🎨 How my students “draw to learn”
I had a student tell me recently that my Spanish class was kind of like kindergarten …
… and I wasn’t offended! (More of that story in today’s 💡 Big Idea.)
Spoiler alert: It’s because they draw more in my class than they do in any of their other high school classes.
I do it on purpose, too.
In fact, this school year, we’re drawing more than ever.
At a time when we’re all asking tough questions about the place of tech in our classrooms — and the diminishing human connection we have with each other — it seems really important.
This week, we’re looking at how you can “draw to learn.”
Today, I’ll share share some ways we “draw to learn” in my class and how it’s beneficial.
On Thursday, we’ll look at the research behind it — and how our DTT community uses drawing to learn.
All throughout the week, we’ll share about drawing to learn in this discussion thread. (Join us and share your tips and ideas … you might be featured in Thursday’s newsletter!)
Inside:
🤔 Curious about Kira for your school?
👀 DTT Digest: 4 resources worth checking out
👥 Community: What are you teaching this week?
🎯 Quick Teaching Strategy: Stop hunting for classroom-ready materials!
💡 The Big Idea: Why (and where) I’m bringing drawing back to my class
😄 Smile of the day: Longest bathroom pass EVER
👋 How we can help
🤔 Curious about Kira for your school?
This message is sponsored by Kira.
One platform for curriculum, assessment, and intervention — instead of the five tabs you currently have open.
We built a toolkit for teachers who are always looking for their next good idea. Watch a few short videos. Steal some ideas for whole-group, partner, and independent work. Grab a 10-minute walkthrough for the next PLC meeting where someone asks, "Does anyone have anything?"
And when you're ready to talk to your principal, there's a 'choose your adventure' talk track simulator and a draft email already written.
👀 DTT Digest
4 teaching resources worth checking out today
🤳🏽Instagram profile template — Students show what they’ve learned in the details they add — the bio, the images, the profile picture — even the number of followers and following.
🙋🏾♂️ Teach students how to respond to a question in Google Classroom — In this Google Applied Digital Skills lesson students will log into Google Classroom, join a class, and respond to a question from their teacher.
❤️ Four crucial relationships for teachers — What relationships should you cultivate at school? You might think of the "most important" people in the school and district. Nope. In this video I identify four relationships are crucial.
ICYMI 💻 60 second strategy: Professional courtesy— A simple idea that shifts the dynamic from a power struggle ("Close your laptops right now!") to a real-world digital citizenship skill. It respects their work while keeping your instruction front and center.
👥 FROM THE COMMUNITY 👥
🏫 What are you teaching this week?
Seriously. We’re asking you.
In fact, we’re going to start asking this question every week on Sundays in our free online DTT community! Here’s what we have so far …
Angela Smith is doing “gummy bear governments.”
Sarah Anderson is teaching early human migration in sixth grade social studies.
Students in Kelly Simpson-Roberts’ classes are reading Act 2 of The Crucible.
Stephanie Sukow’s students are writing informative speeches.
You can join the free DTT Community to read ideas like this, connect with other educators, discuss, and share ideas of your own.
🎯 QUICK TEACHING STRATEGY 🎯
💻 Stop hunting for classroom-ready materials!
Finding high-quality, pre-made digital content for your lessons shouldn't take hours of searching. What if you could easily pull in a ready-to-use article, video, or interactive activity and share it directly with your class?
In our updated post, 20+ sources of free digital content for your class, we’ve rounded up top sites that offer pre-written lesson plans and student-friendly media.
Featured highlights from the list:
National Geographic Education (nationalgeographic.org/education) — Standards-based maps, lesson plans, and interactive activities.
CK-12 Foundation (ck12.org) — Free, open-source STEM content and interactive digital textbooks.
CommonLit (commonlit.org) — Over 2,000 leveled reading passages with built-in comprehension tools.
The Achievery (theachievery.com) — Free video clips and complete lesson plans across subjects, including new educational materials tied to Disney and Pixar’s Elio.
💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡
🎨 Why (and where) I’m bringing drawing back to my class
Drawing has great learning benefits for students. (Image: ChatGPT)
I was in the cafeteria lunch line the other day chatting with a student in my Spanish 3 class and her friend.
(Yep, I do school lunch some days … on days when I don’t bring my own lunch or go off campus to buy something. It’s not bad, and they always have fresh fruit, which I love.)
I asked her how things were going in Spanish class.
She was pleased! But then her friend said something that surprised me …
She said: “Everyone says that your class is like kindergarten because they’re always drawing.”
My student piped up: “Yeah, but that’s not bad. It actually helps me learn.”
That made my day.
Also … when a student says “it helps me learn,” I always pay attention.
Drawing has always been a big part of my high school Spanish classes, but I’ve been leaning into it more and more this school year — for several reasons.
It’s not just “for the visual learners.” It’s not a reward that’s separate from learning. And it’s not just for decoration.
Research supports drawing because it’s visual, generative, motoric, and retrieval-based — and it has social components.
Why drawing helps learners
A 2020 meta-analysis examined 53 studies, 166 effects, and 8,111 learners involving drawing-to-learn. Across the studies, drawing showed positive effects on:
factual knowledge: remembering what you learned (effect size: g = 0.85, very strong)
inferential understanding: making sense of what you learned (effect size: g = 0.44, moderate)
transfer: using learning in new situations (effect size: g = 0.22, not bad)
Drawing does a variety of things your brain loves:
it makes concepts VISUAL and concrete (which is better than the vague, abstract nature of some big, broad ideas we talk about)
it makes learning GENERATIVE, where students make something to show their understanding (and get the brain benefits of it, too)
it’s MOTORIC, using their fine motor skills to activate different parts of their brain
it’s RETRIEVAL-BASED, encouraging them to pull ideas out of their memory (which strengthens long-term memory)
Where I’m using drawing in my class
Warm-up activity — My students have mini dry erase boards. We keep them at their desks so they’re always available. Each day, while I’m taking attendance, I ask them to draw a quick picture of something. Today it was a campfire. One day it was a pair of sneakers. Each time, we label the word in Spanish, so sometimes, they learn a new word based on that drawing.
How you might use it: As a bell-ringer activity to activate prior knowledge. As a community-building activity that’s fun — or shows something about themselves.
Students draw pictures of new vocabulary terms in my Spanish class.
New vocabulary words — My students learn a lot of vocabulary in Spanish throughout the year. Some days, I’ll have them draw little pictures to depict individual words. Other days, I’ll have them draw a whole scene that includes several vocabulary words and label them.
How you might use it: As a way of building visual vocabulary that helps connect new concepts in their brains. As a study aid.
Formative assessment — To get my students practicing new terms and grammar concepts, we do a lot of storytelling. We’ll make up stories on the fly in class verbally — or students read and write stories. Sometimes, to show their comprehension, I’ll ask them to draw answers instead of write them.
How you might use it: As a quiz or check for understanding (draw a diagram, a timeline, a sketch of a character, etc.).
It’s messy. But it’s visual — and that helps!
Teaching aid — I even draw on the big board at the front of class! I use lots of stick figures and very basic illustrations. The benefit is in the visual and spatial representation of the concepts, not the artistic ability. Rectangles that represent cars on a street activate different parts of their brain than just saying “there are four cars on the road.”
How you might use it: As an addition/supplement to the words you’re already writing on the board.
How do you use drawing to support learning?
Do you use any of the strategies I mentioned? Something similar? Something completely different? We all have our different approaches!
Share how learning plays a role in your class in our new discussion post (AND check out what others have to say, too).
Up next: Research-based “draw to learn” practices
Research has a LOT to say about this topic — and it can be squeezed into just about any grade level or content area.
On Thursday, we’ll dive into the research and what you can do to teach as a result.
😄 Smile of the day
“Have you really been gone THAT long???”
👋 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!
