A teacher can be 10 times more effective by incorporating visual information into a class discussion, Lynell Burmark said as she reached out to her audience with words and pictures. “Our brains have more receptors to process the images coming in than the words that we hear.”
Lynell Burmark
Burmark, currently an associate with the Thornburg Center for Professional Development and author of the ASCD book Visual Literacy: Learn to See, See to Learn, offered practical advice for teachers on using visual elements in their lessons. Images can help students connect with an instructional topic, but those images mean different things to students from different cultures. “They may not always see what we think they're going to see,” she added.
For class assignments, teachers should ask students to contribute drawings or original photos rather than clip art. Drawings provide more insight, Burmark noted, because students “draw things out of proportion” based on what they view as important.
Overall, Burmark said, teachers should use more images in instruction to captivate the mind's eye. Learning “really starts with the seeing, and then the thinking,” she noted, “rather than the other way around.”