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Podcast for the Digital Literacies and 21st Century Skills course at Adelphi University's Educational Technology program.
Ms. D
Hey everyone. Welcome back to *Teaching Like Plato*, where we explore different teaching methods and how you can apply them to your math classroom. Although I focus on math, these ideas can definitely apply to any subject. I'm your host, Misty, and today we'll be diving into the world of imagery and visual literacy.
Math and art go hand in hand. Think about geometry, shapes, and all the colorful diagrams, graphs, statistics, or calculus. So the question here is, why is it so important to incorporate imagery in your lessons when discussing a topic as hard as math? Stay tuned for answers to these questions.
I often hear students say they hate math, basically because it's a very hard concept to understand. So the challenge many math teachers face is, how do we make mathematics easier and more engaging? In my STEAM Master's program, we learned that math and art are deeply connected. Combining the two through projects, assignments, or even during lessons can significantly boost engagement in your students.
Even something as simple as adding a meme to your lesson can really captivate your students. Memes especially are very effective because they tap into students' current trends and humor, which will almost instantly grab their attention. You could use a meme to discuss a topic you'll be teaching that day, or just something relatable to engage with your students.
It really makes for a more lively classroom and introduces visual literacy at the same time. So what is visual literacy? In very simple terms, it is the ability to read and write images. However, there are many different definitions of how one may define visual literacy, some more complex and in-depth.
According to Diane Cordell, in the book *Using Images to Teach Critical Thinking Skills, Visual Literacy, and Digital Photography*, visual literacy is a group of vision competencies a human being can develop by seeing and integrating other sensory experiences. Another key idea that Cordell mentions is that visual literacy can enhance students' critical thinking skills.
The reason why visual literacy builds on critical thinking skills is that critical thinkers have to gather data from a variety of sources, interpret, evaluate, organize, and reflect upon this accumulated evidence, which is essential for problem-solving. In mathematics, visual literacy is not just about looking at an image, but interpreting it in context and using other senses and critical thinking skills.
So when we think about this in the classroom, let's take a geometry example. Say we have a teacher trying to teach the Pythagorean theorem. Now, if you were to just give students the formula without much context, all they will really do is memorize it without using any problem-solving or critical thinking skills.
What you may do instead in this scenario would be to draw or incorporate a colorful drawing of a triangle with all sides labeled, and you can draw squares on each side of the triangle. This represents where the A squared, B squared, and C squared come from—it comes from the area of these squares.
This way, students will fully understand the formula and the meaning behind it as they engage with visual literacy, making connections between the square sides and square areas, and then the triangle sides. This essentially causes your students to create meaning from the formula.
Students begin to visualize and move beyond just memorization, approaching these problems with more critical thinking. Another important reason for incorporating visual literacy into your math curriculum is that you help your students become visually literate when reading the world around them.
John describes being visually literate as having the ability to interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or manmade, one encounters in their environment. In math education, one might assume mathematical literacy only discusses numbers and equations. However, there is so much more to math than just numbers and equations.
When we look at diagrams, graphs, geometrical shapes, and objects, we are using visual literacy. These visuals allow students to make sense of abstract concepts. In my personal experience working with children, over seven years now, I have noticed that students understand and solidify concepts in math better with visual images than when they are just presented with computational ideas.
Online games can also be considered part of visual literacy. For most people, including students, film, television, computer and online games, and music constitute the current vernacular. There are many resources available for teachers to incorporate these into math.
Specifically talking about online games, there's a really good one called GeoGebra, and it’s more than just a graphing calculator. GeoGebra offers interesting and interactive activities for math teachers, such as online math games for students to understand topics.
A cool feature of GeoGebra is that you, as a teacher, can see what your students are doing live. It’s actually really cool. You can start a lesson, invite your students to join, have them put their names in, and instruct them to play fun math games to understand certain concepts. While you give them time to do this, you can see on your screen what each student is doing—whether they’re not participating, just guessing, or truly understanding the concepts. You can even review this after class. I really recommend GeoGebra for any math teacher.
