In this episode of The Verbal To Visual Podcast I talk about an idea in education called the zone of proximal development and how you can apply that idea to the development of your visual note taking skills.

Notes & Links

The inspiration for this episode about the zone of proximal development – my interview last with with educator Paula Wilkes.

Here’s what wikipedia has to say about the ZPD.

A related idea is that of instructional scaffolding – making sure that learners have support tailored to their needs (usually it’s the teachers that worry about this, but independent learners need to keep it in mind as well).

The structure that I’m developing around building your visual vocabulary is one example of my attempt bring new visual note takers into their ZPD. Here are the relevant blog posts to date:

• An Introduction To Visual Vocabulary Month
• 8 Ways To Organize Your Growing Visual Vocabulary
• Growing Your Visual Vocabulary, One Topic At A Time
• Post-Sketchnote Additions To Your Visual Vocabulary

And here’s the broader set of activities designed to help you build your sketchnoting skills.