Danita,
Simple devices but powerful learning tools. Good information about how these devices benefit the learning of students.
Gary
Graphic organizers are meaningful ways to help students understand and retain critical information. The organizers allow for information to be broken down into logical units while, at the same time, illustrating relationships with other concepts such as sequential or consequential information. Shapes, colors, and their organization provide memorable visual reminders to reinforce the individual “bits†of content as well as the collective “whole.†Visual learners seem to greatly benefit from graphic organizers but they also seem quite effective for students with other learning styles as they provide reinforcement of content and can facilitate recall of key concepts.
Edward,
Good explanation of the benefits of using graphic organizers. They really help to guide students to the critical course content in a logical way.
Gary
Francis,
It is a great strategy as you say and one that can really help students to see the big picture of what they are being asked to learn.
Gary
An instructor of ours uses graphic organizers religiously; he's somewhat famous for it. In his PowerPoint presentations, he'll use many goofy images, text image cues, and other ideas to hold the attention of the students while, at the same time, imparting valuable information in a well-controlled manner.
Often times when learning a new concept, I've noticed that students cannot focus on two sources of information at once. In classroom settings, if the instructor is disseminating valuable information from both a PowerPoint and their own voice, students cannot follow which to use, and will attempt to write down everything they can, to the point where they will be needlessly focused on unimportant facts. Graphic organizers can help bullet-point and reinforce the important facts that the instructor is saying, while at the same time condensing what students need to retain to a much simpler - yet still important - amount of information.
-E.A.W.
It helps them to put things into ideas that they can better understand. A number of years ago, I learned about an idea called storyboarding. It is the same general idea that was presented in the module. It is great for students that learn better by using images.
Christine,
I bet they come up with such very unusual ways of graphically illustrating the course content.
Gary
Kenny,
This is so true. It seems that we are being called upon to teach basic academic skills as well as our content areas. Graphic organizers give them some basic ways of gathering and retaining content.
Gary
It helps them by visually organizing new information in ways that make sense to them, show connections, and relationships. This can also lead to them integrating it with other knowledge and experience they may have potentially leading to new ideas and application.
Many of my students are artistic. That is on reason the are pursueing this career. Any chance to use their artistic abilities in class further engages them and helps them retain the information.
Many of our students were able to manuver through high school without developing strong study skills. The use of graphic organizers stimulate the brain to react in different ways, through different receptors.
David,
It is amazing how little things like color make such a big difference in student focus.
Gary
Pietro,
Great to hear about your success with these methods. The more we can illustrate content and application to our students the greater the retention of it is going to be.
Gary
Great Idea's useing colors or shapes can enhance this learning thing we do I use color markers to enhance its can be fun
Theodore,
I agree. I use them a lot in my instruction and they really help the students to see how all of the parts of the concepts fit together to create the total picture.
Gary
I find that it paved the way to make the the learning gap or gaps smaller for the students to relate too. Especially when the have to perform a task. the can use that graphic that was presented that breaks down the material in a step by step fashion.
It allows students to categorize each section discussed and learn from there.
It enhances retention of information, and this will also enhance their organization and time management skills in work force.
Simply put this resource helps the students form a relationship with the material being learned. By putting information in a visual context that can aid in memory retention. The use of color or shapes can enhance this learning...We use many types of graphs and charts which help show the relationships of circuitry components and their function. The students complete the charts and can then reference them to future exercises.
Using Graphic Organizers can help the student break down the lesson and allow them to see the lesson bit by bit
It catergorizes individual content into smaller parts that are easily referenced.
