By Sara McGuire
Visual aids for learning can have a huge impact on how students retain information. While words can be abstract and hard to retain, visuals tend to be more concrete and easier to recall. Plus, when information is presented visually, it’s a lot more engaging!
Visual aids for learning can also expand beyond the realm of just classroom posters and presentations. You can also visually enhance documents like student progress reports, lesson plans, and research reports.
Here are 10 types of visual aids for learning that will engage students and help you plan and deliver lessons more effectively.
- Educational posters to inspire and remind students
Educational posters are a classic teaching aid that can breathe life into a classroom. Hanging posters up on your classroom walls will not only invite color into the environment, they’ll also act as helpful resources for students.
- Educational infographics to simplify complex information
Infographics are a perfect classroom tool because they can make complex information easier to understand. There are many different types of infographics you can create, depending on the information you want to visualize. For example, you could make an infographic to summarize a new topic, to show a timeline of events, to visualize statistics, to explain a process and more.
The cool thing about infographics is that there’s so many approaches you can take to create one. And the design doesn’t have to be complicated – just effective.
- Creative presentations to keep students engaged with a lesson
A creative presentation template can go a long way to keep your students from snoring in the middle of class. For starters, introduce bright colors and creative fonts into your slide design. You can also combine photos, charts and icons to illustrate concepts. Simple tricks like mixing and matching styles (as long as they’re complementary) can go a long way in your presentation design.
- Educational charts to make data accessible
Simple charts are another great visual aid for an online learning platform. They can make data more approachable and can also help reveal the stories behind data.
Look for opportunities to present information visually in your presentations, handouts, and reports, and find a chart that fits that type of information. For example, a classic pyramid chart is effective for visualizing a topic in different levels.
Charts are also handy tools for analyzing processes. There are plenty of opportunities for you to include engaging visuals in your staff presentations, personal research, and more.
For example, a common problem that many teachers face is negotiating budgets for their curriculums, programs, and resources. Well-designed visuals can help you make a good case for your budget requests.
- Student assessment reports with an approachable design
Since tracking students’ progress is an important part of a teacher’s job, why not make your student assessment reports more engaging with a creative design? Younger students at the preschool or elementary school level can find assessments particularly stressful. A fun and playful design can help make a student progress report appear less intimidating.
- Classroom checklists to keep students, teachers and parents on track
A simple checklist can be a great tool to have in the classroom. From classroom duties to assignments for the semester, there are a lot of things that students need to keep track of. Adding visual aids to your checklists can help make the points on the list easier to remember.
- Research reports to make data and insights engaging
If you want to share some interesting research findings with your students, or you want students to share their findings with you, try using a visually engaging report template. A visual report will require you or your students to identify and emphasize the most important pieces of information.
Presenting research visually can also help inspire students and staff members. For example, if you want to promote a student organization or a charity, visualizing some surprising statistics can make people stop and think about a cause.
- School newsletters to get students, parents and teachers excited about events
A classic school newsletter can help keep staff, students and parents on the same page. Why not add some school spirit to your newsletter design?
If you start with a newsletter template, it’s easy to customize the text and visuals for every week or month. Simply swap out the icons with ones that reflect the theme of each particular newsletter. You can also use image frames to share pictures of events at your school.
- Education calendars to keep students, parents and teacher informed
Both teachers and students have a lot to keep track of. Adding some design flare to your calendar will make it a fun visual aid you can hang up in your classroom or include to parents in an email. Look for ways to organize the information so nothing is missed.
- Lesson plans to help you stay organized and to inspire other educators
As an educator, you no doubt understand the importance of being organized. Incorporating visuals into your lesson plan can make it easier for you to scan for information. It can also help inspire your creativity about a subject!
Since organization is key when it comes to lesson planning, you don’t have to go overboard with the design. Some simple design elements like icons, colorful headers, and a thematic footer can breathe life into a mundane lesson plan.
And if you want to share your lesson plans on a personal blog or with other teachers in your school, making your lesson plan engaging will make all the difference!
This information is courtesy of Venngage, which offers thousands of professional templates that are fully customizable with no design experience, www.venngage.com.
