Visual Teaching Alliance

All Blog Posts (756)

A Personal Story

Friends’ Gate

I had heard so many negative things concerning a new student prior to his enrollment that I chose not to review his records when they arrived. I felt that because he did not have to sift through my old baggage, perhaps I should not sift through his. I decided we would begin on unbiased, neutral grounds. I did choose, however, to read his medical and family background.

Jonathan was born in 1980 in Houston. After his mother abandoned him, his maternal… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 23, 2009 at 10:44am — 1 Comment

Visual Thinking in Education (Visual-Verbal Language in Learning & Teaching)

Visual Representations: Literal and Symbolic

When discussing the communication of visual meaning it is useful to distinguish between literal representations that are intended to resemble the object they portray, and symbolic representations. { These categories can also be labeled using other terms, such as realistic and abstract, respectively. } Of course, there is a continuous range between literal and symbolic, and many pedagogically useful pictures are a complex mixture… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 22, 2009 at 10:48am — No Comments

7 Things You Should Know About "Google Earth"

Scenario

As part of a course on U.S. history, Alexander is writing a paper about the Lewis and Clark expedition, focusing on a critical decision. When the party arrived at a fork in the river in June 1805, the crew believed the north fork was the proper route; Captains Lewis and Clark thought the south course would get them to the Pacific Ocean. Alexander looks at the area on Google Earth, which helps him understand the geography of this part of Montana.

Alexander… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 19, 2009 at 11:27am — No Comments

History of Interest in the Visual-Spatial Learner

Analysis of psychometric patterns and clinical observations led to the development of the visual-spatial construct in 1982. The paper, “The Visual-Spatial Learner” received positive responses from clients and from students at the University of Denver and North Carolina State University. In July, 1987, it was presented to an international audience under the title “Global Learners” at the Seventh World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children. Four months later, it was incorporated into a model… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 16, 2009 at 9:44am — No Comments

Visual Skills in the Learning Process

There are some specific required visual skills that one must have in order to have effective reading and learning abilities. With proper diagnostics, a visual learning obstacle, in most cases, can easily be transformed by working on a specific task to improve the specific functionality that the brain employs to perform a task. This article is the first in a two-part series that talks about the visual process that occurs while one is learning and identifies some physical symptoms that can… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 10, 2009 at 1:54pm — No Comments

Language Cues Provide 'Glue' For Visual Learning In Children

Language cues can provide the "glue" that helps fasten certain visual patterns into small children's memories, according to results to be presented by a Johns Hopkins University graduate student at the 17th annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, held May 26-29 in Los Angeles.

This new data provide insight into the long-debated question of whether language affects thought.

Doctoral candidate Banchiamlack Dessalegn and her mentor, Barbara Landau, the Dick and… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 9, 2009 at 10:11am — No Comments

Visual Learning, Visual Language and Photography

Visual Learning arises from the use of visual language, where linguistic meanings, information and sense are embedded in an image, rather than a text, and where the image is capable of being read, both in terms of the authors intent and in terms of the viewers own conditioned perceptions. Because a photograph is liberated (at least to some extent) from the constraints of a written text, it enables both author and viewer to encode and decode meanings in a very direct and often intuitive way.… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 8, 2009 at 10:53am — No Comments

How to Speak Out (Visually) at Your Library

What is Information Literacy?

Information literacy allows users to become life long learners. The American Library Association (ALA) defines information literacy as a “set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” (2000) These skills include the ability to:

- Establish the amount and level of information required

- Access the information… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 5, 2009 at 9:44am — No Comments

Visual Literacy: An Institutional Imperative

Academics have a long history of claiming and defending the superiority of verbal over visual for representing knowledge. By dismissing imagery as mere decoration, they have upheld the sanctity of print for academic discourse. However, in the last decade, digital technologies have broken down the barriers between words and pictures, and many of these same academics are now willing to acknowledge that melding text with image constructs new meaning, and some may even go so far as to admit that… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 4, 2009 at 10:07am — No Comments

Studies Shed Light On Multi-Tasking, Video Games And Learning

Los Angeles, California - As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology, says Greenfield, who analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology, including… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on June 1, 2009 at 9:29am — No Comments

