Category: Podcast

Bart
Welcome to the Core Concept podcast and welcome to the conversation with David Winkelman about what we call digital visual literacy, which is the skill of supporting conversations and remote calls with visuals. David has an established change manager and meeting facilitator who shares with me some of his magic that he uses to get people to work productively together.

I know David for years now, during COVID, we both recognise that all our remote conversations could be better supported with visuals. So we design an online course to help people out. We talk about that course during our conversation, among other topics such as eel recognise impact of visuals in communication, our human need for clarity, building trust among participants in meetings, and importance of humour. Together with David, I share a deep passion for tools and methods that empower people. I hope that our conversation proves that. By the way, we have used explain everything whiteboards to collaboratively exchange visuals during our talk. Therefore, for those only listening to this episode, I strongly suggest watching it instead on YouTube or another platform.

And now, I bring your mind discussion with David.

Bart:
Hi, I’m here with David Winkelman. Welcome to the podcast. Good evening, Bart. It’s always excellent to be with you. Although I should say it’s not a regular podcast, because as an expert in visual communication, and visual facilitation, you might probably want to show us a thing or two.

Yeah, yeah. David, there are few things I’d like to discuss today with you. Well, first of all, we’d like to learn from you how communication can be enhanced with the use of visuals. And this cause How can this be done remotely remote calls like this one. And that the and perhaps we could speak some more about what we have created together. But why don’t we begin from you introducing yourself, together with your background, shall we?

David:
I have been a management consultant to change management consultants in particular, and a visual facilitator for a number of years. And visual facilitation means that I can on a board or a surface of some kind, I can capture what people are saying what’s coming out of their mouth, and I can make it visual, I can create a visual tapestry in real time, so they can instantly see that I’m hearing and if we’re doing it in a group setting, everybody can see that whatever the thoughts and ideas are being captured, with nothing being lost, and then we can all work with those elements on a neutral shared a surface. So we can greatly accelerate and enhance almost any conversation or discussion. Because we have visual elements and to maintain a visual focus. I need to step back and unpack something for people because it’s not something that we normally discuss. And that is the very nature of being human beings and being thinking, conscious, often unconsciously operating creatures. So if we take a look at all the tools are that are available to us as modern human beings, tools, they’re inside us, and everything that we’ve created outside us. I would say what we start with is our mind, right? That’s like the basic tool. And so we are blessed to have two minds. One is a conscious mind. Okay, consciously pour things into. And the other one is our unconscious mind. That’s just filling up that we’re drawing from and it’s really the unconscious mind is, as most of us know, that does most of the heavy lifting. There’s so much in life that we don’t have to think about because we have unconscious minds. It’s it’s trained, you know, it’s all of our automatic, habitual functioning, all of our conditioned responses that’s automatic. You don’t have to think when we’re riding a bicycle. Our bodies just know what to do. So take the idea of these two minds and how they’re wired, how they’re set up. What we see is that our whole reality is based on being clear about what health what and how things are we and we are taking in most of our information visually, right? When we go to school, we don’t ever have to be taught how to see, or how to interpret a filter that just comes naturally. On the other hand, everything else, even speaking, certainly reading and writing, we go to school for for 15 years. So there’s a giant difference between this mechanism of seeing and the other forms of knowing, right. And so as part of being clarity seeking creatures, I think we have basically three ways of seeing things. Well, one is we see through the mechanism of our eyeballs in our sight. And, you know, light photon images are portrayed on the back of our eyes, and then we, we create meaning. The second way, is that we can visualise with things like this. We have symbols, we have words, and we have the ability to interact, and people suggest things and we design and we draw, so visualisation via representation is a huge way that we see in form reality. And then the third thing that has we have going for us as visual creatures, is that we have imagination, so we can create a thin air, there’s been a tremendous amount of research on the fact that we are clarity seeking creatures, and we need, we need those visuals, they’re essential, they’re critical to our operation. There’s some research that suggests that 75% of our reality comes in through our eyes, and is then, you know, interpreted categorised put into classifications, and our ability to see patterns which we’ve been cultivating since we opened our eyes and started looking at facial expressions. We have incredible ability to see patterns, to see details to pick out key details and to notice anomalies, for instance.

Bart
I think, that research finds is that we find things more memorable if we if we take them in through our eyes. There’s the just, it’s beyond comparison, even if you take verbal input, right, or any other in comparison to what you can pick in through your own eyes.

David
Absolutely. And there’s been further research done that suggests that when we see things, as well as when we use things, we literally have what’s called a forgetting curve, that if that if that image isn’t reinforced in some way, or we haven’t seen it, we’ll forget things in a matter of minutes.

And so you were talking about complexity earlier. And part of complexity is that we start with things that are general and conceptual and nonspecific, often invisible. And we cover a lot of this in our course. And it’s and because they’re nonspecific, or they’re invisible, or they’re conceptual, it makes it harder to visualise, if not impossible, so we have, we can attach a verbal label. But if we’re not spinning that around, and applying specific pictures to it, that conceptualization can break down in a matter of minutes. 

