Secondary Learn and Earn: Make Learning Visual--If They See It, They Can Learn It

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Make Learning Visual--If They See It, They Can Learn It

This week's post may be review for some of you, but I feel so strongly about the message that I feel it bears repeating: seeing IS learning. These two short screencasts explain why and how to make learning in your classroom more visually engaging in ways that improve student learning.

Part 1: Why?

Part 2: How?

After viewing the screencasts, suggest a way you could apply (or have applied) the learning in own classroom.

(In the screencasts I make reference to Creative Commons licensing. You can learn more about that here: http://10techsecondary.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-9-copy-right-with-creative-commons.html. I also suggest a way students can make digital flashcards for their iPod. More specific directions can be found here: http://tsdsecondarylearnandearn.blogspot.com/2011/03/tech-upgrade-for-flash-cards.html)

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Jennifer Dunham CH · 700 weeks ago

I definitely agree many people are strongest with visual learning. But, I also believe that visual can be more than just pictures. It can be watching something happen also. There is so much math vocabulary that would be hard to find just a picture for. I definitely try and find appropriate pictures for my flipcharts when appropriate. For example, when we are working on factoring, I have a factory floor as my background and we discuss at the beginning, that the factory puts things together, and in factoring we are pulling them back apart. It is hard to find appropriate pictures for some of our math content though. For example, I struggle on what an appropriate picture for simple interest would be.

I definitely subscribe to any presentation not just being a list of information. It must be broken up and made more visual in some way. I would love to find more ways to make math vocabulary visual because it is something I am trying to focus on this year. Soon I will be working on function notation and trying to help students learn what domain, range, function notation etc are is hard. I would love for them to have an appropriate picture to them to.

1 reply · active 700 weeks ago

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Kimberly Allison · 700 weeks ago

You're right, Jennifer. Certainly there isn't a picture for everything. I wonder if a book like this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0883857464/ref=p... might help you. Also, a Google search for "making math visual" revealed some possible ideas . . . of course, you'd have to be the judge. :)

For simple vs. componded interest, I think a stack of $ would make a pretty good visual. :)

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Hilary Hall (CH) · 700 weeks ago

I try to make all my powerpoints as visual as possible- my theory is the fewer the words, the better. I do this with vocabulary powerpoints all the time in French. Usually there is just one picture (or two) to display the meaning of a French word/phrase. The problem DOES come up that sometimes what I think is the best picture for the word, or it's a difficult word to describe, after I tell the students what it means, I then ask them what are some ideas for pictures that may better suit that word/phrase. I then make changes to the PowerPoint to make it better each time I use it. I've gotten some fantastic ideas from students as to what will work better for them.

I'd also like to mention that when students create their own PowerPoints (for presentations, etc.)- I make them put mostly visuals on their slides and only phrases for text- no full sentences, etc. This is SO hard for them, even seeing samples all year from their teacher(s).

1 reply · active 700 weeks ago

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Kimberly Allison · 700 weeks ago

You're right, it is hard for them--just like it is for most adult presenters largely because even though PowerPoint is a presentation tool, it's really set up to encourage text rather than imagery. I really like how you're letting students help select the images for vocabulary.

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Marie Page · 700 weeks ago

Love, love , love this presentation. I so agree that power points can be to wordy and boring - so I decided last year to change my class power point to more images. I would say that students are more engaged and pay more attention. I also like the vocab picture description slide. I will try that in my classes. Also how do you do the split screen power point where your students can see the slide, but you can see the information you want to tell your audience about. Does this make sense?

1 reply · active 696 weeks ago

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Hilary Ledford (CH) · 696 weeks ago

I know what you mean- I haven't figured out how to do this either, and looking back at your comment led me to the answer!

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Kimberly Allison · 700 weeks ago

Glad you liked it, Marie. Here's a link to an F1Tuesday that describes how to do presenter view: http://vimeo.com/15538051 I think that's what you were asking about.

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Scott Hagensen CH · 699 weeks ago

I always try to make my PowerPoint’s as visual as possible. I try to use as few as word as possible in my PowerPoint presentations. I know that most students are visual learners. Students learn and remember through pictures not words. Instead of putting a lot of text on a PowerPoint, I use graphic organizers. On the PowerPoint the organizer is blank. It is the student’s job to fill out the organizer. After I have gone through the slides for the graphic organizer, I show a fill out one on the presentation for those students who might have missed something.