Visual Learning Study Challenges Common Belief on Attention

A visual learning study by scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston indicates that viewers can learn a great deal about objects in their field of vision even without paying attention. The findings will appear in the April 14 print issue of the journal Current Biology. Contrary to common belief, attention may actually impair the ability of people to draw conclusions based on the visual images or stimuli they observe, reports Valentin Dragoi, Ph.D., the study's… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 28, 2009 at 9:34am — No Comments

Honoring Both Sides of the Self

We all have two halves to our Selves, just as we have two halves of our bodies. We are both “right-brained” and “left-brained,” masculine and feminine, introvert and extravert, conscious and unconscious—the yin/yang of human experience. We tend to identify with one half of each polarity, and the other half lives in Shadow. If we are born female, we may know very little about our masculine sides, and vice versa. If we are left-hemispheric dominant, we may have neglected the development of our… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 26, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

Education Strategies for Visual-Spatial Learners

The visual-spatial thinking and learning style is very powerful. Visual-spatial learners are excellent visualisers and must visualise in order to learn. Visual-spatial learners think primarily in pictures not words - either “still” like photographs or “moving” like videos. They need time to translate their pictures into words and should not be hurried to provide answers to questions.

Their thought process is random abstract pattern recognition rather than sequential and they have… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 22, 2009 at 9:58am — No Comments

Imagining Pedagogy: Infusing Visual Literacy in Schools

Introduction

The world is changing. If education was to be a preparation for life, it has to transform in tandem, (and if possible, anticipate) the changes in the world. One of the key changes in the world today is the advent of the information revolution. In the 21st century, with the invention of the computer chip, the ways in which knowledge is constructed and retrieved have changed markedly. Factors responsible for such changes include the emergence of the Interactive… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 18, 2009 at 11:23am — No Comments

Visual news and information

I am posting on the presentation of visual information at http://visualtimes.blogspot.com/.

Much of my focus on this blog is on the New York Times and politics. I invite you all to check is out http://visualtimes.blogspot.com/

Project work on digital history from my students at NC State can be found at http://dhpp.org/

Added by John Lee on May 17, 2009 at 6:26pm — No Comments

Children Live in a Visual World

Children live in a visual world and the ability to read visual images is becoming a vital skill. Rebecca Jenkin offers guidance on how to help key stage 2 students think critically about visual data.

Visual images are fast becoming the most predominant form of communication. Children are surrounded by all sorts of visual media now and according to Mary Alice White, researcher at Columbia Teachers’ College:

‘Young people learn more than half of what they know from… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 16, 2009 at 6:11pm — No Comments

Better Learning and Expressing of Learning through Visual Literacy

Our cave ancestors were visually literate; their lives depended on how well they could visually read the world around them. Today our students are visually literate within their world of “electronic images” such as TV, video games, and the Web; they want to be visually literate in their school which is often devoid of visuals.

One major component of 21st century skills is Digital-Age Literacy. This literacy consists of scientific/technological literacy; visual literacy; and cultural… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 13, 2009 at 11:13am — No Comments

A Visual Learner Learns Best By:

A Visual Learner

Learns Best By:

- Taking notes and making lists to read later

- Reading information to be learned

- Learning from books, videotapes, filmstrips and printouts

- Seeing a demonstration

THE VISUAL LEARNER WILL NEED TO SEE ALL STUDY MATERIAL.

- Practice visualizing (mental imagery) or picturing spelling words.

- Write out everything for frequent and quick visual… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 11, 2009 at 10:03am — No Comments

Through a Class Darkly: Visual Literacy

“Viewing and Representing in the Middle Years” was a two-year project to investigate visual literacy in the English language arts classrooms of three teachers. These teachers tried a variety of approaches and were generally optimistic about the benefits of the increased inclusion of visual materials. They did, however, report a number of challenges in using viewing and representing approaches as part of their curriculum. Teachers’ previous experiences influenced their implementation of an… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 8, 2009 at 10:16am — No Comments

More On Visual Intelligence

Visual Intelligence

Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind (1983), and Multiple Intelligences (1993), identified many kinds of intelligence including: verbal-linguistic, mathematical-logical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Gardner states, “ Intelligences always work in concert, and any sophisticated adult role will involve a melding of several of them.” (Gardner & Walters, 1993, p.17)

Visual literacy refers… Continue

Added by Timothy Gangwer on May 7, 2009 at 9:59am — No Comments