Bart
Was that the trick you’ve been using during those large meetings you were facilitating in the past? 

David
Absolutely. And when you say large meetings, I’m going to show you a picture, okay? Because these meetings featured a variety of methodologies and techniques with large groups of people that made it possible for these teams of people from one company. And typically they were from Fortune 100 or 500 companies to come in with the aim of developing or designing a strategic plan over a three day period, and I’m talking 50 6080 people coming together. So their time together had to be enormously valuable and have a big result. These these design sessions, as we used to call them, were very, very expensive, and sometimes they were betting the company on this group of people being able to accomplish their mission. And so the promise was that these techniques and this is

asembly could effectively accomplish six to nine months worth of work in a week’s time, or even less than a week’s time. And probably the key to that was making everything as visual as possible. So that people were always on the same page, they always have the ability to, to zoom in or out to look at the big picture, and focus in on details as well. 

Bart
I see a lot of clarity seeking creatures on that on that photo. But it gets me wonder what you mentioned before,  that your role was to lay those ideas on the board as pictures, right? Did it happen often that you asked participants to come to the board and represent something by themselves without them being scared of, you know, putting a picture on the board by themselves without your support.

David
After a while it happened. But initially, people were reticent. And that’s why they had a set of people who were skilled, so that our team of visualizers could be there on hand to do what was needed proficiently. But after a while, people got up and did it by themselves. And it was, of course, very empowering. And I think people will always remember that their first experience inside what we call an Accelerated Solutions Environment. 

Bart
Yeah, because I can imagine that’s scary to many, you know, to come to the board, just recreate something with a simple drawing. How do you deal with this? anxiety and fear?

David
Well, if you’re if you’ve got the spark of motivation in you, then you realise that it’s really critical to see this question as an empowering question. How do you see this right? Or what does this look like to you? And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a pretty drawing, and, and or beautiful. What, what matters is that you represent something authentically for another person.

Bart
Right. But then again, people can push back and I can imagine them saying: no, I don’t do drawings!

David 
Anybody can do this. And we all know that anybody can do that. And the magic of that visual brain that I was describing earlier, is that that visual brain instantly. And of course, recognises that as a human being. So we can either leave it at that, or we can start to you know, embellish it. Yeah, it represents it symbolises a person. But again, it’s not about being an artist, right? Not at all. No, not at all. It’s about coming from here to hear that other people can share it, and interact with it, and then modify it or ask questions about it. That’s the important thing is that we’re looking at something. And that is that becomes a shared common experience. 

Bart
What is important is that this community gets created during a workshop or a meeting, where people want to share and want to participate contribute to the board, right.

David
Yeah, I think that, that requires a certain safety zone, right, that requires a certain experience or expectation that people feel safe doing that.

Bart
And so let’s talk about that, that safety factor for a moment now. Because eventually what I’d like us to do is to arrive at conditions that are essential for creating this, you know, engagement and meaningful interaction between participants.

David
It’s really psychological and emotional safety, which is social. Right? Right. So if we, if we, if we break that down and look at what makes that possible, I think sort of three things make that possible.

The first thing is that who’s  at the table? (Draws on the whiteboard) that’s very sloppy. I’m sorry.

Bart
That’s fine, we have talked about this,  it’s just-in-time drawing, that’s fine. Yes. We’re not artists here, that’s not about it. Right? 

David
Right, we have a certain amount of rapport, or things in common, we may be from the same place, or we have the same aims or goals or intended outcomes, that we share the same overall context, we’ll come back to that later. So that’s, that’s one really important thing is that we have enough rapport between us. And the second thing I would say is that is do we have a certain amount of respect for each other, okay. Which means that we mutually think, well, that person has a right to be here, or I know why that person is here. Maybe I respect your skills, and you respect my skills, or respect each other’s time, there has to be that mutuality. Because that’s going to lead moment by moment by moment, layer by layer, action by action to the third, the third piece, which is trust, which is as, as we know, it’s a very delicate, fragile condition, trust, we, we do build that moment, by moment, and it can be erased in moments. And so I think the thing that we want to be aware of is the thing that erases trust or that undermines trust, is something we could call judgement, or specifically negative judgement. Which is, you know, criticising, making something wrong, dismissing it, not not being accepting of it. And when it comes to people representing things on the board, on a common space, or in a common Canvas, we need to be very open and very fluid and very non judgmental and accepting of whatever people do to encourage that trust, and therefore, that social and psychological safety. And there’s a lot of ways to do that. I have to laugh at myself a lot. That also is an element of creating trust and psychological safety is that we’re willing to be human, and make mistakes, and laugh at ourselves and be spontaneous, and not be constrained and rigid, because that’s not going to help you at all. But she uses humour a lot, right? During those meetings, also to help yourself building this safety. 

Bart
Tell us some more how you do that? 

