WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
Visual organizers are a great way of rounding off a lesson whilst checking students’ knowledge and understanding of a topic. Roy Huggins, interactive whiteboard supremo, shared some that he uses with me. Let’s have a look at some of them and how they might be used… 
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Thinking Skills Triangle
This is used for students to record: 1 thing they already knew, 2 questions they have about the lessons or things they didn’t understand, and 3 things they learned in the lesson. I’ve created a PDF of this with the title ‘Were you successful in today’s lesson?’ which is a bit neater.
The 5 W’s
These are a good way of thinking about a subject to make sure all angles have been covered: What? When? Where? Why? Who?
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Comparison Alley
This is a way to see similarities and differences between two things. For an example comparing WWI and WWII look here.
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Hamburger Chart
This gives a simple, visual way for students to understand how they need to structure an essay.
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Pros and Cons
A visual (and potentially kinaesthetic) way for students to show what the pros and cons are surrounding an issue. For an example about WWI, look here
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Persuasive Writing
This shows how an argument should be constructed.
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Venn Diagram
A way of organizing and classifying information.
I’ve found these, and other graphical ways of representing information and testing understanding extremely useful. It’s engaging for students and serves as an informal way of feeding back how well you’re teaching! Obviously, like anything else, they can be over-used, but on the whole I and other teachers have found success with them. Give them a try!
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Hi
Liking these, very much. I will be sure that our History teacher visits Mr H at the SHP confrence.
Keep up the good work and congrats on the job.
Will