So now, knowing all this new information about what visual literacy is and why it is important, let's circle back to how we can actually implement visual literacy in math education.
Images can supply both information and motivation. Like the example I mentioned with the Pythagorean theorem, instead of only focusing on teaching formulas, you can show your students images of labeled right triangles. Visual aids like this create a more inclusive and accessible classroom, meeting the diverse educational needs students may have.
Not all students learn the same way, so implementing these visual options and building on students' visual literacy skills can increase engagement and provide more opportunities for students to learn differently. Students become not just learners, but creators.
This ties back to an article I recently read. In Chapter 3 of *Developing Digital Literacies in the Arts for Pre-service Teachers*, the author discusses a “learner as creator” approach, which allows students to actively participate in their own learning using various multimodal tools, such as producing their own videos or podcasts.
This approach argues that when you create something, you learn deeply about the ideas that went into creating that product. Images can engage the learner, who must become adept at both consuming and creating visual information.
Going back to that concept, instead of students producing videos or podcasts, they can create images. Tying this into a multimodal, multisensory way of teaching, students and teachers can create images that appeal to more than just sight. So really allow your students to create their own visual aids.
This next idea came from a book about art education, *A Journey Toward an Art Education for Wired Youth*. They argue that learning is multisensory. In mathematics, there can be many different hands-on engagement activities that combine imagery and sensory tasks to actively engage your students.
A lesson plan I recently created combined imagery with hands-on approaches. This lesson was called “Polygon Art,” and it’s more for younger students. Students had to draw, cut out, or even use clay to make a self-portrait of themselves using polygons. During this, students were using critical thinking and creativity to put polygons together to create their own artwork of themselves. This ties back to the “creator as learner” role—students got to learn more about polygons while using their creativity.
A more advanced example, for older students, might be asking them to create artwork using only graphs. This is an activity many teachers use in 9th, 10th, or even 11th grade when students are learning more about graphs. You could ask students to create a visual aid using only graphs. The complexity and artistry of their work will showcase how much they know about the content.
Of course, they don’t have to draw it by hand—they can use a graphing calculator to create some sort of image. When students create, they become more invested in their learning because they aren’t just mindlessly consuming information—they become active creators.
Before I close off here, I want to leave you with some tips. Always start your lessons with something visual, whether it’s a meme or a gif—anything funny that relates to the topic you’ll be discussing. This really draws your students in right from the start. Once you grab their attention, continue implementing visual literacy throughout your lesson.
Try your best to always use diagrams, drawings, or any types of visual aids to explain concepts. I understand that there are some concepts in math, like proofs, where it’s hard to draw things out since proofs involve explaining steps. But almost all of math can use visual aids.
Incorporating multiple ways of learning and taking on this multimodal approach ensures that you’re reaching every student in your class. Visual literacy and imagery are not just about making math easier, they also enhance critical thinking skills and make lessons more engaging and inclusive for all learners.
Visual literacy infuses all aspects of learning and is an integral part of every curricular area. From historic maps to star charts to geometry diagrams, we see visual literacy in all different subjects. Not just math teachers should incorporate these visual aids, but teachers of all subjects.
History teachers, for example, can incorporate images or maps from a certain time period to help students understand what life was like during those times. A recent personal example from one of my observation sessions was when I watched a history teacher show her students pictures from the Great Depression. I specifically remember some pictures of children with really sad faces and ripped-up clothes, which invoked feelings of sadness in the audience, allowing them to feel what it was like during those hard times.
Visual literacy and imagery can be incorporated into all subjects.
So that’s all I have for today's episode of *Teaching Like Play-Doh*. Thank you for joining me. I hope what you learned today was useful. And as one of Plato’s most famous students in the Academy, Aristotle, always said, "The soul never thinks without a picture." Goodbye, everyone.