The Power of Pictures
If it's true that pictures paint a thousand words, why do teachers still try to use thousands of words explaining things to their students? Cue memories of Charlie Brown’s teacher here. If you are not doing so already, stop talking every once in a while and show them some pictures! Pictures are not superficial. On the contrary, the right pictures are out there to help you teach the content and increase depth of knowledge in student tasks. Your students want to analyze, comment on, critique, enjoy, and critically think, talk, and write about images. Trust me.
Granted, some courses are easier than others to use images. For example, High School U.S. History courses can refer to photographs of the world wars, the Great Depression, assassinations and more. On the contrary, any topic prior to the early 1800s would have no photographs to analyze. But even when studying ancient civilizations, there are certainly photographs of artifacts, artwork and structures that could be used. Teaching math concepts can take advantage of geometric shapes in the real world. For science, the possibilities are endless for using pictures related to physics, astronomy, biology, and more. Language Arts should also be taking advantage of pictures as students are expected to analyze, predict, summarize, argue, and defend their positions. Any elective or enrichment course can do the same.
Using pictures can be powerful. For the sake of time, or because of a misguided attempt to help them learn, you might be tempted to break it all down and explain everything for your students. Remember, it is wonderful to model expert thinking for your learners, but don’t forget to leave room for them to practice the analysis on some of the images as well. One of the easiest classroom activities is to encourage students to use context clues as they analyze an image. What is this? Where is this? Why…? How do you know? Discuss with a neighbor. Students can even come up with their own questions. Comparing multiple images for similarities and differences will likewise allow for prolific discussion.
The gallery walk is another useful activity as students circulate the room to discuss what they see. Using images also allows for successful classroom experiences for those to whom success does not come easily. Print copies if you must, project them on the walls, or share them in the digital classroom. Get images in front of them to practice critical thinking.
Granted, some courses are easier than others to use images. For example, High School U.S. History courses can refer to photographs of the world wars, the Great Depression, assassinations and more. On the contrary, any topic prior to the early 1800s would have no photographs to analyze. But even when studying ancient civilizations, there are certainly photographs of artifacts, artwork and structures that could be used. Teaching math concepts can take advantage of geometric shapes in the real world. For science, the possibilities are endless for using pictures related to physics, astronomy, biology, and more. Language Arts should also be taking advantage of pictures as students are expected to analyze, predict, summarize, argue, and defend their positions. Any elective or enrichment course can do the same.
Using pictures can be powerful. For the sake of time, or because of a misguided attempt to help them learn, you might be tempted to break it all down and explain everything for your students. Remember, it is wonderful to model expert thinking for your learners, but don’t forget to leave room for them to practice the analysis on some of the images as well. One of the easiest classroom activities is to encourage students to use context clues as they analyze an image. What is this? Where is this? Why…? How do you know? Discuss with a neighbor. Students can even come up with their own questions. Comparing multiple images for similarities and differences will likewise allow for prolific discussion.
The gallery walk is another useful activity as students circulate the room to discuss what they see. Using images also allows for successful classroom experiences for those to whom success does not come easily. Print copies if you must, project them on the walls, or share them in the digital classroom. Get images in front of them to practice critical thinking.
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