Tracey Bowen's headshot

Tracey Bowen

Title/Position
Professor, Teaching Stream
Vice-Dean, Teaching & Learning, UTM

PhD OISE/UT, Curriculum, Teaching & Learning
M.Ed. Brock University Faculty of Education
BFA (Honours) York University

Recent Courses:
CCT304 Visual Communications and Digital Environments
CCT310 Mass Communications & Popular CultureCCT409 Work Based Learning
CCT410 Internship I
CCT411 Internship II
WRI410 Internship I
WRI410 Internship II

Research Interests:

  1. Experiential Education and developing professionals: My research in the field of Experiential Education examines the cognitive and affective impact of work-based learning on students who are in the process of transitioning from learner to industry professional. I am interested in studying how students make meaning from their experiences in relation to their academic development, and how reflective writing creates a space for  pedagogical affordances that extend beyond describing, recording and evaluating their experiences.
  2. Visual Literacies: The digital age has illuminated the multi-modalities of how we learn about and negotiate the world. I am particularly interested in the ways in which students perceive themselves as visual thinkers and how I can create opportunities for them to develop a visual literacy that is grounded in rhetorical concepts and critical thinking.

Research Areas:

  • Student development in the transition stage between learner and professional
  • Spatial literacy and conceptualizing spaces of professional practice
  • Visual literacy and visual thinking
  • Visual rhetoric and Globalization
  • Drawing as a method of conceptualization and inquiry in scholarly contexts
  • Graffiti

Research:
Dr. Tracey Bowen is co-investigator of the international research study “Gender Disparities in Work-Integrated Learning Placements: Students Perceptions of Bias and Challenges.” Collaborators include Work-integrated learning scholars from University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Napier University, Edinburgh and University West, Sweden. Her article titled “Examining students’ perspectives on gender bias in their work-integrated learning placements” reports on the findings of the UTM pilot study that initiated the international collaboration and is forthcoming (2020) in Higher Education Research & Development. Bowen also continues to research the use of soft systems methodologies and Rich Pictures for facilitating critical thinking and collaborative problem solving within the undergraduate classroom.

Publications:
Bowen, T. (2021). Visualizing Gentrification: Resistance and reclamation through the writing on the wallsIn, T. Bowen and B. R. Caraway (Eds.)Visual Futures: Exploring the Past, Present, and Divergent Possibilities     of Visual Practice. Chicago: Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 53-71.

Bowen, T. (2020) Work-integrated learning placements and remote working: Experiential Learning online. 
International Journal of Work-integrated Learning, 21(4), 377-386.

Bowen, T. (2019). Examining students’ perspectives on gender bias in their work-integrated learning placements. Higher Education Research and Development. 39(3): 411-424.                 

Bowen, T. and Evans, M.M. (2019). Shedding Light on “Knowledge”: Identifying and Analyzing Visual Metaphors in Drawings. Metaphor and Symbol, 34(4): 243-257.  http://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2019.1683958.

Bowen, T. and Evans, MM. (2018). What does knowledge look like? Interpreting diagrams as contemporary hieroglyphics. Visual Communications, 18(4): 475-505.

Bowen, T. (2017). Assessing visual literacy: a case study of developing a rubric for identifying and   applying criteria to undergraduate student learning. Teaching in Higher Education, 22(6): 705-719.