Data Comics: Using Narratives to Engage Students in Data Reasoning

Marian Tes, Kayla DesPortes, Ralph Vacca, Megan Silander, Anna Amato, Camillia Matuk, Peter J. Woods

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Comics are a familiar art form that has been underexplored as a tool for data-driven storytelling in K12 classrooms. Making data comics provide an opportunity for students to contextualize data within a visual style and narrative structure. This paper focuses on the second-year implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum in seventh grade classrooms with one art and one math teacher. Students compared sample data from a national survey conducted by Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan US-based think tank, and data taken from their own survey on friendship perceptions and experiences. Students created comics based on those data using Pixton, a digital comic-making tool. Our study asks: How do students' use narratives to demonstrate different kinds of data reasoning? Thematic analysis of 47 data comics revealed the ways students constructed narratives, showcasing how the comic-making process cultivated students' reasoning around data and their informal inference-making skills.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationISLS Annual Meeting 2023
Subtitle of host publicationBuilding Knowledge and Sustaining our Community - 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2023, Proceedings
EditorsPaulo Blikstein, Jan Van Aalst, Rita Kizito, Karen Brennan
PublisherInternational Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS)
Pages1502-1505
Number of pages4
ISBN (Electronic)9781737330677
StatePublished - 2023
Event17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2023 - Montreal, Canada
Duration: Jun 10 2023Jun 15 2023

Publication series

NameComputer-Supported Collaborative Learning Conference, CSCL
ISSN (Print)1573-4552

Conference

Conference17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2023
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period6/10/236/15/23

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Education

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