In today’s classroom, it’s not enough to just lecture during your lesson… this isn’t likely a surprise to you, yet teachers often fall into the trap of teaching lecture-style, even when they know it isn’t always best for students. What if I told you there’s an easy way to move away from this? Each lesson you teach doesn’t need to be completely unique. However, each lesson needs to actively engage your students with the content to help make it meaningful and memorable. One highly effective instructional practice that grabs student attention is the use of interactive anchor charts. An interactive anchor chart is a visual representation of a concept or strategy that you discuss with your students during a 10-15 minute mini-lesson. Using interactive anchor charts supports multiple intelligences too!
Anchor charts are a great way to support multiple intelligences. The visual nature of the anchor chart makes it easy for students with strong visual-spatial intelligence to understand and use the information on the chart. Students who have strong auditory or verbal-linguistic intelligence will be able to learn through their sense of hearing and sound, as they read or listen to what their classmates and teachers are contributing. For kinesthetic learners, an anchor chart provides the means through which they can physically interact with content to better understand the concepts presented.
It may have been a while since you’ve dug into multiple intelligences theory. Here’s a quick refresher on the learning theory for visual, kinesthetic, and linguistic learners–three of the most prevalent modalities of learning that we see in elementary students.
- Visual-spatial learners are known for their ability to see the big picture, connect ideas and patterns, visualize how things work in order to understand them, and use pictures and drawings to represent information. Anchor charts are an easy way for students to visualize the concept and apply their learning.
- Bodily-kinesthetic learners are the ones who need to be able to move around the room and feel the materials. They should be able to touch and move around objects, like anchor charts. These students learn best in small groups or alone, where they can actively participate in their learning by moving around. The best thing about interactive anchor charts is that they include an element of hands-on learning for students.
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence is the ability to use language to convey meaning. It’s reflected in their ability to comprehend and produce oral, written, and symbolic communication using a wide variety of forms. Anchor charts support this in multiple ways because you can include written communication, in addition to visuals, such as charts.
Anchor charts are a great way to support these multiple intelligences. When I tapped into the different intelligences, students were more engaged and motivated to learn. My students used the interactive anchor charts we collaboratively created in the classroom every day. They were a constant reminder of the different ways we can learn and how to be successful learners.
Not sure how to get started with interactive anchor charts? I’ve got you covered! Check out this bundle of 6 interactive figurative language anchor charts . All you have to do is print and prep the materials! It includes a lesson plan with step-by-step directions for how to implement each interactive anchor chart, as well as an independent practice activity. Additionally, this 5 Tips to Make Anchor Charts More Interactive blog post can also get you inspired as you create your own interactive anchor charts.
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