David
Well, I think it’s sometimes humour but not necessarily making a joke. It’s being light. It’s being spontaneous. It’s being in the moment, you know, fluid with people so that you can grab a moment when it occurs. And Lighten up, you know, who doesn’t appreciate laughter?

We even have a diagram. Yes, that comes out of a book. And you know that diagram by heart? 

Bart
I can try to recreate it quickly. So it’s that you have an I’m going to do that with just my finger. Right? On the opposite side, you have the anchor, which represents the forces of gravity, and on the other side, you have a balloon, which represents what we call lightness, lightness, the levity. So you can offset the weight of the world, and what have you, with a bit of sense of humour that we call levity. And it’s actually a diagram that we took from the book “Humor, seriously”. . It’s a good one, isn’t it? Yes.

David
And I love how you got the movement in here as well. It shows how phenomenal these these tools are. 

Bart

Let’s talk about it. Because so far, we spoke about the importance of visuals during regular meetings. But what about those remote conversations like the one we have now? 

David
I think it’s always appropriate to start with a big picture or to seven context. Make this big picture. more clear. Yeah. When we start with a big picture, particularly because everybody understands a map, we understand the destination. And if we start using the tools right away, and we get into the visualisation, then it leaves less to wonder about because we know where people are going, and where they’re coming from. We don’t have to do such a huge job of interpreting and wondering, why is this meaningful to me? Why how is this relevant? How am I going to use this? We can get to those key questions faster when we show people the big picture, and we show them what our destination is in that big picture. 

Bart
So in a way, you’re creating a map for a conversation, right?

David
Yeah, because we, we all understand maps, they’re part of the toolset, right? As clarity seeking creatures. And whether it’s a map, or a spreadsheet, or a diagram, we can make sense of something faster. Because of our pattern recognition rock and make sense of something faster, we can retain it more meaningfully, we can classify we can do so much more, when things are in visual form. Right. And that isn’t to exclude anything verbal. I mean, I always need somebody to tell me, you know, here we are over here. Because it could take a while to find out. But if somebody says we’re over here, or that’s our destination, and here’s where we’re coming from, then I can zoom right in. I mean, sometimes figuratively, sometimes, literally. And I could see all the detail in between. And that builds credibility and trust. And it helps people move, get forward faster. Well, a lot more momentum can be built that way. 

Bart
Being devil’s advocate, I’d say you know, you’re a pro, and you know how to use those tools, and you’re very proficient, creating or recreating something on the board during a call like this, but others might not be so good with their computers or tablets they’re using during the conversation, and how do you engage them? So they’re not only passively taking in information during the call, but also contribute to the board?

David
Well, if we start with, you know, we start with that, that question of what does that look like to you? Right? That encourages people to either represent something for themselves, even if it’s simple as as, as writing a word. Because we all can do that, right? And we can all create a circle, right? We can all create a triangle, when we put these things together, we can all draw a line.

With these basics, we continue to ask the question, what does that look like to you? Okay, what’s your big picture? What are the elements that make up what you think of are the conditions for this journey, let’s say, right, you know, part of what makes us human going back to clarity seeking creatures that we are, we’d love to tell stories, we love to make things up, we love to provide ourselves with explanations. And to that degree, we need those stories. They help explain our, our world and our behaviour and what’s happening when we can’t always see what’s happening. So we can fill a board very, very fast once we operate on the basis of I want to hear from everybody, we need to hear from everybody, even if all you’re doing is highlighting a word and saying yeah, I agree with that. It’s easier to do.

Bart
So when you are with someone in the same room and you’re using a napkin it’s easier than using computers or tablets. With them it’s a little bit more difficult. So how those skills can be learned telling me, Davi?

David
I think you’re hinting at the course that we created, called, called Visual Supercharge

Bart
Yes, yes, we did. So tell us about it? 

David
Well, this course is only four and a half hours long, roughly in length. It’s divided into 17 really easy to watch episodes. And it’s a it’s a demonstration and exploration, something like what people saw here today, of all these concepts and the tools and the skills and various situations that we suggest the tools and skills can be applied to because really it’s all about application. You know, the tools by themselves won’t do anything for you. The skills have to be applied to real world challenging situations like how can our meetings be more engaging, more productive, more, more fun, more creative. Those are real challenges, because we’re all annoyed, frustrated by a meeting or a conversation, even that is unproductive, and doesn’t really allow a deeper authentic connection, where we’re just maybe going through the motions and throwing out a lot of terminology and a lot of concepts. And we’re not fully tracking with each other. And that, you know, that that ability to follow along and get somewhere is really important.

And if we don’t feel that at the end of a conversation, we say to ourselves, Well, that was a waste of time. Yeah. And when we do start someplace and end up in a different place, and we feel like we’ve made progress, we think, and we feel that was great.

Bart
What I like about the course is that it was created remotely. The entire course we it’s, it’s something we recorded over the course of a few months, without even meet each other. 

David
We certainly didn’t share our geography. We clearly aren’t the same age, you speak three languages I speak one. There were a lot of things that were fortunately we shared English. And I appreciate the fact that English is your third round 

Bart
And we share language of visuals. 

