Creating and Reading Images: Towards a Communication Framework for Higher Education Learning

Abstract

This article offers theoretical underpinnings that can support an image-based communication framework for Higher Education. This framework targets students in higher education for the purposes of their productive engagement with curriculum content through visual materials and accompanying narratives. Its structure is presented in the concluding part of the article and arises from the reviewed literature throughout the article. Within this structure, blogs are suggested to serve the purpose of an image and narrative repository. The main argument in the article is that image-based communication provides a tool for externalizing students’ process of concept understanding. That understanding is seen to surface while students create, explain in writing and then discuss the created images with their peers and teacher. In that respect, the suggested framework might provide a channel for expressing students’ prior knowledge and cultural background alongside being an alternative way of communication method in Higher Education.