The Visual Discovery strategy is my favorite for a number of reasons. One is that I love the images in all TCI programs. Of course, we have staff members whose job it is to find those wonderful images, so I also love that there are many, many places teachers can go to find their own images and create wonderful presentations. We’ve assembled a list of fabulous website on the attached document:
Updated-Great Places to Find Images
The other reason I like Visual Discovery is that it’s an easy way to begin using the TCI Approach. A Visual Discovery lesson isn’t as risky as an Experiential Exercise yet allows students to discover content under a teacher’s watchful eye. Teachers can step in and complete the story or even impart content knowledge. I think of this strategy as wading in to the TCI pool without diving in to the deep end.
Here are the five steps to keep in mind when doing a Visual Discovery lesson in your classroom:
1) Arrange your classroom- Make sure students can interact and that the image is projected as large as possible.
2) Use a few powerful images-Don’t bombard your students. Instead select a few rich images and focus on them for as long as 20 minutes.
3) Ask questions carefully-Use TCI’s Detective Analogy to guide students through the discovery of information beginning with the most basic (What do you see?).
4) Challenge students to read about the image-You’ll be amazed at how eager they are to read after you’ve piqued their curiosity with an image.
5) Have students interact with the image-Act-it-outs get students out of their seats interacting with the image.
We have a super video of a Visual Discovery lesson in a classroom on our Theories and Strategies page.
How do you use images in your classroom? Where do you find them?
