- Ditch That Textbook
- Posts
- 🖼️ 10 ways to boost learning with pictures
🖼️ 10 ways to boost learning with pictures
Plus: Fun Google Slides/PowerPoint infographics templates
Matt Miller
October 08, 2024
✍️ I love drawing to teach
I love to draw and doodle. I’m not saying I’m good at it. But I think it’s fun.
Years ago, I noticed sketchnoters creating visual notes with some simple text and quick drawings. I fell in love. Started trying it out. It was ugly at first … but it got better.
Pretty soon, it transferred into the classroom.
As a Spanish teacher, one of my favorite ways to help students learn the language is storytelling. I love coming up with fun, silly stories that use our new content to get students practice.
At some point, I just started doodling the stories I would tell in class — just on the dry erase board in my class.
It created a whole new experience for the stories — and I never looked back!
(You can read more here about my love of dry erase boards and using them for drawing and practice in class.)
Turns out, pairing images with text is VERY brain friendly and can lead to lasting learning (and memory).
In today’s 💡 Big Idea, guest blogger Adam Current shares how you can make your class more verbal/visual -- for fun and for memory.
Read his post here or keep scrolling to read more below!
Inside:
📚 6 books to support teaching with tech
👀 DTT Digest: AI images, icons, Suno, new DLP episode
💡 The Big Idea: 10 ways pictures boost learning
🗄 Template: “Icon board” infographics templates
😄 Smile of the day: Oh wait! Unsend! Unsend! 📧
👋 How we can help
📚 6 books to support teaching with tech
I’ve authored (or co-authored) six books that can help you level up teaching and learning with tech …
Ditch That Textbook: Lots of ideas for teaching with tech in the 21st century
Ditch That Homework: If homework doesn’t give you the results you want, here’s what you can try instead.
Don’t Ditch That Tech: Use tech to differentiate instruction, engage students, and meet them where they are
Do More with Google Classroom: Go beyond the basics with Google Classroom to create better assignments
Tech Like a Pirate: Create fun, memorable learning activities with tech to engage students
AI for Educators: A primer on AI in the classroom, translating it for teachers and suggestions ways to use it
👀 DTT Digest
4 teaching resources worth checking out today
🤖 AI image generators: 10 tools, 10 classroom uses — You can create images for teaching, for slides, to describe class content with AI image generators. Here are tools and ways to use them to teach.
💥 Get free icons at The Noun Project — This is my go-to location for icons that help make my work more visual. I wrote about using The Noun Project in class here.
ICYMI: 🎵 Make custom songs for your class with Suno — Describe a song you’d like Suno to make and it’ll create it in about a minute … then click play and listen to it! Here are some ways to use it to teach.
🎧 New episode of Digital Learning Podcast — Google’s NotebookLM is blowing our minds! Hear what it does and how we can use it in education.
💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡
🖼️ 10 ways pictures boost learning
Adam Current is a middle school English teacher in Indiana … and he’s found a really effective way to help his students learn and remember.
Images. 🖼️
It’s all about dual coding theory, which posits that we better remember things with a verbal/visual mix — images and text.
It fits SO nicely with instruction.
Here are a few of the tips he shares in 10 ways pictures boost learning, his guest post on our Ditch That Textbook blog.
1. Add pictures to text
Pictures process ideas faster than text alone because they encode across multiple channels (20-21). When pictures externalize ideas, computational efficiency means implicit relationships becomes more explicit. So complementary pictures help understanding.
3. Depict steps in processes
Picturing steps makes understanding them easier (54). While this isn't necessarily profound, consider the universality of Legos or IKEA instructions.
5. Use icons
Graphic design is everywhere. Just look around. Add icons because they provide instant associations, easing comprehension (114-115).
In "How to Make Infographics for Learning," Matt Miller introduces PowerPoint as a powerful infographics tool anyone can use. Suggesting the Noun Project has given my documents a tremendous boost!
💡 Even more ideas: Adam shares a total of 10 ways to boost learning with pictures in his guest blog post!
🗄 TEMPLATE 🗄️
📝 “Icon board” infographics templates
If you’re loving all of this verbal/visual “dual coding” talk, you’ll really love these Google Slides and PowerPoint templates.
We call them “icon boards,” but they’re really just infographics templates.
Students get a copy of this Google Slides (or PowerPoint) template. They drag in an icon and add some text.
Then they just do that over and over and over again … until they’ve communicated an idea in a very verbal/visual infographic.
Use these for a change of pace from a traditional written assignment — or just because they’re very brain friendly!
🗄️ Find them in our Interactive Activities Templates in our free templates library.
😄 Smile of the day
Thank goodness for “undo send” in Gmail! 📧
h/t @teachersthings on Instagram
👋 How we can help
There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:
Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.
Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.
Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!
What did you think of today's newsletter?Choose the best fit for you ... |