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Mental imagery is a vital cognitive skill that significantly influences how reality is perceived while creating art. Its multifaceted nature reveals various dimensions of creative expression, amplifying the inherent complexities of measuring it. This study aimed to shorten the Mental Imagery Scale in Artistic Creativity (MISAC) via the Ant Colony Optimization algorithm (ACO), a metaheuristic methodology for developing psychometrically robust brief scales. Answering 63 items in the original version of MISAC demands a higher cognitive load and, consequently, more time. Therefore, our goal was to shorten it while preserving its psychometric properties. In this study, responses to the MISAC were obtained from 500 undergraduate students enrolled in an art education program. The items on the short form of the MISAC were selected based on pre-specified validity criteria and content representability. The 28-item short form of MISAC demonstrated comparable performance to the original version regarding construct validity, criteria-related validity, and reliability coefficients. Moreover, strict invariance was attained across both gender groups in the validation process of the short form. These results highlight the utility of the shortened version of the MISAC as a valid measure with minimal loss of information of scores compared to the full version.

This comparative study looks into the image of the wolf in Genghis Aitmatov's "Plakha" and Jack London's "White Fang." For this purpose, first, the concept of the wolf in fiction is discussed, and the representation of wolves in these two texts is analyzed. This study explores the relationship between wolves and human beings as expressed in the texts in a way that helps understand the image of the wolf with specific cultural beliefs and practices that find aspirations in the text mentioned. The study concludes that Aitmatov associates Kazakh people with the wolf, unlike London's wolf, whose existence does not center around issues of freedom and independence.

This paper engages with Italo Calvino's lecture on Visibility, included in his last--and testamentary--volume "Six Memos," by understanding it in an educational and pedagogical key. While the question of pedagogy is expressly addressed by Calvino himself in his lecture, the interpretation here provided is not merely an application of his tenets but an elaboration on and an autonomous development of them. In particular, in the spotlight there is the intimate bond image-cum-writing which seems to preside over Calvino's insights and is here suggested as key to tackling the challenges of the contemporary mediascape and the "tautological vision" dominating therein. While a part of the educational discourse invokes "homeostatic" pedagogical solutions, namely the (ultimately confrontational) deployment of writing to compensate for the iconic ruling regime, this paper explores the possibility of a specific kind of visual education (instantiated by comics and Otto Neurath's Isotype), which combines the role of the image with some features traditionally attributed to the pedagogy of writing (e.g. the cultivation of abilities of abstraction, of reflection etc.). A pedagogy of figuration is, accordingly, proposed as an interruption of the tautological vision of the new media and as conducive to educating readers of the unwritten world and of the world of digital images, Mr. Palomar--the hero of Calvino's last novel--possibly being the archetype of this kind of (new?) readership. By referring to two influential notions in the contemporary debate in educational philosophy and theory, this pedagogy is finally interpreted in term of (visual) thing-centredness rather than (visual) subjectification.

This exploratory study provides an overview of prominent themes pertaining to portrayals of sign languages (SLs) and Deaf people in the South African press (2011-2019), as well as an analysis of a subset of articles to illustrate the discursive constructions of each of the prominent ideological framings. The findings of the paper suggest that many ways of representing South African Sign Language (SASL) and their users align with international trends. The two most prominent ideological framings are the medical/disability model and the linguistic minority model. Within the medical model, SLs are seen as inferior means of communication used by a disabled minority. Within the linguistic minority framework SLs are regarded as natural, legitimate languages deserving equal status to spoken languages. The paper also identifies an ideological framing that is not predicted by the international literature, coined here as 'diversity tokenism'. Diversity tokenism is when SL is mentioned only to increase perceived diversity, where diversity is a commodity that holds social capital. This portrayal of SASL seems to be increasing and holds a warning: although SASL users have received official recognition and rights through the recent declaration of SASL as an official language, it might not be the end of the battle to ensure that users of SASL can live out their linguistic citizenship.

The underrepresentation of women and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in children's literature has long been a concern. This study examined the portrayal of women in children's picture books and the potential of interactive read-alouds to promote gender equity in early childhood education, with the aim of shedding light on gender inequality. This study used critical discourse analysis, theoretically informed by Rosenblatt's transactional theory and gender schema theory, to analyse 19 books and interactive read-aloud sessions between preservice teachers and children in six preschools. The results showed that books on women's inequality are discussed in three categories: the absence of female characters, gendered discourse, and the perpetuation of traditional women/maternal roles. Using examples from children's interactions, this study highlights the need for critical thinking about gender stereotypes and promoting gender equity in early childhood education. This study contributes to the literature on gender inequality in children's literature and provides practical implications for early childhood educators by emphasizing their critical role in promoting gender equity in children's learning and development.

Temporal seeing is a mode of visual perception that interrupts the spatial bias we bring to visual literacy practices. Although an image only captures one moment in time, there are multiple spatioanalytical tools we can use to consider any image. Spatial literacy, which is the practice of analyzing objects through their properties in space, tends to be the default analytical mode for making sense of imagery. For people to bring a commensurate temporal richness to their articulated visual readings, we first highlight the perspectival richness of time and temporality. We next present five precepts that can guide enriched temporal seeing: contextual histories; relational chronologies; internal rhymicity; desequenced and resequenced narrative; and critique and meaning-making. Finally, we suggest that temporal seeing holds a series of educative possibilities for expanding the interpretive frames and perceptual apparatuses of literacy researchers and practitioners.

