Digital Literacy and Controversial Art
Type of Presentation
Panel (1 hour and 15 minutes presentation total for two or more presenters)
Target Audience
Higher Education
Location
Room 1005
Proposal
Students are leaving high school and entering college without digital literacy and critical thinking skills they will need to function as both citizens and students in academia. The difficulty in teaching these skills occurs, in part, because of the vast amount of course material that professors are required to cover, leaving them little time to teach literacy and critical thinking. One way to ensure that students learn these essential skills is for professors to incorporate simple in-class activities into their particular courses. An elegant and efficient way to begin to do this is through the required freshman classes such as beginning writing and Art Appreciation. We have been developing a project for 2 years where we begin by showing students a piece of controversial art without giving them any information or any kind of context and ask them to write down their thoughts. Then, we identify the piece and its title and note their reactions based on egocentric and sociocentric thinking. We use “PollEverywhere” so students can post thoughts anonymously, and everyone can see what others think without embarrassment. Then we have students form groups to discuss their thinking. Finally, the university librarian is invited to give a demonstration on how to use resources and how to create papers without plagiarizing. Through this process students gain the understanding that these digital literacy and critical thinking skills can be used not only in classes like freshman writing or Art Appreciation, but in their other classes and their daily lives.
Presentation Description
Effective collaborative process involving professors, writing center and library to help students think and write critically and effectively.
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Harris, Pamela and Scally, Deborah, "Digital Literacy and Controversial Art" (2015). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 25.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2015/2015/25
Digital Literacy and Controversial Art
Room 1005
Students are leaving high school and entering college without digital literacy and critical thinking skills they will need to function as both citizens and students in academia. The difficulty in teaching these skills occurs, in part, because of the vast amount of course material that professors are required to cover, leaving them little time to teach literacy and critical thinking. One way to ensure that students learn these essential skills is for professors to incorporate simple in-class activities into their particular courses. An elegant and efficient way to begin to do this is through the required freshman classes such as beginning writing and Art Appreciation. We have been developing a project for 2 years where we begin by showing students a piece of controversial art without giving them any information or any kind of context and ask them to write down their thoughts. Then, we identify the piece and its title and note their reactions based on egocentric and sociocentric thinking. We use “PollEverywhere” so students can post thoughts anonymously, and everyone can see what others think without embarrassment. Then we have students form groups to discuss their thinking. Finally, the university librarian is invited to give a demonstration on how to use resources and how to create papers without plagiarizing. Through this process students gain the understanding that these digital literacy and critical thinking skills can be used not only in classes like freshman writing or Art Appreciation, but in their other classes and their daily lives.