David
That’s what we shared, we share this deep passion for for using visuals, but I think was I think it’s also a deep passion for and I’m just gonna write that word. Uh huh. For empowering people. We can look at the visuals but  I think it’s the empowerment that comes to people when they use this ability that we have — our ability to see to visualise and to imagine amounts to almost a superpower. It is under utilised. And I think we both feel that. 

Bart
And  I think you’re right, and that the report is the key word here. So yes, we just decided at some point that we need to do this, we need to share what we know about the techniques, the tools, the ways methods and record that for others to use. So here’s the address — dvl.expert

If you’d like if you’re interested in the course that DVL dot expert for you the courses. That’s the title visual supercharge online course. Because as you just said, we think of using visuals as a form of super power. 

David 
Yeah. So join us, share a canvas, let that spark come into you. Because that spark, when you’re empowered, will probably change your ability to become even more effective influencer. 

Bart
Right, David, thanks for sharing your thoughts on that topic. And it was great not only to listen to you, but also to see your thoughts laid out on this board. So thank you one more time. 

David
Well, you’re welcome 

Bart 
It was great to work with you on that course. 

David 
For us it’s play. And that’s really what we want. Everyone listening to feel like this power is meant to be explored and experimented with and, and, and use as much as possible. 

Bart
But shouldn’t conversation really be more playful? It’s easier to convey your points that way don’t you to think. Yeah, so we encourage you trying that and let us know what you think. But for the time being. Thanks, David, for sharing your thoughts with us. 

David
You’re entirely welcome

Here are the resources we discussed during our conversation:

B.A. Gonczarek

I’m here with Reshan Richards, welcome Reshan. 

Reshan is a researcher, educator, and a writer of two books on technology and leadership, with the last book titled Make Yourself Clear on how to use a teaching mindset to be understood. Reshan also co-founded a whiteboarding platform used for teaching in many schools across the glob and it’s where we teamed up. And this cross-roads of technology and education is something that I’m sure will be inspiring for our listeners when we discuss the science of how we learn. Was my introduction of your background accurate Reshan?

B.A. Gonczarek

I’m here with Reshan Richards welcome Reshan.Reshan is a researcher, educator, and a writer of two books on technology and leadership, with the last book titled Make Yourself Clear on how to use a teaching mindset to be understood. Reshan also co-founded a whiteboarding platform used for teaching in many schools across the glob and it’s where we teamed up. And this cross-roads of technology and education is something that I’m sure will be inspiring for our listeners when we discuss the science of how we learn. Was my introduction of your background accurate Reshan?

Reshan Richards

Oh, I think so. It was a very kind and generous introduction. Thank you. 

B.A. Gonczarek

Great. So, to begin, let me confront you with this thought. We humans are storytellers no matter what technology we use in the process. The stories are very efficient keras for ideas, would you agree?

Reshan Richards

I would absolutely agree with that statement.

B.A. Gonczarek

There are two interesting avenues to explore: On the receiver’s end – there’s the question of “how we learn”, on the presenter’s end – how do we provide stories?  The right combination of both is essential in education, to learn things, it is also essential in persuasion outside educational realm. The better we tell our stories the more we improve chances for being understood. Right?

So my goal for today is then to explore with you the scientific foundations of visual storytelling. Let’s try to provide for the benefit of our listeners. What are the underlying facts of storytelling, we gathered scientific papers were inspired with and we’ll use those for our discussions will be doodling and sketching while exploring the papers. So if any listener would want to see us doing that, please use YouTube link provided with the podcast. 

Now we’re Reshan, we have five stunning articles to discuss and I’m looking for a good starting points, maybe let’s cover the difference between the verbal and textual first. 

So, this one comes from knowledge Media Research Center in Germany, and the article asks what improves learning results, text or pictures, while the bulk of existing research is focused on the sequence in which text or picture is provided in learning. This paper, however, operates under the assumption that it is not the sequence rather the function of text or picture in the process of learning. So they look at the function and they defined text. It’s actually in this part here. Then define text as verbal coat in a short or long prose Or instructions, let’s say. However, pictures come in different forms as less or more abstract representations of objects that still contain some similarities. So pictures in the research can be a photo, but also a doodle, or a map diagram, graphic organizer, or let’s say concept map. And the conclusion the way I see it is that the type of information to be learned dictates the way it should be presented. Basically, some materials are better one learned when provided us text other if they come in form of a picture, or they also suggest that the complexity of information is the key. And they conclude, acknowledging that their work is more of a guideline for future research server. Reshan, what’s your perspective as a teacher and a graphical facilitator at the same time, what your experience tells you about using pictures versus text?