Social media networks have become a prominent role in forming social relations, especially among university students, the transmission of information, the circulation of data, and the spread of topics among students and all members of society. In addition, these networks reflect how people think, their lifestyles, and what issues they think about. Through them, we can study the prevailing behavior patterns, including the stereotypical or mental image of Syrian students in Jordan. Therefore, the current study aimed to identify the nature of the mental image of Syrian students in Jordanian universities as reflected by social media and to know the mental image in its various economic, political, and entertainment aspects that social media reflects on Syrian students. Also, the study looked at revealing patterns of social media use among students. The study followed the descriptive approach to achieve these objectives. A questionnaire was used on a sample of Jordanian university students. The results concluded that the Syrian students in Jordan live in good conditions and are treated well by the people of Jordan. Also, students in Jordanian universities do not differentiate between students according to their nationalities. Syrian students only suffer from poor material living conditions and suffer bad psychological conditions because of immigration and leaving their homelands. The material assistance provided by international organizations can significantly alleviate their suffering, and the image formed about them among the Jordanian people is a good one. Finally, Jordan did not witness any negative actions by these students. Rather, they reflected the good image of the Syrian Arab student. In light of the results, the study presented some recommendations and suggestions.

Student language teachers exploring literary texts for language education mostly focus on "what" is written, and the opportunities that could arise for stimulating classroom discussions. In teacher education, helping student teachers discover "how" a powerfully persuasive text is created is frequently overlooked. With this article I explore whether a brief unit with specific guidelines for creative writing in teacher education could achieve several related aims: supporting student teachers' confidence in guiding children to see "how" compelling texts achieve impact, supporting student teachers' confidence in how the activity of creative writing might work in the classroom, and supporting them in setting creative writing tasks themselves. I show how mentor texts, or literary models -- in this article by authors David Almond and Philip Pullman -- can illustrate sensory imagery, lexical chains, and the enlivening effect of semantic and phonological repetition. Such devices foreground language, catching the reader's attention, while ideally enriching and extending the sense of the text -- the meanings and perceptions. Examples from creative writing units I have taught over numerous years illustrate how student teachers can acquire a grasp of the mechanics of creative writing, hopefully to later help their own students enjoy both reading and writing. I contend that student teachers can best recognize the power of intentional repetition and inventive language choices through their own efforts in creative writing.

This paper attempts to provide a new understanding of the gutter and how it is used to significant effect in Gene Luen Yang's, Boxers & Saints. This research draws upon the work of Scott McCloud to establish a framework for the theoretical applications of the gutter. Most prior research focuses on the gutter within the page. This article demonstrates how Yang pushes the concept of the gutter further by creating a new type of gutter that moves beyond the pages and across texts. Then the research attempts to demonstrate how the idea of the textual gutter heightens the transnational elements that define Boxers & Saints.

An increasing number of MOOCs use learning videos featuring an instructor and slides, but there are few specific guidelines for the design of instructor images for these videos. A pedagogical agent (PA) is a kind of virtual instructor image in a learning video, and its image design is mostly guided by anthropomorphism. Our research attempts to introduce zoomorphism, which is the opposite of traditional anthropomorphism, into the image design of PA. This study tested the effects of two different types of PA images (i.e. anthropomorphic and zoomorphic) as well as a control condition of no PA image on learning from a learning video in a sample of 94 s-grade children. The children were randomly assigned to watch one of three learning videos on pandas. The ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis tests showed that children who watched the zoomorphic PA image video obtained significantly higher retention, transfer, learning interest, and experience than children who watched the other two types of videos. Children self-reported more enjoyment in the zoomorphic PA image condition than in the no PA condition. Furthermore, the results of multiple regression analysis showed that children's learning interest and experience positively predicted retention and transfer scores; boredom negatively predicted transfer scores. These findings highlight the positive effect of zoomorphism on PA image design, suggesting that zoomorphism holds great prospects in PA image development.

Basic medical sciences education is characterized by the provision of large amounts of theoretical information that leaves little opportunity for promoting student creativity or motivation. In response, the authors investigated meme-related project-based learning (PBL). Memes are humorous media that are widely exchanged online. 1477 students were requested to create memes on the scientific material they were studying in a pathology course. The project was implemented in two learning contexts (face-to-face and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic) over two batches of first-year medical students. The students created memes in greater numbers than requested by a mean of 5.8 per group. Students' satisfaction and narrative perceptions were analyzed, with 66.9% reponse rate: 91.4% of students were satisfied with the PBL; 93.3% rated the learning benefit gained from creating memes as excellent and/or good, and 85.9% rated the learning benefit from their colleagues' memes at the same level. Five themes were extracted: positive students' attitude toward the meme PBL, better development of students' skills, the feasibility of creating and sharing the project results, additional advantages and Challenges reported by students enrolled in meme PBL. The authors concluded that adopting meme PBL promotes students' creativity and boosts their motivation to learn.

