Every day, we have to understand and remember information. This can be difficult, especially studying for a test in school. You have to learn even more content when you study at university. It is often easier to learn about things we are interested in. Not only that: depending on how we learn, we can make it easier for ourselves to remember information.
The teacher Neil Fleming distinguishes between three different learning styles: In visual learning, people learn by making the content ‘visible’ with pictures, diagrams, etc. In auditory learning, people learn by listening to the information. In kinesthetic learning, learning takes place while doing physical activities. This article is about ‘visual learning.’
WHAT IS ‘VISUAL LEARNING?’
For visual learners, it is important to visualize information. They need something to look at to remember information or understand a concept. Hence, visual learners learn best with graphs, maps, diagrams, or pictures.
HOW DO I LEARN BEST AS A VISUAL LEARNER?
Generally, working with different shapes and colors is useful. Here are five tips to learn best if you are a visual learner:
1. Color-coding: write certain themes in your notes with separate colors. For example, when studying for a vocabulary test, highlight all nouns in red, all verbs in blue, and the adjectives in yellow. Or when studying for history, mark all major events in green and their consequences in orange.
2. Use symbols: Use exclamation points for important information, question marks for something you still need to revise, and stars for topics you understand. This helps you to keep the overview and concentrate for longer.
3. Organize your notes: An organized system will make it easier for you to learn. Make sections in your folder for different subjects and label them.
4. Charts and pictures: Some visual learners can remember their notes by seeing them like a picture in their heads. Diagrams are a great way to present information with shapes and colors. This could be a timeline, a graph, a colored table, or concept maps.
You can also draw your own pictures. Trying to learn capital cities? Draw a map and label the countries and cities. Trying to remember the vocabulary of food? Draw a supermarket shelf and label the products.
5. Watch videos: In videos and documentaries, information is already made visual for you. Watching these can be helpful and entertaining.
Whatever method you choose, it is good to mix them up and combine them. Try out what works best for you.
WHY IS IT HELPFUL TO KNOW MY LEARNING TYPE?
Throughout our life, we have to constantly remember new information. Knowing how we do this best, can save time. Learning is a never-ending process that carries on outside of school. If we know how to do it best, we can take advantage of all our opportunities.
