Are you quick to spot a friend’s new haircut, and are you the one that reads the map? Do you prefer a documentary film to a podcast? And when trying to remember where you left your keys or how to spell a tricky word, do you close your eyes to visualize the answer? If these describe you, you may be a visual learner.
What is Visual Learning?
Visual learning describes the learning style of someone who takes in new information and develops skills through visual input. People who best acquire knowledge and expertise through processing images are considered visual learners. A visual learner may also be able to learn from hands-on experience or through the spoken word to varying degrees. But they will learn best when using graphs, pictures, tables, charts, diagrams, videos, and the written word.
If you are a visual learner, you likely have an excellent visual memory. You have a facility for spatial relationships and are often good at seeing “the big picture.” However, sometimes the details may escape your attention.
Visual Learning Examples
Today, you can find a Youtube instruction video on just about anything. We often think that “everyone” learns best by seeing it done. But, in fact, these videos are a boon for visual learners who want to learn anything from cooking to repairing cars.
Memory champions are another example of these kinds of learners. They are mental athletes who compete in memorizing extraordinary lists of unrelated data. They train by utilizing visual learning strategies, regardless of their own innate learning style.
But perhaps one of popular culture's best-known visual learning examples is Sherlock Holmes’ legendary mind palace. This strategy harnesses the power of visualization to help maximize memory storage and recall. A mind palace is an imaginary structure a person constructs to hold things they wish to remember. Then they visualize specific locations within the structure and store particular items for recall in each location. The remembered items can be as simple as objects on a grocery list or as complex as scientific formulae. By visualizing information as having a specific placement within the imaginary structure, an individual can follow the route they devise to retrieve the data committed to memory.
Visual Learner Characteristics
Visual learners prefer to take in information through their eyes, processing what they see. They often exhibit some of the following characteristics:
- Visual learners tend to think in pictures, colors, and symbols rather than words.
- Youngsters are good at learning their numbers and letters, while older kids excel at interpreting maps, graphs, tables, and charts.
- They crave visual stimulation.
- They are alert to minute changes in the appearance of people, locations, and objects.
- Someone with visual learning strengths can often read facial expressions and body language. However, it may be more challenging for visual learners to interpret a speaker’s emotion solely from their tone of voice.
- Visual learners are often perfectionists.
- They tend to be highly organized.
- They use lists to keep track of important information and things to be done.
- Visual learners often exhibit a talent for artistry, mechanics, and technology.
- They tend to have good imaginations and may be prone to daydreaming.
- They often have excellent visual pattern recognition skills.
- They may prefer quiet for concentrating and may be easily distracted by noise.
Visual Learning Strategies for Students
Being a visual learner doesn’t mean you cannot learn through listening or doing. Instead, it simply means you learn best and most easily through processing visual stimuli. Using some of the following visual learning strategies will help you better understand new information and boost your retention and recall. Best of all, these strategies can empower visual learning kids who struggle with school or need help following instructions.
- Take notes in class, underlining key concepts and adding stars or other symbols to help clarify the information.
- Use colored pens, highlighters, and colorful stickers to accent your textbooks and notes, so key pieces of information stand out.
- Color code important vocabulary words, equations, names, and dates throughout your notes and textbooks.
- Study maps, tables, and charts to better process new information.
- Use Google Images as part of your research.
- When studying a wide range of subjects, including math, science, English, history, and even sports, infographics and diagrams will help you to understand complex concepts.
- Organize your workspace and keep the location quiet while you study to improve your concentration.
Visual Learning Strategies for Teachers
While visual learners best acquire knowledge through visual information, teachers must address the disparate needs of all their students. Fortunately, many visual learning strategies can be incorporated into lesson plans. These practices empower those students who rely on visualizing to learn the material while boosting their confidence and improving their classroom behavior.
Reach out to visually learning students with these strategies:
- Enrich lectures with handouts, PowerPoint presentations, diagrams, concept maps, and other visual aids.
- Supplement lectures and auditory information with text students can read as they follow along.
- Incorporating color in presentations and handouts can be very powerful.
- Add documentaries to your lesson plan.
- Teach students to create and use their own visual aids like flashcards and concept maps.
- Instruct students on creating an outline with indentations, bullets, numbers, and letters to organize information from larger concepts to more granular details.
- Provide instructions and expectations in writing.
- Demonstrate tasks as much as possible in addition to explaining them.
- Encourage class participation by inviting students to demonstrate what they have learned, chart their progress on graphs, and illustrate new information.
- In addition to providing information in charts, tables, and diagrams, teach students how to organize information into these formats for themselves.
Benefits of Visual Learning
We’ve all headed the maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is true because vision is a powerful sense for taking in tremendous amounts of information almost instantaneously. Visual learning strategies can boost both memory storage and recall whether the individual is naturally a visual learner or not.
The Brain Balance Program is a holistic approach to empowering individuals to exercise and strengthen connections within their brains. Over the past decade, we have helped over 50,000 children grow their learning ability, boosting performance and resulting in happier, more confident kids. Want to learn more about how our program can help support visual learners? Contact us today.
