“Despite the fact that most children are visual learners, it has been observed that the visual literacy both teachers and students continues to be dismal, suggest researches. There is a need to learn to draw visual symbols which represent the reality or decoding of abstract symbols of in the form of words and minerals. Also the tradition of picture reading is lost due to emphasis on lectures and discourses in the classroom. This has creates a cognitive deficit in the development children,” stated resource person in a workshop at a learning centre of Smile NGO in which 30 odd girls and 4 teachers participated.
In a session held at Sanganer locality of Jaipur on September 28, the children were given hands on of creating ‘visual vocabulary’ for a lesson in a middle school science. The visual symbols of the Sun, rays, plant, human, animals, birds were created and their importance in learning science concept was discussed along with eliciting the cognitive gained of drawing visual symbols See inset collage.
“Visual symbols are two-dimensional line drawings-based representations of reality as a code or sign for recognition purposes. A visual can be in the form of minimal line drawing, diagram, stick drawing, icons, graphics, maps, etc., which lead to active memorization along with understanding concepts.
Also, an exercise on picture/ diagram reading was done, in which the students was asked to fill in the blanks to sate the process of photosynthesis.
The presentation was in the form of a lesson study. It was felt that teachers are needed to be trained to acquire relevant visual literacy and teaching with visual symbols and relate them to the prescribed content. Visual learning has been found effective with learners across the ability spectrum.
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