Pictures & Visuals
Overview
Using visual aids, such as pictures, diagrams, and charts, allows for additional processing time and supports learners by breaking down content and skills into more manageable parts. Visual aids also serve an important role in maintaining student Attention and are a touchpoint for students to refer back to on their own, as external memory aids and individual practice.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this teacher uses pictures to teach new Vocabulary. Using pictures, she leads students to think deeply and make multiple connections between the visuals and the meaning of the word.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how developers of InferCabulary created an app that uses visuals to teach Vocabulary. By presenting five related images, learners practice inferring the meaning of unfamiliar Vocabulary words. Seeing images in addition to text and audio captions further reinforces the definitions of the words, leading to greater retention in Long-term Memory.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Visual Learning Tools Strategies
Advance graphic organizers link prior knowledge to upcoming learning to help students anticipate and understand the structure of new information.
Visualizing how ideas fit together helps students construct meaning and strengthens their recall.
Sentence frames or stems provide language support for students' writing and participation in academic discussions.
Providing visuals to introduce, support, or review instruction activates more cognitive processes to support learning.
