Study Advice for Visual Learners
Visual learners learn best through what they see.If you're a Visual Leaner, you will probably learn at your best when you use graphical ways to represent what you're studying. Your preference will be when information is represented in diagrams or graphs. (The clever folks over at Canva have a fantastic graph maker where you can create any chart or graph in minutes, and it's free.)Luckily for Visual Learners (and Read & Write Learners), teaching at school is utilizes visual learning a lot, so make sure you take advantage of all of the videos, diagrams and charts that your teachers use.
Is your teen a Visual Learner?
Here are a few characteristics common to Visual Learners. See if they sound familiar. Visual learners:
- love pictures and diagrams
- are good at reading maps and charts
- create strong pictures in their minds when they read
- like bright colours (and fashions)
- may have to think for a bit to process a speech or lecture
Study tips for Visual Learners
Visual Learners should try to make use of diagrams and charts while they study. Thank goodness there is now so much educational material put in these formats!
Copy down all the diagrams you can
If your teacher draws a diagram on the whiteboard — copy it down. Ask them to label it properly.
When the opportunity presents itself, ask your teacher to draw their own version of a diagram for you. The more diagrams you can get your hands on the better.
Get visual heavy textbooks
Make the most of textbooks that use lots of diagrams and visuals. Supplementing the words on the page with diagrams and other visuals will help you understand, process AND retain that information. Win win win.
Watch videos
Videos are great resources for Visual Learners. How lucky are you guys that there are now so many freely available educational videos online.
Apart from the obvious YouTube where you can know learn about literally everything (and of course we all need to be weary of the potential for epic distraction with YouTube...), we're in love with Khan Academy, which has thousands of free lessons that will suit Visual Learners. Even Bill Gates has said the Founder of Khan Academy, Sal, is his favorite teacher!
Use highlighters
Visual Learners love using highlighters. They make things bright and colorful which, among other benefits, makes the important bits of study notes stand out which helps you to remember those important bits!
So when your teen is making their own study notes they could develop their own highlighting system, whatever that may be (they can be as creative as they like!). For instance, consistently highlighting certain types of information in a particular colour can really help Visual Learners make links between connected topics or concepts and help them to remember that information when they're sitting in the exam room.
Use flash cards
While flash cards are a fantastic learning technique for Kinaesthetic Learners, they can also be a great study tool for Visual Learners.
Flash cards will be particularly effective for Visual Learners if they include diagrams. E.g. What is this part of a cell called, what does it do? What does a graph that looks like this mean? Who is this, when was she born and what did she do?
Replace words with symbols or initials
This simple tip can help speed up the process of making study notes (simply by the fact that you save time not writing every word out in full). It also gets Visual Learners to associate symbols with concepts, rather than words, which increases the strength of association.
If you or if your teen is a Visual learner and you have a study tip that isn't on this list let us know, we'd love to hear it!
But wait! What about the other Learning Styles?!
Most people don’t fit perfectly into just one of the four learning style categories — most students have a combination Learning Style!What does this mean? It means that your teen should explore different ways of learning and have a squiz at all of the tips associated with the other Learning Styles to make sure they're using ALL of the study techniques that might benefit them!For more study tips check out the other learning styles: Auditory Learning, Kinaesthetic Learning, Read & Write Learning.
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