This article examines the representation of Islam in four of the most popular and current Religious Education textbooks in England. The aim is to identify the extent to which the curriculum content is aligned with the aims of Religious Education in England. The textbooks content is reviewed using three frameworks available in literature, two of which are directly related to analysing textbooks on Islam while the third is a general set of curriculum guidelines on making textbook content inclusive. Based on examples extracted from the textbooks, it is argued that the representation of Islam in the curriculum lacks diversity, is stereotypical and promotes an essentialised view about Islam as a religion. The article further uses the case study of "jihad" to propose the use of hermeneutical approach in writing curriculum content about Islam using sources of authority and historical and literary perspectives to combat the issue of monolithic, absolutist, and fossilised representation of Islam in textbooks.

Spain is one of the European countries that attracts the most immigration, and the Valencian and Murcian regions have a large immigrant population. To our knowledge, no studies have analysed the representation of cultural diversity in visual representations of the body and musical practices in their music textbooks. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to describe the representation of cultural diversity in Spanish music textbooks from a critical and comparative perspective that analyses visual representations of the body and its interactions with the main musical processes. The results show a greater presence of students with white European features, as well as certain cultural stereotypes perpetuated by visual representation with musical instruments. Thus, although a greater variety of human types can be observed in the graphic representations of music textbooks, these take a reductionist and simplistic view of cultural diversity.

Psycholinguistic research on metaphor has focused on verbal material. Yet, metaphors frequently occur in a multimodal format, blending words and pictures to convey meaning. Here we compared verbal and multimodal metaphors by using item pairs where stimulus one was always a word (e.g., "language" in the metaphorical conditions and "river" in the literal conditions) and stimulus two was either a word ("bridge") or a picture (the image of a bridge). The two types of metaphors elicited a similar N400 effect compared to literal pairs; at later latencies, visual metaphors were associated with a more pronounced negativity compared to literal pictures, whereas no effect was observed in the verbal domain. These findings indicate that both visual and verbal metaphors recruit conceptual operations reflected in the N400, but for visual metaphors, elaboration lasts longer. This difference in time course was driven by the low number of alternative interpretations and their closedness, pointing to the costs, rather than the facilitation, of integrating visual signs at an abstract level of representation.

This study explored the impacts of enactment and motor imagery on working memory for instructions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), children with intellectual disability (ID) and typically developing (TD) children. The participants were asked to hear (hearing condition), imagine enacting (motor imagery condition) and actually enact (enactment condition) instruction sequences and then recall them orally. Compared with the hearing condition, all groups performed better in the enactment condition, with the greatest advantage exhibited by the TD group; however, only the TD children performed better in the motor imagery condition. In summary, enactment has a weaker facilitating effect on ASD children and ID children than on TD children, and motor imagery is ineffective in the former two groups.

This research critically examines the multifaceted role of English as a foreign language (EFL) coursebooks beyond mere language learning objectives. Specifically, the study focuses on how these coursebooks often project universal cultural values that, though seemingly bland, can perpetuate power dynamics leading to various forms of inequality. Drawing on a qualitative methodology that amalgamates socio-semiotic analysis and critical visual literacy, the investigation scrutinizes the portrayal of indigenous peoples within 12 EFL coursebooks used in state-run and subsidized schools across Chile. Furthermore, the research explores the viewpoints and attitudes of seven EFL teachers towards the visual representations of indigenous peoples compared to non-indigenous individuals depicted in the same coursebooks. The findings suggest that indigenous peoples are often depicted as stereotypical remnants of the past, oversimplifying their intricate cultural attributes and presenting them as disconnected from contemporary society. Moreover, the study identifies the failure of coursebook publishers in acknowledging the richness and diversity of indigenous cultures, thereby perpetuating cultural stereotypes and contributing to the process of otherising, which reinforces a sense of separation between the majority ("us") and the indigenous minority ("them").

This article reports on findings from a case study of an intergenerational project between a nursery school and a residential care home for people with dementia in the South-East of England. It examines how multi-modalities support meaning-making between 3-year-old children and older adults. The study is qualitative, interpretative and explorative. Data were collected using naturalistic observations of children and older adults during intergenerational sessions at the care home and qualitative interviews with nursery school practitioners. The analysis draws on a dialogic narrative approach informed by the work of Mikhal Bakhtin. Our research demonstrates how multi-modalities support young children's engagement and meaning-making with older adults. The findings explore how the context of the intergenerational sessions was influential in shaping the interactions between the children and older adults. The study contributes to existing research, as well as offering new understandings about the interactions between children and older adults within a co-located intergenerational project. Our research would suggest a benefit in the re-establishment of intergenerational practice in a post-pandemic context when such encounters pose less physical health risks.

A one-degree angle would certainly be difficult to draw accurately, especially without the aid of other tools like a protractor. However, mentally making a one-degree angle in visualized imagination is not only possible, but it is important for students' emergent understandings of angular measure. When students begin learning about length, teachers often encourage mentally making and measuring lengths with nonstandard units. Here, the author uses "mentally making and measuring" to refer to students' imagined use of same-sized parts to either produce an amount (i.e., "make") or describe the size of an amount (i.e., "measure"). After students have had experiences making and measuring with nonstandard angular units, it is important for them to eventually transition to standard units of angular measure like degrees. Tasks and dynamic visualizations can be useful for supporting students' mental imagery; eventually, it is desirable for students to internalize the imagery and use it to solve tasks independently.

