Visual Teach blog: Visual teaching

One image says more than a thousand words

Visual literacy:
prepare for the future of computer teaching

On photo: impact of a large screen presentation

Young teachers looking at a visualisation hardly can grasp what is

happening to them. Verbal teaching, chalk and talk, is the tradition here.

Visual literacy is needed for more effective teaching.

Visualisation:

the most important innovation in education since the start of the information revolution

Visual literacy for teachers is:
• the understanding that the use of visuals improves the quality and speed of learning
• knowing how to make useful visualisations to support each lesson
• the ability to plan visual clues strategically in each lesson and willing to do so

Older adults tend to see learning as writing down notes:
- in rich countries many teachers lack ‘visual literacy’,
- in middle and low income countries it hardly exists.
Yet, it is a simple teaching skill which will be developed effectively in the Nationwide Visualisation Project.

Only good presenters are able to improve learning outcomes by using computer technology.

Most other teachers, however, lose track of their teaching goals: technology takes over and ‘edu-tainment’ is the result. Students get too much distraction to learn. This we learn from rich countries.
Proper visualisation implies working systematically with teaching goals. In a ‘chalk and talk situation’ this is easy to learn with the overhead projector: unlike with computers, the teacher remains in full control.
Prepare the teachers: visualisation and systematic teaching are badly needed skills in IT learning situations to come.

'FACTS' on visualisation, regularly found in publications and on the web

FACT: Most people are visual learners.

FACT: The brain processes visual information up to 60,000 faster than text.

FACT: Up to 90% of information processing is visual. If not presented visually, pupils create their own mental images.

FACT: 40% of all nerve fibers connected to the frontal lobes (think-centre) are linked to the retina.

FACT: Visual aids in the classroom improve learning by up to 400%.

FACT: Exceptional students are often visual learners.

learn more on visual learning on our website: www.visualteach.info

Modernisation of teaching:

inter-activity to develop thinking skills

Large screen presentations lead to fast understanding and better recall. But there is more. They are strong motivators. They get the pupils involved and allow for classroom discussions with a central focus point.

Visual Teach presents in the teachers' manuals two simple principles which are key in the training courses. Strong point: simple to apply.

Two activating strategies

1 Interactive teaching - cyclic model
Teacher centred: instruction - processing - application
(activates independent thinking via exploring and processing - together, in a class situation. The teacher is in charge)

2 Investigation model

Student centred: problem proposal - brain storm - report

(The same transparency with a different teaching strategy: the transparency visualises the big issue to solve in sub groups)

click on picture to enlarge

When to use transparencies

• Use transparencies to introduce new concepts.
Visualisation helps pupils to distinguish essentials from supporting information, an important skill when making notes.

• Showing transparencies during the presentation of your lesson helps students maintain the lead of the story and to focus on key concepts.

• Use transparencies to repeat and test key concepts and processes.

• Show similarities and differences between similar processes, organisms or structures by using different combinations of transparencies.

• Address the needs of pupils with language or abstract-application problems by providing your lessons with concrete, visual material.

• Encourage students to come forward to point out and explain aspects of the projected image.

• Let students individually or in small groups generate their own answers. Let them take notes and use the answers in later tests.

• Stimulate students to use these sheets in their own presentations.

• You can write on the sheets with washable ink and use them time after time. Select an image and extend it with your own notes - write and add as much as you desire.

To bridge the digital divide systematically

the intermediate step for real progress
in middle and low income countries

This is ALL you need to revolutionise teaching
from the 'chalk and talk' to visual teaching

Just plug in and better do it now

because IT, computer assisted teaching, has to be prepared:

• visualisation is at the basis of internet information

• teachers using the oh-projector train themselves to set clear teaching goals

for each lesson. This attitude and ability is decisive for e-teaching.

Only good presenters increase learning outcomes if computers are used.

For more:

see: Beyond chalk and talk

see: Nationwide Visualisation Project

see: Our products

Teachers need in their classrooms robust and reliable tools.
The Visualisation Project introduces simple to use teaching aids.
Below: Put on - take off.
Just ask: "What tries this visual to explain"