Unlocking Hidden Potential
There is a way to unlock the secrets of your hidden potential and experience life and the problems it presents in new ways. With this power, you can discover the power within you to seize life’s unlimited opportunities.
Instead of looking outwards, trying to find new things, I thought, why not look at the things we already have and understand whether we can harness more out of them? That is when I stumbled upon a different way of learning: visual learning. It’s not a brand new concept, as most people probably know what it is. Yet, I believe that we are not truly using it to its full potential.
There have been several studies done that have repeatedly brought positive results to visual learning. Yet, why are we not implementing it?
To start off however, I would like to define visual learning, as not many people have a clear definition. The Canadian center of science and education states that “visual learning is a teaching and learning style in which ideas, concepts, data and other information are associated with images and techniques.” Visual learning has repeatedly brought positive results, and one example is: atlassian.org states “Research has found that 65 percent of the general population are visual learners, meaning they need to see information in order to retain it. Visuals add a component to communication that written and verbal methods do not: speed.”. This is so important because we literally have the statistics to prove that most of our children are visual learners, and why are we not teaching them in the way that we know they will succeed the most? It’s just mind baffling how in search of results and success we let go of the process and joy of learning. Rather than enforcing students to study, why not make it a fun time for them? The enjoyment in learning is very undervalued, as if children want to learn, and enjoy it, then there’s no stopping them. There’s plenty of other evidence in favor of visual learning as well.
I attend a public school in New Jersey, ranked number 40 in NJ. In such an elite school, I don’t see visual learning being used anywhere, not in one classroom
On top of visual learning being effective, visual learning is also an exciting, promising new form of learning. In fact, The Canadian Science and Education Center states, “Visual learning is one of the “most exciting and stimulating method” (Baratta, 2010).” The power of visual learning can also be described in the form of an example.
Wormholes. To many, it is a topic way beyond the knowledge we have. But what if visual learning can suppress that gap in knowledge, and allow for a complicated topic (regarded as by many), to turn into a diagram that can be understood by the smallest of children. Well, it can, and the manner in which it explains such a topic is simply astonishing. Take a sheet of regular A4 paper. Now imagine this to be space. Draw two points on this sheet of paper, labeled point A and point B. Now in reality, space is not flat, there is another dimension, and so to simulate that, we will fold (not creasing the paper), across point A and point B. Theoretically, the speed of light is the fastest possible speed that can be found in the universe, you can’t go faster than the speed of light. Naturally, one may think that using this knowledge, the fastest way to go from point A to point B is to go through the curve at the speed of light. However, wormholes completely disproves this theory. Now to represent a wormhole in this model, if we can imagine a sort of ‘tunnel’ that takes us to point A by just poking a hole at point A and going straight down, that is exactly what a wormhole is.
The best way to show the power of something is to demonstrate it, and by explaining wormholes in a way that is understandable by the common man with no prior knowledge in this field of industry shows the sheer power of visual learning. Personally, I showed this model to some of my peers, and their reactions were shocking! Charan Pyloore states, “It was detailed yet simple to understand. It showed the power of visual learning and how it can be used to understand difficult concepts”. Siddarth Shekhewat reveals, “ It was very well planned, detailed yet simple”. Liam Donlin reflects, “The simplicity made understanding an elaborate concept much easier!”. These are real life examples of students no older than 13 being able to understand a concept regarded as complicated by many using visual learning in a simple way.mr5
The question that might naturally arise in your brain now is, well how do I become a visual learner? Well, educationplanner.org states that these are a few ways to become a visual learner. “Use flashcards to learn new words. Try to visualize things that you hear or things that are read to you. Write down key words, ideas, or instructions. Draw pictures to help explain new concepts and then explain the pictures.” The common pattern here is to draw things out, make it more hands on, try to understand it by seeing it, and as I mentioned before, there are a few ways to do that, and all of these tactics only benefit each and every person to learn and understand ideas and concepts better.
