Faculty Spotlight
October - November 2006: Mary Jane Moran and Dr. Deborah Tegano
A Visual Language
Moran and Tegano share a passion for the professional development of early childhood teachers, teaching student to analyze documentation generated during their school placements in the
Early Learning Center, Head Start, and public school classrooms. Documentation
includes the generation and study of photographs and videos of classroom
experiences, transcription of teacher’s and children’s conversations, field notes, and samples of children’s
work. Photography is a visual language that shares important characteristics
with verbal language. Typically, teachers don’t view photography as language; Moran and Tegano propose “photos hold the same subjective, interpretive potential as words when teachers 'read' them from an interpretive view.” The
whole notion is to help their
students fine-tune their visual literacy
skills as a language of teacher inquiry.
To that end, they embarked onajourney to develop technological tools to assist them with their teaching
andresearch efforts. For
a more in depthoverview of the theoretical basis for this work,
you may wish to review the following:Moran, MJ & Tegano, D (2005). Moving toward visual literacy: photography as alanguage of teacher inquiry.
Early Childhood Research and Practice. 22(1).
Developing Critical Thinking through Visual Literacy
The roots of their collaboration formed during conversations with then Dean, Dr. Jim Moran, about the need for the college to address the needs of the early
childhood students and professionals across the state via outreach programs.
Documentation of children’s learning in the field is quickly becoming a national
issue related to federal mandates on accountability that are tied to federal and state funding. With the support and encouragement of the Dean, Tegano and Moran began to formulate their plans to develop a series of instructional modules to be delivered via the Internet. Building on work they were already doing using photos as an instructional medium and the process of critical reflection as an instructional strategy, they began exploring the possibilities of using digital media and web-based databases to deliver instruction and archive student work. Their overall goal was to “develop teacher researchers armed with the ability to better document and analyze classroom records.” They dreamt of creating a laboratory whereby students could become proficient in using digital photography, digital
videography, and digitally based vignettes of children’s learning.