Visual Literacy and Learning.

  Visual literacy is defined as being about to interpret information from graphs, images, charts, pictures, and scenes.  This is an important skill because you find all of these in some form in the newspaper, on the internet and it is important to be able to read and interpret them.

Visual information is becoming more commonplace because technology provides us with so many graphs, images, charts, pictures and scenes that students must acquire visual literacy.

Visual language in mathematics is especially important because it makes it much easier to communicate ideas or items without the use of written language.  I've had my student write down the instructions to draw a square and they get frustrated because they know what a square is but they cannot describe how to draw one yet if I let them use a picture, they could communicate it in a much easier manner.

Visual learning consists of five different skills.

1. Observation - to really see the item and be able to answer questions like "What is it?" or "How does it work?" or "How does it differ from a square?"

2. Recognition or the ability of a student to recall the meaning of the visual sign such as a red octagon means stop in many countries or its a rectangle because it has 4 90 degree angles but two sets of  parallel sides of different lengths.

3. Interpretation of the visual that leads us to understanding what we see.  It involves questions such as "What does this tell me?" or "How does this model work?"

4. Perception involves answering the question "What comes next?" so we are able to analyze or propose a conjecture.

5. Self-expression allows us to convey the information to others.

In mathematics, information should be conveyed in visual, verbal, and numerical form  so they are able to understand the complexities.  When ideas are conveyed in these three forms, they aid in true communications.  If you look at sketch note taking, it uses all three to provide information.

In order to understand abstract concepts in mathematics, students need to "see" how they work by using a series of images to solve the more complex problems.  For instance, in a word problem, you break the parts down and visualize each part, perhaps even draw something showing the relationships or when looking for the surface area of a three dimensional shape such as a pyramid, you create a net so you can calculate the area for each surface.

Each type of visual provides us with information such as graphs are designed to convey information we capture via our eyes while charts show us relationships.  Students need to develop the ability to create mental images or images to make the jump from concrete to abstract.  Even accurate estimation requires this ability.

It has been found that sketching and modeling are extremely important in note taking.  My students are always asking "Do I need to write that down?"  Usually, I say "Its up to you but this is important towards your learning."  Now I am going to tell them yes, you need to take all the notes.

When they sketch notes about math, it helps students figure it out.  They have the capacity to internalize the information, find relevancy and make connections. Technology is making things more and more visual so our students have to learn visual literacy to keep up with the changing landscape of information. 

So what are some strategies to help students become visually literate? Here are some:

1. Display materials in visual form so students become used to seeing them this way.

2. Encourage students to draw images to explain or solve a problem.

3. Have students work together to model new concepts. 

4.  Encourage students to make sketching a daily part of their note taking.

5. To check understanding of a concept, have students create a visual without numbers or words to convey it.

6. Use the visuals to show relationships such as between linear equations and their graphs, or ratios and their relationship between proportion and scale.

7.  Create concept maps to show relationships between mathematical concepts.

I hope you found something in this you can use.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from you.  Have a great day.