevance of data. Data-art inquiry additionally creates alternative entry points into data literacy by building on learners' non-STEM interests. Supported by technology, it can provide accessible tools for students to reflect on and communicate about data in ways that can impact broader audiences. However, data-art inquiry instruction faces many barriers to classroom implementation, particularly given the tendency for schools to structure learning with disciplinary silos, and to unequally prioritize mathematics and the arts. To explore the potential of data-art inquiry in classroom contexts, we partnered with arts and mathematics teachers to co-design and implement data-art inquiry units. We implemented the units in four school contexts that differed in terms of the student population served, their curriculum priorities, and their technology infrastructure. We reflect on participant interviews, written reflections, and classroom data, to identify synergies and tensions between data literacy, technology, and the arts. Our findings highlight how contexts of implementation shape the possibilities and limitations for data-art inquiry learning. To take full advantage of the potential for data-art inquiry, curriculum design should account for and build on the opportunities and constraints of classroom contexts