Practitioner Enquiry

 

 

 

Stamatia Mukherjee
Curriculum manager, German
"Improving students’ learning through visualisation"

 

 

Background
 
·         To establish whether visualisation can improve students’ learning in the framework of NLP by changing their emotional state
·         To test whether guided meditation in form of visualisation can improve concentration and enhance memory
·         To see whether visualisation can reduce stress
·         To develop ‘switched-on’ students with improved self-discipline
·         To analyse whether there is any indication of improved achievement through visualisation
 
Key actions
 
·         One A2 class was randomly chosen to be the visualising group with another acting as a control group
·         In the beginning of each class we would visualise for two to three minutes on themes like promoting self-awareness and self-esteem, to stimulate visual imagery, for inner control and self-discipline, relaxation, and generally feeling happy.
·         After each of the weekly themes there was an informal discussion with the students on how they felt about this specific visualisation.
·         Qualitative data was collected from discussions. Quantitative data from mock exams was compared with peer group data of students with the same GCSE score.
·         Final open-ended written comments from the students were analysed
 
Key findings
 
·         The quantitative data of the mock exams, due to the limited number of students with the same GCSE score, is inconclusive.
·         Overall, there is a tendency that the visualising group achieved slightly higher.
·         All written comments of the students contained some positive comments.
·         Some students didn’t like all themes of meditation or the suggested way of posture and breathing.
·         Visualisation improved classroom management as students seemed less chatty and distracted but this didn’t always last for the duration of our 90minute lesson.
·         In conclusion, it was a positive experience for almost everyone, with only one student refusing to do the visualization exercises

 

 

 

To find out about this project please contact:

 

SMukherjee@farnboroughsfc.ac.uk