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The choices we make regarding teaching methods, the activities we incorporate into our lesson plans, or the posters we display on our classroom walls can all have significant effects on the development of the children in our classroom. Identifying what works best enables us to make informed and intentional decisions that help children flourish.
Visible learning encourages children, teachers and school leaders to look at the process and outcomes of learning. It focuses on evaluating the process and the outcomes, instead of assuming what works or doesn’t work.
In this article, we explore what visible learning can mean for children, teachers and school leaders, and identify some practices that can help you make learning in your classroom more visible.
Table of contents
- What is visible learning?
- Why is visible learning important?
- Visible learning for teachers
- Visible learning examples in the classroom
- Make learning intentional with visible learning
What is visible learning?
At the core of visible learning is a very simple idea: that student learning should be as transparent as possible.This concept was introduced and supported by education expert John Hattie, who argues that children, educators and administrators should be able to see how the learning process affects educational outcomes.
This implies that children should be able to see and understand how the work they do contributes to their education and learning. Visible learning focuses on providing visual cues in the classroom, like posters, that depict for students the process of learning. It also focuses on creating awareness for children of the learning objectives of the activities they participate in, as well as opportunities to self-reflect on their current level of understanding.
For educators, visible learning involves evaluating the impact of their teaching practices. Rather than focusing on their teaching techniques, impact-based evaluation centers on how well children are learning as a result. Hattie’s methodology focuses on examining the results of multiple meta-analyses on the impact of educational practices to identify which practices lead to an observable change in learning achievement. Visible learning brings this thinking into the classroom: Teachers need to look into the approaches whose success is backed by data, while also evaluating their own impact on the children in their classroom.
School administrators should focus on tangible evidence to evaluate whether a policy or particular approach has been successful or not. Visible learning encourages administrators to evaluate the available research on educational practices and make informed decisions that are data-driven.
Why is visible learning important?
Visible learning has a positive impact on children, educators, and school leaders by actively involving all stakeholders in the learning and decision-making process. What are the key benefits of visible learning in the early childhood classroom?
Benefits of visible learning for children
Visible learning aims to give children more awareness and control over the learning process. By employing visible learning techniques, children can understand how each step of an activity helps them understand the material and develop skills. Through this process, students begin to feel more comfortable with their abilities, because they can see the progress they make in each step.
Increased student participation also helps children gain a better understanding of the material they are being taught. When children participate in classroom activities and discussions and feel more comfortable in their own abilities, they are likely to retain knowledge better and understand how to apply it to different contexts.
Visible learning can boost children's confidence in their abilities, increase their engagement in learning, and ultimately enhance their motivation to learn.
Benefits of visible learning for educators
Teachers and educators should also see themselves as students, according to visible learning. Educators become more effective in their job when they actively understand the learning process from the student's perspective. Through encouraging this shift of perspective from instructor to student, visible learning helps educators reflect more deeply on their own learning processes, enabling them to better guide students in their own learning.
Visible learning also encourages educators to keep developing their skills and knowledge. Educators are encouraged to reflect on their own individual strengths, weaknesses, and assumptions. Through this reflection, they can adopt a growth mindset, which in turn inspires students in their learning.
Benefits of visible learning for school leaders
At its core, visible learning is focused on reviewing data and research to make informed decisions. This practice extends beyond each individual classroom, and can influence how school leaders design and run their childcare programs.
Visual learning’s focus on research data that shows the impact of various policies allows school leaders to make informed, data-driven decisions that benefit the children in their care. Instead of speculating on the potential benefits of hiring additional educators to reduce class sizes, or the potential effects of increasing play time, visible learning focuses on the data outcomes from these policies across different educational settings.
This approach empowers school leaders to feel confident that their decisions will benefit the children in their care. However, caution is necessary, as Dylan Wiliam, professor emeritus of educational assessment at the Institute of Education, University of London, warns. The aggregation of data from a lot of different studies can accurately point to particular trends and results. But it can also be misleading if the data included refers to different ages, educational settings, or socioeconomic environments. School leaders should carefully review the studies they base their decisions on to make sure they are relevant to their needs and circumstances before making important decisions.
Visible learning for teachers
How can teachers put visible learning into practice in the early childhood classroom? In this section, we look at how teachers approach the learning experience, both from the point of view of creating learning activities and of evaluating and reflecting on the learning outcomes. Through encouraging intentional and reflective learning practices and feedback, visible learning enables teaching to become clearer and more impactful.
Designing the learning process
Visible learning emphasizes meaningful student work, allowing children to see and understand the process of learning. In the next section, we will discuss examples of activities that teachers can implement in the early education classroom to achieve these goals. Here are some key principles that guide this approach:
Learning through experience
Visible learning encourages children to learn through experience, not just through instruction. For teachers, this means designing activities that actively engage the students and challenge them to develop their skills in practice.
Learning together through play
The student-teacher interaction during play time and activities can have a great impact on student learning. Play keeps children engaged and active, while the interactions with the teacher enable them to develop their understanding and language skills. Play should be used as an opportunity to maximize intentional, rich language-based interactions with children, such as naming objects, processes, and ideas. This helps children expand their understanding, which they can then apply to different contexts, helping their growth.
Evaluating learning outcomes
Visual learning encourages students and teachers to evaluate each step of the learning process and the outcomes it leads to. This makes the process more intentional and can facilitate continuous improvement.
Student reflection
Visible learning is based on a strong culture of feedback, to engage students in their own learning process. Student assessments should not just be an evaluation of performance, but an opportunity for children to reflect on their learning. Games and activities with specific goals can be used to show children how their skills are developing over time, and to show them where they are making progress over time.
Teacher reflection
Teachers also need to participate actively in this culture of feedback by reflecting frequently on their own practices. Tasks and activities completed by students are not just an opportunity to identify areas of growth for the students; they are also an opportunity for teachers to reflect on the effects of their teaching practices, the activities they use in the classroom, and the impact they have on each child in the classroom. Identifying areas for growth enables teachers to engage with the professional development and mentoring opportunities that are available to them with more intent and awareness of how what they learn will affect the outcomes for students.
Visible learning examples in the classroom
It is important to incorporate visible learning in your early education classroom in a way that suits your students and learning objectives. In this section, we look at a few suggestions of activities and classroom tools from the Harvard Graduate School of Education Project Zero, to get you started on the journey of making learning more visible. Consider using brightwheel’s Experience Curriculum product, to help you design your lesson plans and incorporate different activities for your students.
Peel the Fruit
Create a map of students’ learning for your classroom, or even individual maps for each child, using Peel the Fruit. This will help children visualize the learning process, and examine topics from different angles.
Stop, Look, Listen
Turn learning into a fun investigation, using the Stop, Look, Listen method. This will encourage children to take a deeper, more careful look at what they learn, and use the resources available to them to understand it better.
Color, Symbol, Image
Encourage students to distill the main idea of what they learn using colors, symbols and images to create a non-verbal depiction of their key take-away. With Color, Symbol, Image, you can help students enhance their understanding and retention of what they learn.
Make learning intentional with visible learning
Visible learning in early childhood education can significantly impact students, teachers, and school leaders. The process of learning and its outcomes are more powerful when they are intentional and understood by all key stakeholders. Visible learning techniques can transform your students into lifelong learners, empowering them to take control of the learning process; it encourages teachers to reflect on their teaching methods and the tools they use in the classroom; and it assists school leaders in making well-informed, data-driven policy decisions.
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