I really like the idea of using a picture and putting the word on the top of it. I really think that students would benefit from that. I am going to try this in my class. We are going over a lot of vocabulary in science. This way of having a picture for the background and the word on top would be great. I think that the students would really make a connection with the vocabulary. I think that it is a good idea to have the definition on the next slide.

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Scott Hagensen CH · 699 weeks ago

This would be also a good review tool for a test. On the first slide I would have the picture. The next slide would have the picture with the word. The last slide would have the definition. I would have the students first try to figure out what the word was for the first slide. The second slide I would have the students try to guess the definition, and the third slide would show what the definition is.

1 reply · active 699 weeks ago

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Kimberly · 699 weeks ago

Great idea, Scott. Let us know how it goes!

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Rhonda Ham CH · 699 weeks ago

Teaching how to make good power point presentations using visuals is such a great idea. Because I typically haven't liked many powerpoint presentations due to the lack of visuals, I tend to try and find other presentation tools to use. Your presentation for vocabulary made me think about the impact visuals could have with students who have difficulty understanding elaboration in writing. By using a picture that could be manipulated to add and/or take away features or colors to help show how "elaboration" changes the feel and/or strength of a picture, students may begin to have a deeper understanding of the importance/power of elaboration in their own writing.

1 reply · active 699 weeks ago

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Kimberly Allison · 699 weeks ago

I love the idea of using it to inspire elaboration. I hadn't thought of that.

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Laura Morceau (CH) · 699 weeks ago

Thinking back, I have always been more engaged in presentations where the speaker ‘tells’ a story or engages the class/audience by talking to us and having a photo to look at, rather than reading the screen or being read to. I tend to check out as well. Knowing that about me, I have tried to incorporate my learning styles and use that approach in my classroom. I have found it difficult to do for everything, since many science concepts are very detail and word oriented, but depending on the concept/content quite easy.

Using these ideas in the screencasts, I can teach kids how to make engaging PPTs for their projects. I can model to students and show them through my presentations/lectures and then ask students to follow the model I use in order to make their own projects/presentations more engaging, both in the visual and oral senses. I do tell my students that ‘less is more’ in relation to their slides, for their presentations.

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Laura (cont...) · 699 weeks ago

I love the idea of pictures with learning vocabulary. Kids in my science class are expected to make flashcards for their content vocabulary words, where it is required to have the word and a picture of that word on the front & the definition on the back. I have found that this visual does help their learning a great deal, especially since they have to find/draw a picture themselves, that relates to the word. The idea of it on their Ipod is a good one, though I don’t think that it would work for all students. Many students need the hands on approach of writing things out in order to get the concept engrained.

1 reply · active 699 weeks ago

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Kimberly Allison · 699 weeks ago

I love that you are teaching the concept of "less is more"--it's so important! One idea for the iPod flash cards might be to make the kids make them . . .

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Joelle Tweit · 698 weeks ago

Love this idea and think it would be a great way to review with students their vocabulary and information for an upcoming test. I don't use powerpoints enough in the classroom but will keep this in mind for future powerpoints that are created in the future.

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Brooke · 697 weeks ago

Thanks for the great reminder. Too many of my slides are the "add a photo to the text" kind. I've been re-energized and re-inspired to use the visual medium. Thanks, Kimberly!

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Connie Shelters CH · 697 weeks ago

The "less is more" idea is the reason I have used Animoto as a book report format choice. I like the visuals with the opportunity for only snippets of verbage. The problem with Anomoto is the number of slides is too few for many of my students who then choose PowerPoint.. The PowerPointers always create "word slides"--the easy way out? I think I can do a better job of training using the info you've reminded us about. Looking forward to better PP book reports! Thanks

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Francis Jequinto CH · 689 weeks ago

I'm glad to hear that the 10th graders are getting some of this information as well - I've given my students a few opportunities to give presentations via Powerpoint, and many of my students fall victim to the overloading of text on slides.

I love the idea of having students create flash cards for vocab. Science classes can be bogged down easily with the need for vocab, and I've been looking for major ways to get students to really understand the words - I've tried many ideas such as charades and powerpoints, but this one really resonates and seems like it would be very useful for posting so others can have access to the flashcards as well.

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