Reshan Richards

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it’s a great kind of area of thought. And I’m chuckling as I’m looking at the closing statement from this research, because to degree, almost all new contemporary research on emerging phenomenon always include this idea that hey, well, this should now be extended into a further study, which it’s, it’s so true, right? Like not, nothing is conclusive yet. And I think what’s also interesting about what you shared in thinking about the, you know, that it’s about choice, right? So if you’ve got an idea or concept or some bit of knowledge or understanding that you’re trying to convey or build in somebody, you’re certainly going to make choices about, you know, either the sequencing or even the more binary choice of text or image as like, well what’s the best medium to convey that, but I think, you know, that that’s still to a degree one directional so as a teacher The other thing that we’re also going to be thinking about is about the receiver. And the reality and kind of the emerging research that validates it that people have different modalities that depending on the concept or content that they might be more dominant in. So for example, you know, there might be some people who for certain types of topics or disciplines that are much better auditory listener, so we’re and then some people, while they might be highly visual, they might be visual towards text and reading narrative. And another visual learner might also be much more into photo and imagery. So ultimately, as as people who are trying to communicate to teach trying to persuade, as you mentioned before, there’s just it starts with a baseline understanding that you do have to be really intentional about the format that you’re presenting the content information in. And then you also need to be really thoughtful about the learning styles and channels of that audience member.

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when looking from my perspective, when I learned complex things, I like picture to form a structure and then leave the details to sit inside of a picture inside of picture as a text. So it’s essentially the same idea as infographics, where we, we mix graphical form with textual content. So  this “blending” thing is it’s something that there is no clean part between one modality and the other that you suggested is rather at blend to convey an idea, isn’t it?

Reshan Richards

Yeah, that’s a great way to describe it. Blended media, mixed media, mixed modalities. I think anybody who’s interested in, you know, the types of things we’re talking around here. Those would be those would be good. words to describe it like and, you know, yeah, this blend this mix of, of a representation or presentation of information.

B.A. Gonczarek

Right. So let me present you a second piece of research that discusses the suitability of medium again, pictures of loads when communicating with either people we know, or strangers. It turns out that we’re inclined to use different medium. When sharing thoughts with someone that is known to us and different when we communicate with someone we don’t have much in common. So the authors here, they describe six experiments to build the evidence that it is, in fact, the distance that sets our preference for choosing between using text and pictures. And again, in this paper as before authors looking to unique characteristics of both pictures and text. Pictures are defined as concrete representation as analogies of the real world. While words nearly always are abstract, with arbitrary relationships to their corresponding subjects. They even stayed that the word is actually a category that refers to a broad range of concrete objects. Words carry the essence of an object, but usually not its properties. So in result, it turns out that pictures are more often use among friends. And the use of words translated better over distance. What’s your reaction to that?

Reshan Richards

That’s so interesting, because I would have expected it to be the inverse and mostly because when trying to have the challenges of distance and proximity or lack of process activity, you would think that the more concrete representation would be helpful for kind of eliminating misunderstanding. So this is really interesting that it’s actually, at least for people’s preferences, what they measured in practice, that those who were working with known people tended to use more images. But part of that also, I’m so curious that like, in their work, is it also that familiarity means that in one ways, you’re being concrete but you’re also not doing some of the formalities as far as supplying kind of preamble or context for the thing that is sent. Whereas with a stranger or across distance, you almost do have to use more words to kind of set up somebody for whatever is trying to be communicated. I also thought about you know, I’ve done a lot of work and teaching across distance and having meetings and conversations and you know, small and large video conference. rooms. And I have found that those types of meetings are always more effective when either there’s an existing relationship that you have had some closer in person time with the parties so that your first meeting isn’t the one that’s there, or if it’s going to be like a regular ongoing thing that you you find a way to blend it together. And I what I mean by this is, you know, a lot of companies are certainly looking to do more sales motions, more customer service, customer success types of things online, but I almost I think it becomes a mistake based on like, some of the things you’re describing here to think it can be 100% substitute for that real kind of close on connected engagement. And I think the companies who are succeeding are realizing you can be more selective about when you do have those in person content. But then you can still do a lot of the other work using digital media light, like, you know, video conferences or what we’re doing a collaborative whiteboard to still like maintain and strengthen that relationship. 

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, absolutely. I think in that setting, you would want to find a solution to close the gap to get you closer to the to the recipient of your information. And I agree that the findings here are kind of counterintuitive, but there’s a good reason why is it so. The authors  refer to CLT (Construal Level Theory) that states that people increasingly use more abstract representations when communicating with those they don’t know that match. And the reason for that is that people seem to be afraid to provide too much personal information to those that are not yet considered friends. Therefore, they use disembodied  linguistic representations of text while leaving concrete contextualized pictures for communicating with those that they have already. something in common? You see the point here?

Reshan Richards

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, when you describe it that way like I can, I can fully relate that there’s this, this the psychological element in in detaching any potential clues or to specific or to accurate details because of not being too familiar with the audience. So that’s that that makes sense, even though as you said it on the surface feels very counterintuitive.

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, absolutely. The visual representations seem to be more appropriate when we already share a piece of reality with the person on the other end. That’s, that’s basically what they found.  But I wonder, in teaching environment, I guess being specific and being clear, is the goal, right?

