Donna Wilson, co-developer of the M.S. and Ed.S. Brain-Based Teaching degree programs at
Nova Southeastern University, feels that creating visual thoughts is essential
to learning, understanding and remembering.
Students who learn to visualize what they are learning tend to retain
more and also report enjoying learning more. “By creating mental images from the words on a page
or screen, we tap into both the verbal and visual-spatial representational
systems, making abstract concepts more concrete and thus more meaningful and
memorable.” (Wilson, 2014, para. 3)
Wilson goes on to explain the importance of teaching students to learn
by visualizing. She recommends that
teachers guide students to visualize while reading to teach them to create what
Wilson calls “brain movies”. While children are thought to be naturally
imaginative, to what degree varies from child to child. Wilson teaches students to develop this skill
by practice and then sharing what they visualized with others.
Visualization is a large part of learning. I have noticed that some individuals are more
likely to automatically do this, but it does appear to be something that can be
learned. As a student and a teacher, I
have seen different degrees of visualization utilized and have come to the
conclusion that students that naturally visualize learn much easier than those
that don’t. One thing I do agree on is
that it works.
Wilson, D. (2014). Brain movies: when readers can picture it, they understand it. Retrieved from:http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-movies-visualize-reading-comprehension-donna-wilson
I agree that a huge part of learning is by making these "brain movies" (I love the term - never heard it described like this before!). I would like to find out ways to teach this. We can explain it within our classroom, how to create a movie in your head, but how to teach this concept to students I think is the harder task. You can tell when students are visualizing it. I use this concept a lot in our reading and writing workshop.
ReplyDeleteLauren, I think you are right. Teaching this concept to students may be difficult. It seems to come naturally for some and not for others. I think that guiding the students to visualize and having them practice could help. I still think that many students would have to remind themselves to visualize (or to visualize more elaborately) if it wasn't natural for them to do so.
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