← Previous Page
...
Education

Visual Instruction: Teaching the Process, Not Just the Parts

Ellen Ovenden, MSc | Mar 29, 2026
Ellen Ovenden, MSc | Mar 29 2026

A student can memorize every label on a diagram and still not understand how the system works.

In science, the real challenge is often not naming parts, but picturing how they interact, change, and produce an outcome. This is where visual teaching does more than make content engaging; it helps students build visual mental models they can explain and apply.

Research supports this approach. A meta-analysis of 61 studies with over 7,000 learners found that animation improves learning compared with static graphics, especially when the content involves movement or change over time.1

What Faculty Can Change

Students may follow a lecture on diffusion, mitosis, torque, or neural signaling in the moment, yet still struggle to reconstruct what is happening later. The issue is not exposure. It’s that students never build a clear mental model.

Here’s how you can leverage visual teaching to improve understanding and retention:

  • ▪️ Teach one process, not one slide deck.
    Choose a concept students tend to memorize without truly understanding. Focus on what changes, in what order, and why.
  • ▪️ Use visuals to show relationships, not just illustrate content.
    Visuals are most effective when they make structure, sequence, and cause-and-effect easier to see. In STEM education, visualization helps students internalize, conceptualize, and then express scientific ideas.2
  • ▪️ Keep the visual short and purposeful.
    A concise pre-class resource gives students a shared mental picture before class, so in-person time can go deeper. This is one reason visual teaching works well in blended learning.
  • ▪️ Move from seeing to explaining.
    Visual teaching works best when it leads into prediction, comparison, explanation, or problem solving. The goal is not to replace thinking, but to prepare students for it.

In this clip, Dr. Voltaire Organo from the University of the Philippines describes how integrating JoVE videos into blended learning improves student outcomes in chemistry.

The Next Step

Short, expert-made videos help faculty show processes clearly before class, especially when students need to visualize movement, scale, or spatial relationships before they can reason through them. This helps students arrive with a clearer baseline understanding, while giving faculty more time for explanation, discussion, and application in class. 

To learn more about what cognitive science says about visual learning, join the JoVE webinar Teaching Science for Visual Learners: How the Brain Understands Complexity on April 1st or 2nd. The session will look at how visualization helps students build mental models, strengthen understanding, and apply scientific concepts more effectively.

Social - Overall- Teaching for Visual Learners (1)

 

  1. Berney, S., & Bétrancourt, M. (2016). Does Animation Enhance Learning? A Meta-Analysis. Computers & Education, 101, 150–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.06.005
  2. Mnguni, L. E. (2014). The Theoretical Cognitive Process of Visualization for Science Education. SpringerPlus, 3, 184. https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-184   

Related Posts