THE HOW OF 'VISUAL NOTE-TAKING' ARTISTRY

 “Students were able to learn concepts better than before. Chemistry became joy for my class.” Lop. Karma, chemistry teacher confesses. We can never underestimate value of small things we do differently in our classrooms. Children grow up seeing words as images, understand words through imagery and makes meaning by connecting it to its description. Every adult is a child when it comes to artistic joy of experience.

If schools can take small steps to make learning an enjoyable engagement, differently and strategically, children will be able to learn more evocatively. I always believe that ‘small things matter’ in how teachers provide creative ways, even if incrementally, when engaging students in learning processes.  My teachers have begun to etch the information from meetings and talks in artistic ways, and it is the beginning of a livelier classroom.

His Majesty the King decreed within the Royal Kasho that, “In preparing our youth for the future, we must take advantage of available technologies, adapt global best practices, and engineer a teaching-learning environment suited to our needs.” It is a direction for teachers to employ adaptive learning opportunities for students to learn through varied differentiated learning models. The fervour of Visual Note-Taking is a small measure to fulfil part of the Royal concern, by bringing liveliness and variety in teaching methods.

Dechentsemo Central School teachers were trained in Visual Note-taking technique on 4^th September 2021. I have learnt about the Visual note-taking strategy during the training of School Leadership Development Programme at RIGSS in Tsirang.  Visual note-taking is one of the perfect skills for 21^st century learners. It is the translation of the words or information into recognizable pictures. This is where the student has creative space to characterize the concepts in an artistic form. “Sir, I am surprised when madam taught us how we can take notes artistically, and catch important messages. This is better than writing notes from teachers.” A class VIII students said, joyful.

It is used for effective and visually capturing for journaling, class lectures, conferences, and any other for retaining key information. This strategy is referred to as sketch-noting, graphic note-taking and visual mapping.

What is Visual-Note Taking?

·         It is the process of representing information non-linguistically through drawings or pictures.

·         It can be simple using sketches or doodles or more complex using Mind mapping or Concept Maps as representations.

·         It is created in real-time while actively listening to content, typically drawn using pen and marker and can also be drawn digitally. The composition is non-linear unlike the regular mind mapping and note taking processes.

The Process

•      Visual notes are not drawn left to right and top-down like traditional notes.

•      They are developed by making connections between content.

•      They use illustration as well as handwritten text to communicate information and represent concepts from presentations, meetings, class lectures, or anything, really.

•      This combination of text and simple illustrations create simple “bookmarks” in the brain.

Science of Notetaking benefits

Visual Note-taking has been widely researched areas that demonstrate evidences of scientific benefits for learners. This strategy aligns to multi-intelligence learning model that cater to diversity of learners. It is known to boost ability to process, retain, and recall information.

•      Researchers have found that color visuals increase a person’s willingness to read by 80 percent (Green, 1989) and sixty-five percent of people simply learn better visually (Yapton, 1998). The graduate students, Udomon, et al., (2013) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that visuals are more effective than audio at achieving higher memory retention. The study found that participants who viewed only text remembered 10 percent of what they read after three days.

Similar study by Lester, (2006) found that people remembered 80 percent of what they see, 10 percent of what they hear, and only 20 percent of what they read.

The scientific studies attest that the brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text (Semetko & Scammell, 2012). Children love images, and images when used with colours captivate children, drawing inner curiosity to read and engage in learning. It is often more enjoyable and enhances learning in the classroom.

Those who viewed text paired with visuals remembered 65 percent of the information three days later (Medina, 2008), indicating importance, not only of taking visual notes but also displaying visual notes for learning.In one of the recent researches, using visuals during meetings has been found to create more and better ideas, and increase recall capacity. (Averett, 2014).

The Visual Note Taking Strategy is an extension of mind mapping which is designed as an on-going activity with diagrammatic representation capturing vital learning points. It can therefore be used for teaching, learning and even evaluating students’ learning when in the class.

 

Note: This is written to inspire other schools to emulate practices for better learning journey.

Namgyal Tshering

Principal, Dechentsemo CS,