VISUAL LEARNING AND VISUAL AIDS

KHRISTINA SANTOS DUQUE

A commercial of on television once said that learning is a visual process. This is in fact true as most teachers know that learning is in fact 70 percent a visual experience. This is why it is essential to help learning learn through visual aids. Visuals may be the conventional board and chalk, the teacher, materials to illustrate concepts or any visual that aims to assist learning.

To help learners really grasp a concept, consider incorporating drawings into your corporate training to visually represent the different theories, topics and areas of learning that are taught. Using visual facilitation and pre-drawn flip charts not only helps draw in learners, so to speak, , but makes it easier for them to remember the concepts they’ve just learned. The simple pictures and the words about the topic offer an easy way for people to link the concept to the picture. Visual learning often rates higher than audio or kinesthetic learning for many people.

Using these visuals in a classroom doesn’t require trainers to be naturally born artists. Using simple visual graphics is a great way to illustrate the major topics that will be taught. This visual aid helps the learners “see” what they are learning.

There are lots of visual aids and materials available through the internet. In fact teachers tend to invent new once that fit the learning style of their students. One can mix and match these according to teaching styles. But one must take care of the danger of thinking that visual aids facilitate the learning process, in fact, visuals as the word implies are aids in the learning and never a substitute.

Today’s students and classrooms are becoming more diverse and unique each day. The emergence of information and communication technology (ICT) has made it possible for teachers and students to collaborate with each other in diverse ways. The use of ICT instruments like tablets and computers as visual aids have revolutionized visual learning in leaps and bounds.

— oOo— The author is Teacher III at Becuran High School, Sta. Rita Pampanga