Reshan Richards

Oh, absolutely. I mean, that that’s the thing, can you not only you know, transmit or share some idea or concept but clarity comes from confirming understanding, and that with the most efficacy or efficiency, that that understanding was built. I mean, that’s really what what clarity happens, like I have something that I want to convey or to build in somebody else. And clarity comes when that is done with the least amount of friction.

B.A. Gonczarek

Right. But does that actually says the preference for using pictures instead of woods?

Reshan Richards

 I think that anytime you can be more concrete… Let me let me rewind that. I do believe there could be a correlation between the concrete nature of a representation and clarity. I think so. So here’s, here’s an example where the mix of pictures and words in a professional setting can can often get to get in the way of that clarity. So often when doing kind of employee or, you know, supervisor evaluations and review comments are often left in text, right? So, a supervisor might write text comments typed up in a narrative added to a file, dot, dot dot. And so it’s immediately already a couple of degrees away from the actuality of the work, right? Because it’s the supervisors interpretation of what might have been observed and communicated, but then re re put out in text form. Whereas if somebody just had a simple snapshot, or a video of that behavior, action, or whatever somebody being, their performance is being evaluated in you almost removing all of that abstraction. It’s like super concrete, like, how does someone so lead a small group meeting? You know, I could write a narrative about it. Or I could just make a 32nd clip of here’s how somebody kicked off their meeting. And that concrete thing will actually get to that greater clarity of the situation. But I still as a supervisor, would want to be able to comment What’s interesting or important about that thing, but if I’m both describing it and then commenting on it, it’s immediately a few degrees of separated away from what you might have been trying to look at in the first place.

B.A. Gonczarek

 I think that’s a, that’s a great example. So moving on to the two pieces of research that you provided it on memory and meaning making, which one you think should come first, which one would you like to tackle?

Reshan Richards

So I find that that this picture of superiority effect body of research is really important because I want I think it’s connected to the two studies or articles which you referred to, and what I like and it took so first of all, it’s already building off of previous research that to a degree validated, you know, in in pretty controlled experimental studies where somebody was given just an audio representation of some Something, something that had audio plus text, and then something that had audio plus image in these controlled experiments, the retention. So this is really about like recall and memory call. But the audio plus picture almost always outperformed any of the other two groups, right as far as people’s retention and recall. So that’s interesting, right as a baseline, but you can’t make too many generalized conclusions just based off of you know, these kinds of experimental studies. This particular one that I selected and pulled out that builds deeper into it was looking between correlate or looking for correlations between the sorry, it was looking for correlations of the extent of this effect and age. So as you get older, how much more pronounced is this picture superiority effect over the other two modes. And this particular study did find that there is absolutely a correlation, we’re not going to call it causality. But as people get older, this picture superiority effect actually escalates and gets reinforced even stronger. And it’s because when you add your days and months and years of life experience, you’ve had time to reinforce these mental images or mental models or visualizations of different things that you’re capable of having certain retention and recall in a greater degree because of all your prior knowledge. So while it was still present in younger people, it was the the difference of the the extent of this effect was far less pronounced than in their older subjects. 

B.A. Gonczarek

You know, that’s quite fascinating, you know, it also proves how much we learn about the picture superiority effect recently. You know, the last time I checked her there were like 40 articles on the subject and the number is growing rapidly these days, too. So it shows that this area still needs further inquiry to what I personally like about picture superiority effect is its linkage with our spatial memory where location of elements help understanding and I was taking by illustration explaining the historical logic using just one picture I don’t know if you if you know that one.

Reshan Richards

Now tell me more about that.

B.A. Gonczarek

It’s the picture that describes the entire logic of Aristotle. Once you familiarize with it, the beauty of that is that you can literally close your eyes and the recall by location each bit. It’s a breathtaking example of how of how this effect works yet, we don’t know for sure still, why it works and in what age group would work the best. Let the quickly pull the example of this illustration real quick to our whiteboard here.

Reshan Richards

Yeah, I’d love to see that. Yeah.

B.A. Gonczarek

Okay. That was something that was used for teaching students a long time ago, though, but it’s still a real life example of using picture superiority effect. I don’t know for which age group, but still, I still love more of those visuals and photographing being used in schools for stimulating retention and recall of information. I’m sure you’re on the same with me on that. 

Reshan Richards

Yeah. This is a really cool example here.

B.A. Gonczarek

And the other material that you provided to the canvas was on doodling, right?

