Pros and Cons of the Curricular method

Pros

PhotoVoice is a high-impact educational practice, integrating theoretical learning, practical world issues, self-reflection and connection of individual experiences with concepts, and applied action through participation and contribution to an exhibit. Bringing a PhotoVoice project into the classroom and building on the course curriculum affords a valuable experiential learning opportunity for students to express themselves creatively as part of their grade in the course and, in the context of this particular project (i.e., with a mentorship component), to develop their personal and professional skills.  Students will appreciate the opportunity to earn marks in a way that allows them to be creative, to explore a focal topic in some depth (such as “I thrive when…”), as a group, at a very personal level, and, most importantly, to not have to write yet another academic essay.

Through course readings and class discussion, students are able to learn about the history of PhotoVoice and its development as a qualitative, community-based participatory research technique. Students may also learn about the philosophy and theoretical frameworks underlying PhotoVoice, including feminism and the work of educator, Paulo Freire. Lastly, through their studies, students will learn about the myriad applications of PhotoVoice as a method of gathering data (i.e., a research technique), particularly from groups that have often been marginalized and excluded from participating in research, and as a vehicle for advancing social justice issues through the public exhibition of the final PhotoVoice project.

As an experiential learning opportunity, after learning about PhotoVoice, students will create their own posters on the focal topic (e.g., “I thrive when…”) for public display, either in person or online. The final exhibit of their photos and narratives becomes a collective experience where students share their posters among themselves and with the wider community. Ideally, members of the wider community will include individuals in positions of privilege and power who can act upon the issues raised by the exhibit to bring about change.

By viewing their classmates’ works and seeing how others have interpreted the focal topic, students may come to see their fellow students in a different way than they experience in the classroom. They may find connections on a personal level across the different themes that emerge from the posters and see how they share similar experiences and identities with others.

The mentorship opportunity allows students in the upper-year course (the mentors) to meet with students in a lower-year course (the mentees) to discuss (in the context of this project) what it means to thrive in university and to share their experiences as upper-year students of how they have learned to thrive. Mentored students benefit by having the opportunity to learn from their mentors and to talk with them about struggles they may be having. Both parties learn about what it is to thrive in university (as well as in other life domains) and to explore together this aspect of positive psychology. Mentor students are often anxious about initiating the discussion with their mentees at the outset, worried about what they will have to talk about. They can be told that the context for their discussion is the mutual exploration of the focal topic as well as the creation of the PhotoVoice posters, as students in both groups are tasked with creating their own poster in response to the focal topic.

Finally, at the end of the course, students are required to either answer survey questions (as we did in F2021)  or write a reflection paper (in previous years), which may include an academic literature review on PhotoVoice (to consolidate their learning) and to reflect on what they have learned from both the mentorship experience and the experience of creating a PhotoVoice poster.

Cons

The biggest challenge involves managing the logistics of scheduling the two workshops and the sessions for mentors and mentees to meet. Ideally, meetings should take place more than twice, to enable students to explore the meaning of the focal topic and to discuss it in relation to the PhotoVoice project. As well, there will be sessions where one or more students from either group are unable to attend, leaving a gap in their joint discussion, which can be disappointing for the students.

A second con in the selection of the focal topic for the PhotoVoice project. There is often limited time in a course for a discussion about the topic selection. In a community-based PhotoVoice project, community participants will engage in a fulsome discussion to select the focal question or topic that is relevant and meaningful to them. In a classroom-based project, it is most expedient for the instructor to select the topic, perhaps a broad topic with several options for the specific question and to allow some time for discussion among the students.