Drawing Conclusions: Using Visual Thinking to Understand Complex Concepts in the Classroom (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780807764923)

Drawing Conclusions explores the use of juxtaposed visual representations (JVRs) to help preservice teachers grapple with abstract concepts, theories, or complex controversies in education. Acting as both a learning tool and an intellectual spark, JVRs are two simple contrasted sketches that students produce on a divided sheet of paper. In these drawings, students attempt to visually represent contrasting ideas that the class is struggling to understand (such as code-meshing versus code-switching, descriptive versus prescriptive grammar, peer response versus peer editing). JVRs are powerful tools for the teacher education classroom because they employ active learning and scaffold pedagogical strategies, act as a low-stakes but important formative assessment tool, help students grapple with complex literary and critical theories, and aid in reorganizing and revising a long writing project.

Book Features:

• Offers a method for pushing students to higher-order thinking in just a few minutes, helping them analyze critical concepts in English education, writing studies, linguistics, literacy, English Language Arts, and related fields.
• Outlines how to use JVRs to encourage students to think in a wider dimension, to use different parts of their brain, and to awaken different neurons.
• Provides multiple examples of JVRs to help instructors adapt this intellectually stimulating heuristic to their own classrooms.