Critical media literacy is vital for citizenship in a democracy and visually saturated world. Online media is almost indispensable to contemporary life, exerting increasing influence over real-world events. Therefore, future citizens must be able to evaluate the reliability of online media. I initiated a mixed-method arts-based study examining how my undergraduate students, learning online during the COVID-19 pandemic, related to possibly manipulative and misleading online media imagery. I invited students to make artwork, answer survey questions, and complete an assessment. My findings revealed that my students are highly susceptible to misleading media online while exhibiting unwarranted overconfidence in their media literacy, which may compound their vulnerability. Meanwhile, their art, representing their relationships with online media, generally depicted negative emotions and suggested impacts on their mental health. But artmaking also seemed to inspire realizations and increased self-awareness. As a result, art educators are called on to address critical media literacy.

In this photo essay, I use a diary-style narrative and photojournalistic images to document my experiences in gendered spaces in a UK collegiate university during the academic year 2022-2023, unveiling complexities of gender and sexual diversity in academic settings. I delineate three domains - terra firma, digital skies, and echoes of reverberation - within the context of higher education. This blend of illustrations and scholarly insights offers a valuable contribution to discourse on gendered spaces in universities.

Cartoon images have been widely applied in children's educational media. The study examined the effect of cartoon images in touchscreen media on young children's recognition of time. With a 2 (clock type: cartoon clock, non-cartoon clock) × 2 (media type: touchscreen, video) between-subjects design, ninety-two children aged 4-6 were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions. Each group was exposed for 10 min to the media designed to teach children how to tell the time. We examined children's learning to tell time by pre- and post-test clock tests. Results showed that: (1) In the condition of the cartoon clock, children in the touchscreen groups got significantly higher total clock learning scores than the video groups; (2) In the condition of touchscreen, children in the cartoon groups got significantly higher total clock learning scores than non-cartoon groups. Findings suggest that touchscreen interaction is more beneficial for children to learn to tell time than watching videos, and when using educational apps for touchscreen learning, cartoon images have a positive effect on children's learning to tell time. However, cartoon images have no effect on children's learning to tell time through videos.

Background: Zoomorphism, an obverse of conventional anthropomorphism, has been shown in many cases to be a powerful tool with respect to the metaphorical use of animals. Objectives: This study introduced zoomorphism into the instructional video design of pedagogical agents (PAs). Method: We first developed three image sets, each of which corresponded to a type of zoomorphic PA image construct (full panda, a human face with a panda body, and a human body with panda head imagery). Then, we conducted an image-screening experiment in which 177 second-grade students from a primary school were asked to select their favourite PA image for each image construct set. We used a realistic human PA as the baseline. Next, 114 second-grade students from another school were randomly assigned to learn instructional videos on the topic of pandas using a PA with one of four imageries. Results and Conclusions: ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis tests indicated that students presented with PAs with full-panda imagery achieved significantly higher learning performance, learning experience, social presence, and learning interest than those presented with other imageries of PAs. The regression results showed that the effect of zoomorphic PAs with full-panda imagery on learning performance was exerted in a direct way and that its effect on learning experience was mediated by social presence and learning interest. Implications: Our findings suggest that zoomorphic appearance is an essential quality for video learning that merits further investigation for the efficient imagery construction of PAs.

The present phenomenological study aims to understand, through images and metaphors, how senior class teaching majors perceive their studies at the faculty of education. The study group was assembled via criterion sampling, a method of purposive sampling. The study group consists of 12 senior class teaching majors (10 females and 2 males) from the education faculty of a Turkish public university during the 2017-2018 academic year (10 females and 2 males). The data was gathered through focus group meetings and analyzed using content and descriptive analysis techniques. All prospective teachers are concerned about passing the KPSS recruitment exam, according to the study. They used metaphors such as "a dark figure in front of a blackboard, a dark figure pondering, a dark figure inside and out, a dark figure of a group of hopeless students, a figure with a split face, a figure with question marks in his mind, and a student figure with confusion." Half of the participants stated that recruitment tests should be made fairer, while nearly the same number stated that pedagogical training for teaching certification should be eliminated and the teaching profession should be valued. In addition to expressing concerns about social pressure and oppression, the participants requested that they be respected by society and not oppressed.

Selection methods are commonly used in talent acquisition to predict future job performance and to find the best candidates, but questionnaire-based assessments can be lengthy and lead to candidate fatigue and poor engagement, affecting completion rates and producing poor data. Gamification can mitigate some of these issues through greater engagement and shorter testing times. One avenue of gamification is image-based tests. Although such assessments are starting to gain traction in personnel selection, few studies describing their validity and psychometric properties exist. The current study explores the potential of a five-minute, forced-choice, image-based assessment of the Big Five personality traits to be used in selection. Study 1 describes the creation of the image pairs and the selection of the 150 best-performing items based on a sample of 300 respondents. Study 2 describes the creation of machine-learning-based scoring algorithms and tests of their convergent and discriminate validity and adverse impact based on a sample of 431 respondents. All models showed good levels of convergent validity with the IPIP-NEO-120 (openness r = 0.71, conscientiousness r = 0.70, extraversion r = 0.78, agreeableness r = 0.60, and emotional stability r = 0.70) and were largely free from potential adverse impact. The implications for recruitment policy and practice and the need for further validation are discussed.