Reshan Richards

Yeah, so this one is  connected and it’s actually a little bit more about both the the presenter, but also the idea of inviting other to kind of doodle and visualize along with you. Now in this study, which also again, it, it has its limitations because of its experimental nature. But it was, it was having people listen to the audio, and that the group one was, as they were listening, they weren’t doing anything else. And then they had to do kind of like a rent attention and recall. And the other group was doing, as they were listening was also just asked to draw and doodle on whatever like notepad they have. And somehow, the kind of externalization of, of just kind of like sketching, jotting things down I believe some of their notes were relevant. Some of them were just kind of like random, like the things that you might see in a in a middle school, child’s notebook. But there was still a measurable effect on retaining When other kind of expressive channels were active at the same time that somebody was hearing some audio. And what’s interesting to me and the things that I like to dive into is that this in this study, there was no real guidelines around the doodling. But in thinking about situations where you’re trying to build understanding and somebody and you presented some information, having them activate more channels, and then just their listening and their visual, cognitive channels, but actually starting to a little bit of like haptic or even kinesthetic action, and at the same time and this so I put this notice here about random versus purposeful doodling that I think there’s so much to be learned and considered that when you’ve got people engaged, that you’re trying to trying to help them learn. Have them activate the same positive principles around visual visual storytelling in their own note taking and reception and consumption. The information right so it shouldn’t all those benefits that we’ve kind of highlighted and talked about from the delivery standpoint to me have just as much value in the recipient or participant and I felt like this study in particular is kind of a stepping stone or starting point in considering how the recipients channels can be activated towards building that  greater clarity and understanding

B.A. Gonczarek

Right, but you know, for me, this shape-shading task also reveals something that is counter intuitive, you know. How come one might recall better if the thing he or she is drawing is not directly connected to the subject of the discussion, right? I find it surprising and I would wish to know more about what was at work on the cognitive level. 

Reshan Richards

Yeah, and you know, like for me as somebody who you know, does practice graphic facilitation or sketch noting or however, visual note taking all these different terms that it can be described it I do find sometimes that even when I’m trying to be a very active listener, that I will do some random doodles or shapes, kind of in the meat in the midst, or in the middle of maybe some things that were a little bit more purposeful or relevant. And sometimes they’re just these kind of, in between or bridge moments between like, big concepts. And it’s almost this like, continuation instead of like being like, on off on off. You’re just constantly like in a flow. And yeah, sometimes they just become things of the background or filling the page. But in, in your, in my own review of the things that I might have taken notes on. I remember when I see like a random structure like this, oh, that was an in between moment. And I don’t have to admit, I’ve actually visualize something that I know I don’t have to worry about later, which is kind of almost like how often do you take notes on things you don’t want to remember? But but it brings back recognition of the like the setting or the scenario. So like, I don’t know, in some weird way, maybe maybe this is like the words of a maniac, but like I actually find it helpful to have useless notes, but be able and like they actually helped me filter out the things that are more meaningful on that same page.

B.A. Gonczarek

Right. So actually font something that is related to this, but actually speaks about drawing representations of concrete scientific phenomena instead of just, you know, shading something or, as you mentioned, doing useless drawings. This is an inquiry wood drawing does when we learn science, and it’s an article that comes from August 2011 issue of the Science Magazine, and the authors here… they make a point that visuals are crucial for learning. They suggest that the proficiency in science requires learning to develop representational skills. And I don’t know about you but I’m easily persuaded by that as I cannot imagine how anyone could cope with, let’s say, a concept of particles or chemical reactions without abstract visual representations, right?

Reshan Richards

I mean, what’s so interesting is I think we could probably like do a little bit of like historical digging that any kind of scientific phenomenon or principles, it was probably easier to pass those down in Britain, because of like the printing press, the printing press can much more easily replicate, you know, the written or the printed form word than it could have with graphics, right? Because you didn’t have type sets to pull from to create, you know, highly complex visual drawing. So, you know, the original researchers and publishers from back in the day probably had to default to very text heavy ways of transform, transferring and scaling out information and then it just became a default. I think maybe only in recent times has the technology. And the formats of publishing become a little bit more accessible to let’s call, let’s call them lay people that, you know, these visual representations as a dominant form as far as impacting science proficiency, like you said, I mean, seems obvious, like, of course, how could it not?

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah. I also remember that from from Dürer’s perspective, Albrecht Dürer’s. During his times, were the times when the printing press was brand new, and he was already trying to find a way to incorporate those hand drawings into the printed materials just to inspire thinking, you know, to inspire this  mode of exploration. What is interesting in this article, though, is that it mentions the surveys that indicate that those students that drew to explore to coordinate or to justify understanding where more motivated to learn in the end. So basically we can improve understanding, in other words, by working on graphical representations of what we start to know or what we already know. So that’s something that I actually really like –  stating that the drawing is in fact, way of reasoning. And it’s a different kind of reasoning than, let’s say, argumentation. It’s the creative reasoning to engage and explore ideas by refining your drawings of concepts. So instead of looking at the picture, as some sort of fixed universal illustration, we begin to see it as an artifact of cognition. So I’m sure Michelle, that this is essential from the perspective of a teacher, isn’t it? What are the opportunities for having such a window into students thinking?

