Knowing Your Students: Visual Learning

If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn ~ Ignacio Estrada

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              As future professionals of the educational sphere, teachers perceive that students will respect their role as the ‘teacher’, while accommodating a curriculum that is required in the classroom. It is important to note that building and fostering positive relationships with your students brings about the best in discovering students as learners and unique individuals who seek the guidance of the educator. Specifically, teachers learn to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and interests that each student ultimately embodies and that in doing so, educators will have a sense of what areas need improvement and what areas of learning they strive the most in.  In my own perspective, teachers should definitely learn to build relationships with the students that are nurturing, in that way, students will know that someone is there to guide them. By taking the time to care about each student in the classroom, it decreases the negative impacts of them falling behind in their studies, or losing focus in what they are learning. The better we know the students and the more they know that we know them, the more invested they become in school and take the initiative.

We all know that teachers are quite busy individuals, dealing with not just one student in the class at the time but every student and trying to get through their lesson plans for the day, but they are still able to manage their time and effort to try to give every student the tools and every opportunity possible to master a subject.

Is it true to say that education seeks to foster this notion? Can teachers accommodate for every student’s profiles?

We can say that education is not embedded and built on one specific quality of learning, that there are many kinds of intelligences that each student embodies to meet their learning needs and styles. By getting to know your students on an individual level, it is a simple way that your students can feel validated and cared for, while taking more ownership in their learning.

 Learning about multiple intelligences is one way to get to know your students, coined by Howard Gardner (1983) who challenged the traditional understanding that intelligence is fixed and can only be measured through the student’s logical and linguistic abilities (Drake, Reid, & Kolohon, 2014). Overall, the mainstream definition of intelligence describes it as ‘‘A mental capacity that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (Blazhenkova & Kozhevnikov, 2014). For example, looking at visual intelligence is having an eye for detail, being able to visualize, and remember and recall images.  One way to describe this is when the teacher physically shows the students objects, considered a powerful method to teach, and can bring the interest of the subject alive. For example, showing a sphere using a ball or cylinder of a tube are more effective than telling the students what they look like or holding rocks in their hands expands their knowledge of how much can be studied about different types of rocks and the process of their formations.

Are you a visual learner?:  

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In my own experience, I can say that I often use visual learning , I like to have a visual representation of the information provided to me whether through a picture, a brainstorming web, a chart or a PowerPoint presentation, visual tools help me to comprehend the content better and I like to use different colours for text when writing notes. As a passionate individual for the fine arts, I can gain the ability to visualize the world accurately and to recreate my own understandings of visual experiences.

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For example, we look at how teachers in Japan incorporate the Strategy Tree for English language learners that illustrates the Tree with its trunk, leaves, roots, water, and the sun. Linguistic knowledge and skills are represented through the leaves and the tree, while the roots, water, and the sun represent learning strategies that foster the growth of the trunk and leaves (Abe, Yoshimuta, & Hu, 2014). For many learners, the ultimate goal of second language learning is to develop the four language skills represented in the leaves that are based on linguistic knowledge, the trunk, and the other illustrations are the affective, cognitive, and sociocultural-interactive learning strategies (Abe et al., 2014). Interesting enough to see is that the size of the Tree represents the current level of the learner, and its shape varies depending on where the learner lies within their skills.

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In my future teaching, taking into consideration the dynamics of visual learning helps me to see how ideas are connected and how information can be grouped and organized in a creative way. With visual learning in mind, tools such as this tree diagram enable new concepts to be more thorough and easy to understand when they are linked to prior knowledge. I can argue that visual learning is not meant for every student and there are certainly other intelligences such as logical, intrapersonal, musical, bodily and naturalist that can be linked to each student’s way of learning. “If you are a visual learner then the whiteboard or chalkboard is your best tool and friend, you are artistic and love to draw and doodle on paper using different colours. You see things in a different light and perspective, and this style works for you!

In ending this blog, I like to say that as future teachers, we need to identify how our students learn, as we are the facilitators of their learning. We want our students to succeed and in doing so we need to create strong connections with them, and develop a learning environment where their needs and learning styles are recognized. I can say that students don’t just learn by hearing but they also learn by seeing, 

 So good luck in discovering your teaching journey…

References

Blazhenkova, O., & Kozhevnikov, M. (2009). The new object-spatial-verbal cognitive style model: Theory and 

             measurement. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 23, 638-663. doi: 10.1002/acp.1473

Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L., & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving curriculum and classroom assessment: Engaging the 21st-

             century learner. Canada: Oxford University Press. 

Mayumi, A., Satomi, Y., & Davies, H. (2014). "Now maybe I feel like trying": Engaging learners using a visual tool. Studies 

             In Self-Access Learning Journal, 5, 277-293.