This research started as an effort to recover lost childhood memories. I (Emilio Bassail) used the film-making apparatus as a device that allowed me to excavate, elaborate and produce representations based on the small fragments of memory I had left. After creating an archive of reconstructed memories, I started questioning the images I had unearthed. This position allowed me to interrogate and challenge the discourses behind the images. What I discovered is that forgetfulness was in fact an effect of the suppression of potentially subversive discourses. I had not really forgotten, but rather I had chosen not to remember (since the hidden childhood memories defied the internalised discourses of power and structure). To be able to remember and therefore to create, first I had to debilitate the discourses of the power structures that prevented me from going forward in my research. Following Suely Rolnik's (2019).

This article explores how arguments are made in student essays through the use of writing and visual resources. The data set comprises 54 essays with a passing grade from students in their final year of upper secondary school in Sweden. The data is analysed using a multimodal approach to knowledge representation on arguments in essays, involving analysis of textual composition and content in both written text and visual resources. The study gives an insight into how students design essays in relation to academic requirements, how their arguments realise epistemological commitments, and what affordances are given through the use of writing and visual resources. The results reveal that academic argumentation varies considerably between the essays. There is an overrepresentation of written and declarative knowledge in the essays, where the arguments are grounded in various web-based sources, and visualisations are used for making conceptualisation and classification more salient in writing. Both written and visual resources offer affordances in the making of arguments on the bases of the modes for communication. This article concludes that there are many high demands of knowledge defined for the task of preparing for higher education, which are not easily represented in the students' arguments in essays.

A rapid increase of available information affects students' perception of any message and formation of priorities; the period of concentration on one subject is reduced; students prefer concise vivid visual images. Internet memes become a part of students' daily communication and broadcast today's cultural and information realities. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Internet memes integration while mastering philological disciplines (for example, English) by Ukrainian students. The authors experimented to check the methodology proposed within one program unit. We conducted the experiment in the 2020-2021 academic year and involved 68 students and 5 teachers of Dnipro Academy of Continuing Education, Donetsk State University of Internal Affairs and Mykhailo Tuhan-Baranovskyi Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade. The authors conducted pre- and post-experimental surveys and informal interviews to compare academic achievements and provided a system of tasks integrating memes. Implementing the experiment, we clarified the dominant way of students' perception and processing of information and revealed the expediency of integrating memes into teaching English. The authors determined the dynamics of the levels of students' motivation to learn English through Internet memes integration and established quantitative values of the levels using the method of mathematical statistics. The conclusions emphasize the need to improve teachers' pedagogical skills, developed critical and creative thinking to integrate memes into educational activities. The authors stress the relevance of the further detailed study of the educational potential of memes in teaching not only philological disciplines but also other subjects of the curriculum.

Studies have thus far established that learners with visual and auditory learning styles can create a strong vision of their ideal and ought to L2 selves, which positively affect their motivated L2 behavior and achievement. This study also investigated the interactions between perceptual learning styles, future self-guides, vision, L2 motivation, and achievement. Unlike the previous studies, the current one aimed to analyze the unidirectional linkages and the multifaceted linkages among the variables via path analysis. To do so, a quantitative research design was pursued using a composite instrument. The study was conducted with tertiary-level EFL learners in Turkey. Findings showed that visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles exerted significant influences on L2 motivation and achievement mediated by vision and future self-guides. Future self-guides had positive impacts upon L2 motivation, and both direct and indirect effects on L2 achievement. L2 achievement was strongly dependent on L2 motivation and actual L2 self. In proportion to these findings, addressing various learning style preferences in language education, providing vision training to the learners via external interventions, and creating a positive academic self-concept were proposed. Revisions can also be made in the L2 curriculum in line with these purposes.

This study used the verbal protocol method to examine differences in perceptions of spatial mental imagery between students and studio lecturers and between clients and designers/architects, which lead to interpretational bias between groups of respondents regarding interior spaces. Individual perceptions of virtual space dimensions were captured by the 3D application, Associative Words Generator© (AWG©), which revealed impressions of the four respondent groups, using associative concept networks analysis on the visualization of virtual space with a database of 16,200 associative words. This study determined AWG© reduced the visual discrepancy gap during design critic and design consultation. Comparison of the results of the associative words generated during non-VR mental imagery and the VR session (AWG©) indicated that the student group most effectively used the VR. The lecturer group exhibited a thorough understanding of interior design and space architecture in their response in non-VR and VR sessions, which created a mental spatial imagery gap between the students and lecturers. The client group was inexperienced in interior design and architecture, resulting in different outcomes than the designer/architect group. In the VR session, the student and client groups more easily accepted visualizations generated by AWG, because they had fewer experiences and references than the lecturers and designers/architects, and thus, accepted the AWG virtual space visualization stimuli. The lecturer and designer/architect groups shared experiences that affected their expectations in responding to the generated visualizations, resulting in difficulty to accept the AWG virtual space visualization stimuli.

This article posits that the comic medium, wedded with traditional essay assignments, may be a powerful tool for social studies teachers, those who prepare social studies teachers at the collegiate level and other teachers and professors who desire to teach about citizenship in an era of "fake news" and alternative facts.