Reshan Richards

So the thing that was resonating or stirring curiosity in me as you were sharing that were these connections between drawing As a form of reasoning, but the the embedded layer which I jotted down in my margins here is around intrinsic motivation. And I think through reasoning via drawing, I think I would surmise that the reason that students might be able to perform or share or achieve greater proficiency might be because the process of drawing as a form of reasoning is like an intrinsically motivating exercise. There’s a reward in being able to communicate and demonstrate understanding and kind of untangle complex things. That’s kind of harder to do in a more abstract setting, like trying to use the constraints of text and paragraph and sentence structure and all of the other elements that are part of printed text that again are separating the learner from you know, The true expression or representation of what is being thought. And it doesn’t surprise me. And I absolutely think there’s connections to what we’re trying to as what as teachers were trying to achieve in classrooms, which is to instill this kind of love or intrinsically motivated joy around learning, so that it’s not seen as transactional, but rather, it’s it’s fundamental. It’s pure and natural curiosity. 

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah. Yeah. And what is also astonishing that drawings actually lay a foundation for future learning. So it helps students to discern key features and also understand challenges as they go. Right.

Reshan Richards

Yeah. And I mean, there’s, there’s some like really interesting, like papers and articles that talk about how drawing traditionally in schools and I’m talking about K to 12 schools, and I mean, certainly even higher ed, that there’s a perception that Using imagery using doodle sketching things out, is childish or juvenile and not academic or scholarly enough. I think it’s exciting because of conversations like these and pulling scholarly research and really trying to surface all of the values and true like cognitive benefits of visualization and doodling that it might contribute to changing that perception that, hey, I can write my dissertation in the form of a graphic novel, right? And somebody has done that before. And you and I have talked about some somebody who went to who did their doctorate at Teachers College at Columbia University, in that form. Now granted, that person may have been purposefully trying to brush up against norms, but it was completely valid and you want you need kind of pioneers and people to do things like that. To set the example like there are other ways to convey excellence to convey scholarly work to convey findings from research that don’t have to fall into kind of these traditional formats. I mean, all of the articles that were pulled up here, if you look at them, they look like very traditional papers, right? Because that is kind of the societal norm for conveyance of knowledge. So that almost brushes up against what we’re talking about here, which are the many other ways that people are able to transfer into to receive information.

B.A. Gonczarek

Yeah, absolutely. I think you’re spot on here Reshan. Before we close. Let’s try to briefly summarize what we’ve learned from those papers that we discussed. I can try to do that unless you’d like to start first.

Reshan Richards

All right, let me try to zoom out on the big picture here. Okay. And so, let me try to think of like three overarching cues, thoughts that that anybody who’s engaging in this, this conversation might take away. So the first is, there is a growing body of contemporary research. that’s helping make clear the links between visualizing information and better proficiency and understanding it exists and it’s increasingly valid. Second would be that people who have the job or charge the responsibility of communicating to others have to consider the ways that people learn and receive information in their design. There’s never going to be one strict way. But there’s going to be many modalities and modes and today there are far more tools and choices for being able to do that kind of communication. And the third one would be around kind of challenging traditional constraints and norms around what professional what academic communication is supposed to look like, when in the end. It’s really about being clear and getting to a point of under Standing as effectively as possible.

B.A. Gonczarek

Well, I think I fully agree with you. One additional thought to the second point that you mentioned. For me, I’m most excited about this concept of drawing as a form of reasoning. And the reason I’m excited about is that because technologies now are so good at broadening concept of growing with, let’s say, motion or ad-hoc provided animations. The technology makes it easy to transform existing digital assets into something I like to call “smashing bits & pixels” to represent what you need from what you have in your documents or photo library. So a collage, a digital collage is one example of that, but also, our use of the whiteboard here during this conversation is  another example. I just think that the phenomenon of Visual Thinking is empowered by the use of digital medium. So before to be a digital thinker, one needed to acquire at least basic drawing skills, right? But now with digital tools that we have, that seems completely optional, as instead of drawing, one can rearrange existing representations to perform, as we call it here, creative reasoning, and be open for all benefits that we discuss here. Would you agree?

Reshan Richards

I agree. Absolutely. And I would say that so many people, when they think about having these kinds of open ended visual experiences, say, Well, I can’t draw so I can’t participate, but all you need to everybody, if they’ve got, you know, you know, their, their, their hands and arms or whatever else they can manipulate to create something on a piece of paper or on a screen, can draw a line can draw a circle can draw an arrow. These are not advanced, you know, you don’t have to go to art school to be able to construct those things. And because as you said, the technology helps make it easier to bring in different types of visual content. This isn’t about being a great artist. This is about putting visual information together in order to help things make more sense.

B.A. Gonczarek

Well, Reshan, thank you for sharing your perspective. I’m positive that are many ways we could further explore the scientific foundations of learning and visual storytelling. So let’s pause here for now here the reaction of our listeners and perhaps continue in the future, shall we?

Reshan Richards

That sounds great. Thanks very much.

Here are the resources we discussed during our conversation:

• Idea #211
  The essence of human nature as a project of technological mastery??
  Life and Defense of Dignity