Differentiated Instruction for Visual Learners
Mental Images Help Students Remember and Understand Instruction
Oct 21, 2008
Visual learners find the traditional classroom setting frustrating and have trouble succeeding in that environment. Typically, it is more amenable to auditory learners, who can listen to a lecture to assimilate the appropriate information.
Break Down the Learning Process
If you try to think like the students with different types of learning styles and intelligence, the challenge of preparing lesson plans becomes a manageable task. Because visual learners tend to think in pictures, in order to retain information, they need to create mental snapshots. For example, have students delineate the places they are studying on maps to help them visualize their relative positions.
Pictures allow students to relate a concept to a quick image. That simple image can conjure an entire script. Supplement lessons with photos, videos, and movies. These visuals take words off a page and bring the story to life. They are particularly helpful for a generation of students who have grown up with television and computers.
Graphic organizers are a must with these types of learners because they help students fix concepts in their minds. Include graphic organizers in daily lesson plans as often as possible. When making a presentation, use these learning aids on the overhead projector to organize information. Give them to students to fill out as they read a chapter. Students can use them to review material for a test or to help organize an essay.
Helpful Graphic Organizers for Visual Learners
- Flow charts help students visually process how one point leads to another.
- KWL charts (Know-Want to Know-Learned) help visual learners draw the line from what they already know to new information. By seeing it on paper, students can relate previous knowledge to what they are learning. They can conjure up that picture as new information becomes available.
- Timelines clearly mark out what happened first, next, and last.
- Concept wheels show the relationship of details to central ideas.
- Venn diagrams enable students to distinguish between things that are similar and those that are different.
- Cause-and-effect charts help students point a finger to causes and an arrow to their effects.
There are clearly many more examples of how graphic organizers are beneficial to visual learners. In a nutshell, they help these students "see" what they are learning. Once that information becomes fixed as an image in their minds, they will be able to carry the information forward and use it.
Additional Learning Aids for Visual Learners
Other activities that benefit visual learners include doing puzzles, sketching, painting, creating visual metaphors and analogies, designing objects, and interpreting visual images. Remember, anything that creates a mental picture will help visual learners retain knowledge. Offer a variety of options to keep these students interested in the lesson.
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