Distance education is an education type applied under ordinary and extraordinary conditions. This type of education has synchronous and asynchronous dimensions of realization. It can be said that computer-based internet technologies gain significance in a process where any of these dimensions are used. In these technology-supported learning environments, it is remarkable that the teacher and the student are in different perimeters. In this context, it can be stated that the concept of "distance education" requires a particular perspective, and the existing mentality of people diverts this perspective. Therefore, this study primarily aims to determine the teachers' perceptions of distance education concepts according to their genders by using mental imageries. The working group of this research, which was prepared according to the qualitative methods, consisted of 100 teachers (38 males and 62 females) who served in various academic majors in public and private educational institutions in many provinces of Turkey during the 2020-2021 school year. The study data were obtained through a survey in which the participant teachers filled in the blank spaces in the sentence of " Distance education is similar to ... because ... ". Study data were interpreted using the content analysis technique. Regarding the distance education concept, teachers produced mental imageries under twelve different themes. When these various themes were evaluated, it was observed that the teachers mostly formed their mental imagery by considering the "Image of Nature" theme.

Sign language is the natural way of communication of speech and hearing-impaired people. Using Indian Sign Language (ISL) interpretation system, hearing impaired people may interact with normal people with the help of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This paper presents a method for automatic recognition of two-handed signs of Indian Sign language (ISL). The three phases of this work include preprocessing, feature extraction and classification. We trained a BPN with Histogram Oriented Gradient (HOG) features. The trained model is used for testing the real time gestures. The overall accuracy achieved was 89.5% with 5184 input features and 50 hidden neurons. A deep learning approach was also implemented using AlexNet, GoogleNet, VGG-16 and VGG-19 which gave accuracies of 99.11%, 95.84%, 98.42% and 99.11% respectively. MATLAB is used as the simulation platform. The proposed technology is used as a teaching assistant for specially abled persons and has demonstrated an increase in cognitive ability of 60-70% in children. This system demonstrates image processing and machine learning approaches to recognize alphabets from the Indian sign language, which can be used as an ICT (information and communication technology) tool to enhance their cognitive capability.

The present study offers insights on understanding motivation to learn a second language (L2) through implementation of the Exploratory Practice principles within the context of English as a foreign language at a university in Spain, and on discovering opportunities to enhance this. The account sits within the domain of the possible selves and the theoretical framework of the L2 Motivational Self System. Student-led visualisation -- a twist on teacher-led visualisation -- is the key 'Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activity' (PEPA), explored as a device for inviting a near-future L2 self-guide into the here-and-now. This PEPA evolved out of stages of understanding, including student dismissal as 'fantasies' their possible professional L2 selves in a remoter future. Through classroom observation, template analysis of imagery scripts, and student oral and written feedback, the present study finds that the students demonstrated motivated L2 behaviour in group writing about the near-future ideal L2 self and in introducing this self-guide to their peers, who were moved by and found plausible the stories they heard.

Reading involves both cognitive and psychological activities of combining both pre-existing cultural and linguistic knowledge. The reader has the ability to view the world in the light of his/her own cultural experiences which are constructed consciously or unconsciously, and may seem to be fruitful in text analysis and exploring the uncovered multi layers of meanings. In relation to multifaceted cross-cultural environment and experiences, people world view undergoes a dynamic change due to their distinct norms, values, attributed to specific objects. The purpose of the study focuses on to collect feedback from the EFL learners on culturally nativizatized literary poem, ''I wandered Lonely as a Cloud'' by William Wordsworth, analyzed and discussed during reading process. This study aims to explain how EFL learners with distinct cultural schemata read and interpret a western culturally loaded texts differently. It also attempts to indicate how visual images, setting and figurative language of the nativized text may contribute to their interpretation and reading comprehension level. As a result, in reading nativized version and non-nativized version, they indicated similarities and differences in their responses and interpretations in these culturally overloaded discourses. The respondents, in this study, reflected different images and structures through nativization. In this qualitative study, the data was collected and analyzed by comparing familiar and unfamiliar contents of two distinct versions in the form of the learners' feedback through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The study asks for further investigation to look into the effect of cultural specific concepts on cross-cultural literary texts.

This article discusses the role of 'space' in Indian and Pakistani public sector universities in fostering national pride. University spaces have been highlighted, in both countries, for being used by the governments as agents fostering the national narrative yet there is limited research on how these spaces contribute to the visual culture of educational institutions and in the inculcation of nationalistic values. This article adds to the conversations regarding the fostering of national belonging and pride in universities by exploring space as a constitutive element of the visual culture of the higher education environment in India and Pakistan. In both countries, the physical spaces of public universities have become platforms for channelling student voices. This research uses two state-funded universities, from Delhi (in India) and Lahore (in Pakistan), and Lefebvre's conception of space to conduct a discourse analysis of bulletin boards, graffiti, statues, sculptures, and any other imagery found online pertaining to the campuses and analyse how it is a 'conceived' and 'perceived' aspect of the visual culture of the universities. It adds to current scholarly conversations on national pride and consciousness in India and Pakistan by showing how university spaces can potentially play an active role in promoting the state's narrative in students' or educators' everyday educational experiences.

