Visual Tools

Most Popular

Visual Keywords

Helps build vocab

About Visual Keywords

Extract and visualise key terms with definitions and visual representations. Perfect for vocabulary building and concept reinforcement.

Evidence

Pairing a word with a relevant image gives pupils two complementary representations to draw on, which supports understanding and recall better than words alone (Paivio's dual coding theory, refined by Mayer's multimedia principles). A 2026 meta-analysis of 56 randomised classroom studies found a moderate average benefit, larger at secondary than at primary and measured mostly within a week of the lesson. Three design features made the difference: the visual is clearly linked to the words, the content is chunked, and nothing decorative is added.

Works best when
  • Whole-class, teacher-led teaching rather than as a sheet for individual pupils
  • Secondary pupils, where effects were roughly three times larger than at primary
  • Building understanding and recall within a lesson, with retrieval practice afterwards to make it last
  • Every icon carries meaning; decorative images can cancel the benefit
Classroom trials found smaller and less certain effects for targeted groups such as pupils with learning difficulties or English as an additional language. The stronger evidence for those pupils comes from mnemonic pictures and symbol-supported communication, which are different techniques.

Examples:

Keywords Example
Most Popular

Hexagons

Helps connect knowledge

About Hexagons

Create interactive hexagon grids to visualise connections between concepts. Perfect for exploring relationships between ideas and building conceptual understanding.

Evidence

Hexagon tessellation activities ('hexagonal thinking') ask learners to surface relationships between concepts and justify them, a form of concept mapping. Concept mapping is consistently associated with improved retention and transfer, and the SOLO taxonomy frames why this matters: students move from unistructural recall to multistructural and relational understanding.

Examples:

Hexagon Grid Example

Chalk Studio

Helps plan lessons

About Chalk Studio

Describe what you are teaching and talk it through. Chalk Studio drafts a lesson plan as you go, builds materials such as hexagons, keywords and worksheets against that plan, and groups lessons into a scheme of work.

The Learning Science

Planning is where most teaching decisions get made, and the plan is the spine here: every material is built from it and flagged when the plan changes, so the resources in a lesson stay consistent with each other. Recommendations draw on the frameworks you choose (Task Design, Rosenshine, Ausubel, Mayer) rather than a generic chat, which keeps the reasoning behind each suggestion visible to the teacher.

Examples:

Chalk Studio Example

Three Heads

Helps deep thinking

About Three Heads

Create exercises where students evaluate three different viewpoints or explanations. Perfect for addressing misconceptions, encouraging reasoning, and promoting critical thinking discussions.

Evidence

Confronting learners with plausible-but-wrong alternatives ("contrasting cases") forces them to articulate their reasoning and is a well-documented way to surface and revise misconceptions, particularly in science, where naïve theories are sticky. Comparing alternatives also improves transfer more reliably than studying a single worked example.

  • Alfieri, Nokes-Malach & Schunn (2013) - Learning through case comparisons: A meta-analytic review
  • Chi (2008) - Three types of conceptual change: belief revision, mental model transformation, and categorical shift
  • EEF - Cognitive science approaches in the classroom (Education Endowment Foundation)

Examples:

Scientific Observations
Historical Perspectives

Retrieval Task Creator

Helps strengthen memory

About Retrieval Task Creator

Create retrieval practice tasks with icons and keywords to help students strengthen their memory. Perfect for spaced repetition, revision, and knowledge consolidation.

Evidence

Actively pulling information out of memory ('retrieval practice') is one of the best-evidenced strategies for durable learning, more effective than re-reading or highlighting. The benefit grows when retrieval is spaced over time and when learners get feedback. Effects hold across ages, subjects, and ability levels.

Examples:

Retrieval Task Example

Odd One Out

Helps with understanding concepts

About Odd One Out

Create 2x2 image grids where students identify the odd one out and explain their reasoning. Supports AI generation or teacher-provided examples.

Evidence

Identifying and justifying differences ("which one doesn't belong, and why?") is a structured comparison task. Comparing items side-by-side helps learners notice critical features they would miss in isolation, a mechanism known as structural alignment. The justification step is what does the cognitive work; without it, the activity reduces to guessing.

There is no large RCT base specifically for "odd one out" as a named activity. The support comes from the broader comparison-and-justification literature.

Examples:

Odd One Out Example

Visual Sentences

Helps support reading

About Visual Sentences

Add symbols above words to support reading and comprehension. Create Widgit-style symbolized text for EAL learners, SEND students, and early readers.

Evidence

Symbol-supported text is an access tool: it lets a pupil who cannot yet read the words follow the meaning, and it is standard practice in AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) and in symbol-supported reading for pupils with communication needs. The rationale is access and reduced reading load rather than dual coding, and the evidence comes largely from single-case and practitioner studies with autistic pupils and pupils with learning difficulties.

