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Advocate Online
Thriving in Academe
Issues to Consider
Visual Teaching
Incorporating visual communication into your class increases students'
visual literacy for a changing world.
 What
are the benefits of including visuals in the college classroom?
Aside from varying the pattern and pace of the class, thus keeping your
students awake, there are other benefits to this holistic teaching strategy.
Students learn to analyze visual communications and tell a manipulative
presentation from an objective one. As they encounter effective visual
communications, our students will be better able to communicate in our
visually rich world.
Who is responsible for teaching visual literacy?
Just as we promote verbal literacy by requiring reading across the curriculum,
we all should incorporate visual communication in our teaching. This does
not simply mean showing a picture or running a video in lieu of a lecture.
It requires critical thinking and analysis. For example, you might ask
students to comment on how the content of the presentation compares to
other content. Does the visual presentation slant the argument? Is the
presentation objective or skewed?
If my school lacks up-to-date technology,
can I include visuals in my classroom?
Visuals need not be high tech and need not even be "pictures."
The world around us is visually rich. Just look out the window. A field
of grass or a flower bed can be used to study biology, botany, or drawing.
Physics instructors teaching velocity and acceleration can have students
time the movement of cars passing down a street near the classroom. In
computer programming, flow charts
are commonly used. These standardized diagrams help students develop a
holistic view of a process. How many other logic-, process-, or sequence-based
disciplines could use standardized diagrams?
How can I learn to make more effective visual
presentations?
Two suggestions come to mind. First, you might want to take an art class,
particularly an elementary course in design. You'll enjoy it, and you'll
learn about the design elements and principles that apply to all visual
communication.
Second, it is worthwhile to show your visual presentations
to someone outside your field and not familiar with the content. They
will be able to help you judge the effectiveness of the presentation.
You might also ask a K-12 teacher's opinion of
your presentation. Most of them had to learn about preparing visual presentations
as part of their education, and they're quite adept at appealing to the
visual sense. Or how about getting your faculty development office to
run a workshop on effective principles of visual design? A quick overview
of the elements and principles of design might take only an hour or two.
return to "Thriving
in Academe"
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References
& Resources
Zeki, S. (2001,
6 July). Artistic Creativity and the Brain. Science,
293, 51-52. Or www.sciencemag.org.
(Provides a straightforward solicitation for newresearch
into the relationship of visual stimuli to neural
developmentand thus to the development of human
thought from aesthetics topolitics to morality.)
The Center for Science and
Mathematics Teaching, http://ase.tufts.edu/csmt/
(Offers a collection of software, hardware,and
several papers incorporating visualand experiential
learning into traditional"hard science"
courses of study.)
For those teaching statistics,
go to www.mhhe.com/business/opsci
/doane/home.htm
to read about Visual Statistics 2.0, a software
visualization scheme for presenting statistical
concepts. Visual Understanding in Education is
a non-profit organization that designs programs
for schools and museums that foster cognitive
growth through interaction with art images
www.vue.org/.
For traditional reading, try
Design Basics (5th ed.) (2000) by David A. Lauer
and Stephen Pentak, Fort Worth: Harcourt College
Publishers. (This is a standard design textbook,
covering the basics of design theory. It is easy
reading and has plenty of illustrations.)
For a more inclusive
approach to the subject of incorporating the visual
and the verbal in education, see Envisioning
Writing: Toward an Integration of Drawing and
Writing (1992) by J. L. Olson, Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
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