5 Useful Types of Visual Aids

Are you still unsure what some good visual aids are? In the How do visual aids help students with learning disabilities? post, we covered six different types of aids that specifically can be beneficial to teaching kids with learning disabilities. Those things included graphs and charts, peer models, photographs, graphics, videos, and objects. These are just as great for kids that don't have learning disabilities. In this post, we will cover five additional visual aids that could help in a classroom setting. These will include posters, handouts, props, presentations, and hands-on experience.

Posters

Posters are a great way to add colour and variety to a classroom while being educational. Common uses of posters may include calendars, task charts, infographics, maps, and diagrams.

Calendars are common in elementary school classrooms. These are great when teaching kids about days, weeks, months, and years. Along with calendars, weather charts are commonly placed beside to help kids identify the different weathers throughout the year. Other common charts in classrooms may be task charts and goal charts. These can be helpful in motivating students to be active participants in the classroom.

Infographics are a great way to simplify information and present it in a fun way. These could be classroom posters but they could also be used as a handout or possibly as a test format as well.

Depending on your classroom dynamic, it could be fun in the first couple of days of class to ask where everyone is from and have them show that place on the map. If you are teaching history or geography, maps are also beneficial in those lessons.

Handouts

Handouts can be used in a variety of different ways. One effective use is to give them to students during a presentation. While the presentation goes on, have them take notes or fill in the blank on the handout with some summed-up information. Another great use of handouts is for the retention of information. It could be an image or activity that is related to the lesson topic. They could even be handed out beforehand so that they can keep kids awake or more engaged if they are more likely to get bored and distracted during class. One last great use of handouts is the tracing activities. These ones are usually used more often for younger kids learning the alphabet and different words.

Props

This can be the same as objects. However, props are more targeted towards the subject being taught while an object can be completely unrelated to the content. Props are great because kids can then more easily relate to the subject. Props are almost always used for plays and acting out scenarios, so feel free to add a little bit of a theater element to your classroom to help the students relate to the item you are showing them.

Presentations

Presentations can be a great visual aid source. However, we have all sat through one or several presentations, that were dry, may have contained a slideshow that had more text than pictures or no pictures at all.

To make the presentation an effective visual, make sure you (or the students) are passionate about the subject you are presenting on. Get into character if possible! Literally, dress up as a person from the time era or someone who iconically represents the field of study you are presenting on. Don't be afraid to use a fun prop as a pointer as well!

Another way to make presentations engaging and visual is to limit the amount of text on a slide show presentation if one is being used. People spend more time reading the slides than paying attention to what you are saying. It not only will help kids have a visual but this way, they are encouraged to note what stands out to them and not what was on the slides.

Hands-On Experience

Hands-on experience can be one of the best visual aids used! This is because it can incorporate most, if not all of the five senses. Having the opportunity to see, smell, hear, touch, AND taste, enhances the experience for a child. They are likely to remember this experience more than a textbook reading, slide show presentation, or handout activity. 

Unfortunately, we don't all have Mrs. Frizole's Magic School Bus that can take us on trips every day, but appropriate outings ... will create a memorable day for kids.

Click the above quote to Tweet. 

Unfortunately, we don't all have Mrs. Frizole's Magic School Bus that can take us on trips every day, but appropriate outings, such as a pioneer village, a medical fair, the zoo or aquarium, science centers, museums, and many more places will create a memorable day for kids. It is of course helpful to take some time in class after such an outing to cover some things learned, as kids may not realize that they are learning in these initial moments of hands-on experiences.

Take Away

Hopefully, these additional ideas can help you have powerful learning experiences in your classroom. These are not limited to the classroom and should be used, when appropriate, at home as well. Kids need reinforcement, so the more they are exposed to something, the better they retain it. Posters, handouts, props, presentations, and hands-on experience can all be fantastic uses of visual aids and can transform the learning experience for any child.

Work Cited:

Aggarwal, A. (2019, May 15). TYPES OF VISUAL AIDS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING. Business Training & Public Speaking Course. Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https://businessandpublicspeaking.in/2019/06/15/types-of-visual-aids-in-public-speaking/

McGuire, S. (2018, September 28). 10 Types of Visual Aids For Learning [+ Teaching Aid Templates]. Venngage. Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https://venngage.com/blog/visual-aids-for-learning-templates/

Visual Aids. (n.d.). University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https://www.comm.pitt.edu/visual-aids

All images were created by the writer for this article.