This article contains 15 "takeaways" about how to teach organic creativity, from actual teachers with several hundred total years of experience. Teachers of English, physics, Advanced Placement Calculus, science, theater, the visual arts, dance, school administration, school counseling, educational psychology professing, world languages, mathematics, the education of the gifted and talented, social studies, music, and elementary education describe their strategies for teaching for intuition, imagination, insight, imagery, risk-taking, openness to experience, feeding back, improvisation, and other aspects of creativity that arise from the subject matter.

For many secondary-level teachers working with adolescent language learners, one of the motivations for choosing English teaching as a profession is a shared love of reading short stories. At its best, entering a narrative is a sensory experience: engaged readers see, hear, and feel the words of a story and imagine themselves within its pages. Often, however, in literature-based secondary-level English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms, reading doesn't feel engaging or interesting. This article illustrates how secondary-level teachers might reframe reading a classic American short story as a sensory experience, leveraging visualization strategies that tap into student creativity. It begins with a brief overview of the literature surrounding visualization and reading comprehension. It continues with a series of five concrete but flexible strategies: Reading Graffiti, Image-Scaping, Guided Imagery, Storyboarding in Person, and Logographic Cues. Although the emphasis is on the adolescent classroom, teachers and readers across grade levels and content areas are encouraged to try out these moves and adapt them to their own classrooms and circumstances.

Purpose: Against the backdrop of a global policyscape of inclusion, this paper investigates how three primary schools (Poland, Austria, Germany) mark entry halls and classrooms with state and religious symbolism and grant presence or absence of multilingualism. Design/methodology/approach: This multi-sited school ethnography investigates how EU educational policy projects on social justice and inclusion are appropriated and negotiated in the spaces of three Central European schools (Abu El-Haj et al. 2017; Levinson, et al. 2018). I build on Gert Biesta's concept of "transclusion" (2019) to interpret how school spaces appropriate EU inclusion policies and create a shared sense of community and belonging. Research limitations: Findings must be treated with caution as these are snapshots into the everyday life of three schools and cannot serve as general claims. Findings: Monoethnic expressions of religious faith (cross), national symbolism (flag) and language regimes co-construct national narratives that draw a line between those who belong and those who do not. Strong national narratives, communicated through entry hall decorations and classroom practices, allow little space for peripheral identities, i.e. migrant students, to claim voice and participate in the classroom and other shared spaces (Poland). Where there is less overlap between entry hall and classroom discourses (Austria), on the other hand, students receive mixed messages when it comes to their acceptance as Austrians. Blank spaces (Germany) presume a possibility to create shared spaces of communication and decision-making that students playfully engage in. However, in both Germany and Austria the ambivalence around space-marking means that language regimes are the more prominent factor in drawing the demarcation line between insiders and outsiders.

This article explores the possibility of combining educational approaches to film and theatrical drama to enhance teachers' confidence in creative, transmedia and multidisciplinary approaches to learning. A detailed case study is explored -- a short teacher training event which utilised certain media literacy resources to inspire and familiarise teachers with the language of images, while seeking to demonstrate how simple media devices can be used to connect film- and theatre-based pedagogies. Overall, the article considers ways in which teachers can obtain the confidence within a short time to integrate approaches inspired by film-making into their teaching in connection with their students' enthusiasm for, and expertise in, digital media.

This study underpinned the authentic materials using images for reading comprehension. It sought to determine the proficiency level of the respondents in reading comprehension skills along with vocabulary, making inferences, sequencing events, and drawing conclusions and proficiency level of the respondents in the comprehension of advertisements, graphic organizers, graphs. The respondents are Grade VII students of Magsaysay National High School Baguio City, Philippines selected using purposive sampling. A multiple-choice test was utilized as the main instrument to support and further verify the information gathered. Findings revealed that student's proficiency level in reading comprehension skills is good; have very good results in comprehension of authentic materials such as images; least comprehension of news stories; and have a good comprehension of intervention materials. Subsequently, respondents vary in their reading comprehension; instructional materials are very essential and an overall rating of good in reading comprehension skills. Hence, it is imperative to set goals for reading instruction, better reading comprehension using images. This study highly recommends that the language teacher must have diversified classroom activities using authentic materials and they should use images in teaching reading comprehension skills. The goal of images in reading instruction is effective for comprehension. Thus, the instructional tasks or activities should use images to be concerned with building comprehension strategies especially the use of print media and other sources of graphic materials. This study gives the concerned teachers to design better materials to teach reading comprehension more actively through the use of images as authentic materials that will allow meaningful interaction between the learners and the text.

