677 Discussion 

Students tend to grasp concepts better when they have visuals to reinforce those concepts. Giving the students the opportunity to use graphic design, not only helps them understand concepts, but also allows students to be creative. Different modalities of learning are incorporated when students produce graphic designs. 

When presenting information to students, I think it’s important to make sure the information is presented in a way that is quick, concise, and visually appealing. This is where graphic design comes in. Whenever I present new information to students, it is often accompanied by some sort of visual. Even when the students are asked to present information to each other, we discuss the features of their presentations such as color, font, layout, sound, etc. I tell them that the way the information is presented can be just as important as the information itself!

We have an upcoming unit on Earth’s systems and cycles, so I think it will be helpful for students to create graphic designs when learning the concepts. For example, they could create a graphic for each of the spheres (biosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere). They could also create a graphic of the layers of the Earth and the various cycles (water, carbon and nitrogen). There are so many diagrams within the students’ texts, I think they would learn the concepts better if they are tasked with creating their own diagrams.