Steps in the PhotoVoice method (curricular)

Overview

PhotoVoice was implemented in a curricular environment in two X/Ryerson University courses in the Faculty of Arts, one first-year course (SSH102) and one upper-year course (PSY706).  The PhotoVoice project was introduced as a ‘bonus assignment’ for both courses, in which students can earn an extra 5% bonus marks towards their final grade if they chose to participate. The topic was to complete the sentence “I thrive when…” through a photo and narrative.

The Assignment:

The students in the first-year Learning and Development Strategies SSH102 course were invited to be mentees, and the students in the fourth-year Positive Psychology and Personal Growth PSY706 course served as their mentors.

The expectations for students in both courses were to:

• attend two facilitated workshops to learn about PhotoVoice and make their first connection with their mentor/mentee
• meet on several occasions with their mentor/mentee to explore the topic
• select their photo and write the narrative to accompany it for the virtual exhibit
• participate in a live exhibit where they would answer questions about their photo (when engaged in on-campus learning)

Evaluation:

• in the virtual model, students were asked to write their answers to five reflection questions and submit their answers as part of the bonus assignment  See Appendix H (for the questions we asked the mentees)  and Appendix I  for the questions we asked the mentors.

Note, you can find a sample course syllabus for a different fourth-year social psychology course that we used in previous years in Appendix G, and detailed information on the current curricular PhotoVoice assignments in Appendix E (first-year course) and Appendix F (fourth-year course).