Ensuring adequate inclusivity in educational materials is a matter of ethics and fairness, as well as a means to maximize learning processes. Yet, over the last thirty years, research has continually shown that English language teaching/learning textbooks present material that favors the representation of Whites over other races. To investigate if this is still the case, we explore inclusivity of race with regard to 1648 image participants found in five popular textbooks. We investigate frequency of occurrence, physical presence (size on page), and projected social relationship between viewer and image participant, drawing on a social semiotic framework for the latter. Results show that the presence of race is (still) heavily skewed toward Whites, both in terms of overall numbers and spatial affordance. Results also show considerable variation across the textbooks quantitatively and qualitatively with regard to racial representation. Nevertheless, there is some regularity with regard to certain image types, which appear to reflect the books' pedagogical foci. Based on these findings and others, we argue for a change in thinking--from the ideal to the practical--and for textbook producers to finally stand up and make substantive changes to how they represent race in imagery, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

This practice paper demonstrates an art therapy session that revealed the internalized monstrous and demonic identities amongst those who have sexually offended. Several of the participants represented their shadow-self as: (1) nebulous demonic self-representations, (2) internalized monstrous selves as hurtful or uncontrolled, or (3) a dichotomy of power and helplessness. Making these negative self-images visible during such an art therapy process can inform the initial step toward reconciliation, especially within the transitional space of reintegrating into society post-incarceration. Implications demonstrate the use of metaphorical expression and how such images can address the stigmatized and internalized negative self-perceptions of those who have sexually offended.

Drawing from research on media sociology and environmental values, the present study compares the visual content shared on Facebook by state and Ojibwe natural resource management agencies in the Great Lakes region. The study examines whether the image content most frequently shared by these agencies suggests similarities or differences in value orientations between agencies and audiences. Results showed that state and Ojibwe agencies differ in their image sharing priorities. Results also indicated that state agencies prioritized sharing images of people, but their audiences liked images of fish and wildlife more than other image content.

This article introduces the concept of a new curricular model that addresses these issues through the body. The Thirdspace Movement Model can be integrated in K-12 Physical Education in coordination with other models. The Thirdspace Movement Model creates an environment where students practice movements and engage in critical discourse that address embodied identity. Through movements, the model fosters; 1) self-awareness which can lead to self-identity and self-acceptance, 2) embodied movement experiences that can lead to inner peace, 3) humanization, 4) acceptance of self and others, 5) reconciliation, 6) growth in connection with others, and 7) justice. The Thirdspace Movement Model can be integrated with existing PE units or introduced as a stand-alone unit. Self-awareness and listening to the messages the body sends begins the learning experience. Students then explore and express through developmental progression and movement patterns with self and others. The experience culminates with critical dialogue activities aimed at reflecting how bodily knowing and embedded memories influence one's movements and actions.

In recent decades, the application and adaptation of new technologies have gradually become invaluable in education. When the students are visually impaired, the use of these technologies becomes even more valuable. In this line, a theoretical-practical workshop on human evolution was carried out with 25 students from the Spanish National Organisation for the Blind. Twenty-two realistic replicas of skulls of the main species in human evolution were reproduced with a 3D-FDM printer. Thus, the students were able to learn about the variability of cranial anatomy between species as we could verify with a test to evaluate the usefulness of the technology as a complement to the theoretical explanation. The results were analysed taking into account the sex and age of the students, their educational level, their degree of blindness and previous knowledge of the subject. It showed that the use of 3D models is an excellent support to the teaching-learning process in the case of the visually impaired, since it allows them to form in their imagination a faithful image of the object they hold in their hands, to feel the similarities and morphological differences between the species and to formulate hypotheses about the reasons for them.

In this article, we suggest incorporating visual images into peace education through "interactive peace imagery" (IPI). We will show, and illustrate with examples from our work, that interactive teaching creates a space for students to reflect upon their socializations, including visual ones, without which image interpretation cannot be fully explained. We begin by exploring photojournalism as a media that, while providing raw material for peace education, does not serve as a model for image interpretation. Emphasizing images' interpretive openness, we suggest an alternative approach (IPI) that unearths, (re)vitalizes, and capitalizes on the plurality of meanings images carry with them. We focus on digitization and active interaction (seeing -- changing -- sharing) in a non-hierarchic teaching environment. In IPI, the classroom becomes a network: students interactively engage with visual images by regarding existing images, elaborating on them, changing them, sharing the changed images with their fellow students, or producing original images. Students become involved in the production process and their responsibility for both the image and the knowledge claims attached to it increases. Critical reflections on the suggested procedure in terms of quantity, time, authority, and violence conclude the paper.

This paper focuses on British news reports on the Mandarin Excellence Programme carried out in England by educational institutions at various levels. This research systematically examines the ways in which the learning and teaching of Mandarin Chinese is portrayed as important in English secondary schools due to globalisation and economic demands and, on a more personal level, owing to future career opportunities and the success of the British people in news discourse. The ideologies embedded in these news stories are explored, and the modalities of representing and communicating information through both written language and images are discusses (Van Dijk, T. A. 1988. "News Analysis. Case Studies of International and National News in the Press." New Jersey: Lawrence, Van Dijk, T. A. 2005. "Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis." In "Language & Peace," 41-58. Routledge, Van Dijk, T. A. 2013. "News as Discourse." Routledge; Fairclough, N. 1995. "Media Discourse." London: Edward Arnold. pp. 9-14; Blommaert, J. 2005. "Discourse: A Critical Introduction." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Kress, G. R., and T. Van Leeuwen. 1996. "Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design." Psychology Press, Kress, G., and T. Van Leeuwen. 2001. "Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication." Edward Arnold ). It is argued that the ideologies reflected in the news discourse are beliefs and values that are constructed and reinforced by choices in language and in images. The analysis shows that the news about Mandarin Excellence is reported according to its political, economic and cultural worth and that the news reports on Mandarin Excellence represent a way to strengthen the existing power and cultural governance of the UK government.