Whiteboard Paint: A Superior Tool for Practicing Visual Learning

Using visual learning strategies in the classroom is effortless on walls coated with whiteboard paint. The power of visual learning is based on the theory of dual coding, which states that information is more easily absorbed by the brain when it is offered in both verbal and visual forms. Psychologists have found that dual coding is one of the most efficient techniques for boosting people’s long-term memory. Productivity in the classroom is thus enhanced when students exercise their listening, reading, and visual learning skills all at once.

Incorporating visual elements when presenting data is a more effective way to help students remember lesson content over the long term. After listening to an oral lecture, the typical person will recall only 10 to 20% of what’s said three days later. However, if the lecture content is also represented visually, the percentage of what’s remembered after three days rises to 65%.

Teachers can use dual coding to convey course content in a number of forms, such as diagrams, graphic organizers, flow charts, cartoons, timelines, and infographics. Presenting the same subject matter through  visual images and words offers students two ways to remember the subject matter of a lesson. This greatly strengthens learners’ engagement and retention. As a result, dual coding gives educators a chance to broaden their classroom practice and enhance students’ scholastic success at the same time.

In the following article, we will examine several visual learning techniques that you can use with whiteboard painted walls.  They include concept mapping, data visualization, diagramming, and other methods that address the unique needs of diverse learners. Such strategies aren’t just supplementary; they form the basis of a strong teaching methodology that can significantly improve students’ engagement and academic achievement over time.

Concept Mapping Using Whiteboard Painted Walls

Students can draw intricate webs connecting ideas or themes to help them visualize and organize knowledge that you present in class. The learners will have ample opportunity to sketch large concept or mind maps on the broad expansive surfaces of your whiteboard painted walls. Doing so will help them reach new levels of understanding complex ideas and facts. On a traditional 4’ x 6’ whiteboard, most instructors can’t write small enough to produce all of the details required for large visuals like mind maps. But on walls coated with premium whiteboard paint, there’s virtually no limit to how big a mind map can be.

The practice of mind mapping involves creating a diagram that branches out from a central idea, with related ideas or facts connected through lines or branches. This structure mimics the way our brains naturally process and arrange data, making it easier for students to take in and retain lesson content. A mind map promotes “big picture” thinking, enhances problem-solving skills, and offers a valuable tool for group collaboration. And once again, the vast surface areas of whiteboard painted walls make this visual learning approach much easier to execute.

For example, describing the structure of the United States judicial system in social studies or the stages of photosynthesis in science is easily accomplished. Such complex ideas require large surfaces to fully and accurately display all their elements. As a result, walls coated with whiteboard paint provide just the right media for going all out in creating concept maps.

• Data Visualization

Data visualization is the graphic representation of information such as facts, figures, and statistics. By using visual schemas like charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization provides an accessible way to observe and comprehend trends, outliers, and patterns in sets of data. These types of displays convey intricate interactions and data-driven insights in a readily understandable way. As a result, using them in the classroom gives students an advantage they wouldn’t have if they were getting verbal instruction alone.

Data visualization plays an especially crucial role in teaching math. It helps students to better understand and express concepts and relationships such as inverse relations and Cartesian products. Walls coated with whiteboard paint give students blank canvases on which to pursue such mathematical ideas and connections visually. They provide large spaces that allow learners to engage in problem-solving by writing out, erasing, and rewriting equations, graphs, and diagrams as much as necessary. Doing so makes it easier for even struggling students to understand the steps involved in getting correct answers to math problems.

• Spontaneous Visualizations

While thinking on their own or collaborating in groups in the classroom, students often draw spur-of-the-moment diagrams on whiteboard painted walls. Such graphics, known as “spontaneous visualizations,” help them to grasp facts or abstract concepts presented in class. If you study and take photos of these impromptu graphics you can get ideas for creating more structured formal data visualizations to use in your lessons.

• Diagrams and drawings

Teachers can use walls coated with whiteboard paint to create graphics like flowcharts and Venn diagrams that correspond to complex ideas or structures (e.g., the growth cycle of a plant, the parts of the human anatomy, or the structure of a cell). Offering learners visual representations supports those students who may struggle with purely verbal descriptions. It greatly enhances the engagement and comprehension of other students as well.

Whiteboard painted walls are especially helpful in creating diagrams for STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math). Teaching STEM classes with whiteboard walls improves students’ ability to visualize complex scientific and mathematical concepts. Teachers can produce detailed models, figures, and simulations on the large surfaces of the walls that help students grasp abstract ideas. The walls are big enough to contain elaborate, detailed graphics that conventional framed whiteboards can’t accommodate.

• Color coding to add visual appeal

Color is an invaluable tool for enhancing visual learning. Using colors when you teach is another excellent way to keep learners visually engaged in the classroom. You can easily employ color coding to organize information while presenting a lesson.

For example, when conducting a class discussion on a story that students have read for homework, you might choose different colors of dry erase markers to highlight various points about the plot, setting, and characters. You could use blue for characters’ actions, yellow for dates or times when events occurred, red for important locations, and green for other interesting facts. Color coding can also be a way to visually organize and remember the steps in a process or presentation.

Through the use of color coding, you can visually remember data by thinking of the color associated with that data.

• Creating timelines

Timelines are powerful multipurpose visual learning tools that are especially useful in subjects such as language arts and history. They’re adaptable to students’ diverse learning styles, making complicated concepts like English verb tenses more understandable. Timelines help students to visually sort out language-related information chronologically in their minds, making it easier to see connections between various events or ideas. This sorting-out process permits learners to analyze and interpret lesson material more effectively, so it aids comprehension.

By including timelines in your bag of teaching tricks, you can create engaging, interactive lessons that boost students’ intellectual capacity, engagement, and retention. Timelines provide clear visual representations of events, making it easier for learners of all types to grasp and remember facts and concepts.

One productive way to use timelines in a language arts class is to have groups of students create them on your whiteboard painted wall. After they’ve read a short story or novel they can use the timelines to map out the key events in the plot. Doing so will help in understanding the text’s narrative structure and the sequence of actions in the storyline.  This will, in turn, make it easier for the learners to examine the characters’ actions and the story’s development. Students can then take photos of their timelines when preparing for class discussions or writing essays.

Whiteboard paint transforms walls into interactive learning spaces, boosting creativity and retention through visual strategies. Check out our whiteboard paint products products to bring innovation and engagement to your classroom!

Watch this video to learn more about using whiteboard walls for visual learning:

Summary

Article Name

Whiteboard Paint: A Superior Tool for Practicing Visual Learning

Description

Enhance visual learning with whiteboard paint—a versatile tool for fostering creativity, collaboration, and retention in educational spaces.

Author

Susan Anspach

Publisher Name

ReMARKable Whiteboard Paint

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