Why is visual learning and teaching important?
The numbers may vary slightly but 83% of people learn by seeing, 11% by hearing and the remaining 6% learn by touching, moving and doing.
- The research has shown that visual teaching helps students better interact with materials and memorize them by 29 - 42% better. It also develops higher-order thinking skills, i.e. critical thinking skills (Bloom's Taxonomy).
- It meet the needs of “visual” learners and also improves the learning experience for all students‼ Using images to convey information has been shown to improve a person's ability to remember facts or key information by an average of 23%.
- Visual teaching provides new opportunities for some students who have certain difficulties. For example, people with dyslexia and autitism, who might find it challenging or even impossible to learn without little or any visual aid.
- As an example I used a couple of homophones (there, there’re, their), i.e. words that sound the same, but their spelling and meaning are completely different! As it may be somewhat confusing and post some difficulties to remember the differencies between the words, I did not only add the pictures to the words to aid their learning, but also presented them using different colours. This strategy is useful for every student and, especially, for people with dyslexia.
- Visual learning and teaching is important, especially when working with children! Bearing in mind that some children are not very good readers yet, it is crucial to include visuals in the study process.
I hope that this article was useful for you and for enhancing the learning process of your students.
