The Powerful Effects of Drawing on Learning

[elleng]

The science is clear: Drawing beats out reading and writing to help students remember concepts.

https://www.edutopia.org/video/powerful-effects-drawing-learning?

[silverweb]

1. "New" information?

While I'm not a teacher, it seems to me that we had this knowledge decades ago and used it pretty well. After years of budget cuts, though, to everything but CORE math/English, teaching to endless standardized tests, and STEM for kids with the aptitude, we seem to have forgotten.

I'm a Boomer and remember drawing a lot of maps in social studies; it was one of my favorite things in school. Sometimes we drew maps just to show location. Other times, we drew things like geographical features, major crops/products, and population distribution. We did a whole lot of sketching in science class, too. I can still see in my mind some of those drawings and the information contained in them.

But they apparently don't do that in schools anymore. Maybe budget cuts and teachers having to buy their own classroom supplies have something to do with it. Maybe this is why many people today can't find anything on a map and know so little about their own nation, let alone the rest of the world. Maybe TPTB decided drawing wasn't an efficient enough way to shovel information into students for test regurgitation.

Let's hope this "new" method of teaching becomes widespread fast!

[B Stieg]

2. I'm a boomer and a teacher...

and if I have cause to mention the rather handsome cartography room in our science library's basement, it's only to suggest it as a quiet place to study where few go!
But everything I do in my freshman composition and more advanced writing courses has visual and/or tactile components (free writing, free drawing, storyboarding) to cater to some broad learning styles (VARK, etc), although an effective, hands-on way to illustrate and teach syntax remains beyond me!

[silverweb]

3. Good job!

I admire the challenge you've taken up in using drawing, storyboarding, etc, to enrich your classes. That has to take a good deal of preparation and imagination.

[CRK7376]

4. I have high school kids

doodle images or stick people into their notes and study review guides. I use a Jigsaw event to help before their unit test, to write down major themes/concepts/ideas/people and include drawings or sketches....some of the kids are great artists and do really interesting work....So I definitely see benefits in doodling and a picture on a poster with key information surrounding it....At least in my classroom I like using it.