Teaching with Visual Symbols
Your experience of the words and the graphs convinces you that a graph a easier to understand than the words of a paragraph. A graph is “worth a thousand words.” A graph and any visual symbol for that matter such as drawings, cartoons, strip, drawings, diagrams, and maps are worth a thousand words. They are more clearly understood than mere words. Let us learn more about each of them and find out where they can be used in our lessons.
A drawing may not be the real thing but better to have a concrete visual aid than nothing. To avoid confusion, it is good that are drawing correctly represents the real thing.
One essential skill that are a teacher ought to possess in order to be understood is drawing. It helps you a lot if you are capable of doing simple freehand sketching. You will find out that as you lecture, you need to illustrate on the chalkboard. So, better start learning how to draw. The only way to learn it is to do the sketching yourself and devote some time to it. There is nothing so difficult that is not made easy when we spend at least forty hours learning and mastering it.
Another useful visual symbol that can bring novelty to our teaching is the cartoon. A first-rate cartoon tells its story metaphorically. The less the artist depends on words, the more effective the symbolism. The symbolism conveys the message.
Sources of Cartoons
You can easily collect cartoons for instruction. They appear often in newspapers and magazines. In class, you can give it to individual students for individual study or project it by an opaque projector. Depending on themes for the week or the month, you can display these cartoons on the bulletin board. One creative teacher arranged for a “cartoon of the month” and displayed and changed her display every end of the month.
Where to use Cartoons in Instruction
You can also use this as a springboard for a lesson or a concluding activity. It depends on your purpose.
K to 12 Curriculum Standards and Competencies
Go back to the K to 12 Curriculum Guide. Which can be taught with the use of a cartoon? Come up with a cartoon for a particular lesson
These are commonly called Comics strip. Dale (1969) asserts that a more accurate term is strip drawings. Make use of strips that are educational and entertaining at the same time.
Where to Use Strip Drawing in Instruction
These can serve as motivation and a starter of your lesson. It can also be given as an activity for students to express insights gained at the conclusion of a lesson.
Sources of Strip Drawing.
You can obtain strip drawings from newspaper, magazines and books.
K to 12 Curriculum Standards and Competencies
Identify a competency where a strip drawing is appropriate. Look for an appropriate strip drawing or make one.
What is a diagram? It is “any line drawing that shows arrangement and relations as of parts to the whole, relative values, origins and development, chronological fluctuations, distribution, etc.” (Dale, 1969)
If you can draw stick figures, you can easily draw the diagrams that you need as you go along. To emphasize the key points in your diagram, make use of color whether you use the chalkboard or the OHP and transparencies.
Find out what these other diagrams are. You may need them as you teach and as you go about your other teaching-related tasks.
Affinity diagram
Used to cluster complex apparently unrelated data into natural and meaningful groups.
Used to chart out, in increasing detail, the various tasks that must be accomplished to complete a project or achieve a specific objective.
Fish bone Diagram
It is also called cause-and-effect diagram.it is a structured from of brainstorming that graphically shows the relationship of possible cause and sub causes directly related to an identified effect/problem. It is used to analyze work-related problems.
CHART
A chart is a diagrammatic representation of relationships among individuals within an organization. We can have a:
- Time chart
- Tree or stream chart
- Flow chart
- Organizational chart
- Comparison and contrast chart
- Pareto chart and
- Run chart or Trend chart
Examples of chart:
Is a tabular time chart that presents data in ordinal sequence.
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Depicts development, growth and change by beginning with a single course (the trunk) which spreads out into many branches: or by beginning with the many tributaries which then converge into a single channel.
Flow Chart
Is a visual way of charting or showing a process from beginning to end. It is a means of analyzing a process. By outlining every step in a process, you can begin to find inefficiencies or problem.
Organizational Chart
Shows how one part of the organization relates to other parts of the organization.
Comparison and Contrast Chart
Pareto chart
Is a type of bar chart, prioritized in descending order of magnitude or importance from left to right. It shows at a glance which factors are occurring most.
Gantt chart
Is an activity time chart.
K to 12 Standards and Competencies
Find out which of these charts are appropriate for any lesson in the K to 12 curriculum guide or for any teaching-related task.
There are several types of graphs. They are:
1) Circle or pie graph,
2) bar graph,
3) pictorial graph
4) line graph
Pie or circle graph
Recommended for showing parts of whole.
Used in comparing the magnitude of similar items at different ties or seeing relative sizes of the parts of a whole.
Pictorial graph
Makes use of picture symbols.
Graphic Organizer
You met several graphic organizers in your subject, Principles of Teaching.
A map is a representation of the surface of the earth or some part of it. (Dale, 1969)
Physical map - combines in a single projection data like altitude, temperature, rainfall, precipitation, vegetation, and soil.
Relief map – has three dimensional representations and shows contours of the physical data of the earth or part of the earth.
Commercial or economic map – also called product or industrial map since they show land areas in relation to economy.
Political map – gives detailed information about country, provinces, cities and towns, roads and highways. Oceans rivers and lakes are the main features of most political maps.
Scale -shows how much of the actual earth’s surface is represented by a given measurement on a map.
Symbols – Usually a map has legend that explains what each symbol means.
Color – the different colors of the map are part of the map language.
Geographic grids - the entire system of these grid lines are called grid lines. These grid lines are called meridiansand parallels. A meridian is a north to south pole line. Parallels are lines drawn around a globe with all points along each line with an equal distance from the pole. Longitude is the distance in degrees of any place east or west of the prime meridian. Latitudeis the distance in degrees of any place north and south of the equator.