Works best when
  • A pupil can understand the sentence when it is read to them but cannot yet decode the words
  • The same symbol is used for the same word every time, so it becomes familiar
  • Symbols sit above the words they support, and the words stay in view
Classroom trials of pictures alongside text found smaller and less certain effects for targeted groups than for whole classes (Banks et al., 2026), so treat symbols as support for access and comprehension rather than a proven boost to memory.

Examples:

Visual Sentences Example

Diamond 9

Helps deep thinking

About Diamond 9

Create diamond ranking activities where students prioritize and justify their reasoning. Perfect for promoting discussion, critical thinking, and collaborative learning.

Evidence

Diamond ranking is a structured discussion protocol: the constraint of nine ordered cards forces learners to defend trade-offs out loud, which surfaces reasoning that free discussion typically leaves implicit. The evidence base is mostly UK practitioner literature rather than RCTs, but it aligns with broader findings on dialogic teaching and accountable talk.

  • Clark (2012) - Using diamond ranking as a tool for thinking and discussion
  • Alexander (2018) - Developing dialogic teaching: genesis, process, trial (Research Papers in Education)
Diamond 9 is supported more by classroom practitioner literature than by experimental studies. Treat it as a structured-discussion protocol; its value depends on the quality of the talk it provokes.

Examples:

Diamond 9 Example

Vocab Stories

Helps build vocab

About Vocab Stories

Create explicit vocabulary teaching sequences with story-based examples and non-examples. Based on Engelmann and Carnine's Theory of Instruction.

Evidence

Engelmann and Carnine's Theory of Instruction argues that concepts are best taught by juxtaposing carefully sequenced examples and non-examples that vary only what matters. Story-framed examples add a narrative scaffold that improves engagement and recall. This is the same logical structure used in successful Direct Instruction programmes.

Examples:

Vocab Stories Example

Worksheet Builder

Plan, then build a worksheet

About Worksheet Builder

Start from a plan you confirm: the objective, the key knowledge, likely misconceptions and vocabulary. Chalk turns it into a sequence of tasks, each tagged with the evidence behind it, ready to edit, print or export.

Evidence

Worksheets are a delivery format, not an instructional method; their effectiveness depends on what they make students do. Designed in line with cognitive load theory and multimedia principles (clear signalling, no extraneous decoration, words and images integrated rather than separated), they reduce working-memory cost and free attention for the actual task.

Evidence supports the design principles, not 'worksheets' as a category. A poorly-designed worksheet is still a poorly-designed worksheet.

Examples:

Mixed Activity Worksheet
Visual Keywords Sheet

Storyboard

Chunk knowledge

About Storyboard

Turn a story, a process or a sequence of events into numbered scenes with a picture each: drawn as one set, or icons, symbols or photos.

Evidence

Symbol-supported text is widely used in AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) and SEND practice to reduce reading load while preserving meaning. The cognitive rationale is dual coding plus reduced extraneous load: a familiar icon carries the gist faster than a string of unfamiliar words. Evidence is strongest for learners with communication needs and EAL learners.

  • Drager, Light & McNaughton (2010) - Effects of AAC interventions on communication and language for young children
  • ASHA - Augmentative and Alternative Communication (clinical evidence map)
Works best when
  • Sequencing a process or narrative that the class works through together
  • Each icon stands for one idea, with no decorative extras
  • Supporting access for pupils with communication needs, where the AAC evidence sits
Strongest evidence is for AAC and SEND populations. For typically-developing learners, treat icons as a supplement to text, not a replacement. Classroom trials of pictures alongside text (Banks et al., 2026) found larger effects at secondary than at primary and little evidence of benefit beyond a week.

Examples:

Storyboard Example

Text Map

Helps with oral rehearsal

About Text Map

Create visual story maps with symbols arranged in a winding path. Perfect for Talk for Writing and similar approaches where children memorise and retell texts.

Evidence

Text maps are the visual scaffold behind Pie Corbett's Talk for Writing approach: children orally rehearse a model text using a sparse symbol path, internalising its language patterns before writing their own version. The mechanism is well-grounded (oral rehearsal frees cognitive resources for composition), though most published evaluations are practitioner-led rather than RCT-based.

  • Corbett & Strong - Talk for Writing: official approach overview
  • EEF - Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 (oral rehearsal and modelled writing)
Talk for Writing has strong UK adoption and supportive case studies; large-scale RCT evidence specifically on the text-map component is limited.

Examples:

Text Map Example

Frayer Model

Helps build vocab

About Frayer Model

Create Frayer Model diagrams with definitions, characteristics, examples, and non-examples to build deeper vocabulary understanding.

Evidence

The Frayer Model forces learners to define a term, list its features, and crucially supply both examples and non-examples, pinning down concept boundaries that a definition alone leaves fuzzy. Originating in 1969 categorisation research, it has become a standard vocabulary scaffold and aligns directly with the example/non-example principles found in Direct Instruction.

Examples:

Frayer Model Example

Slides Creator

A lesson deck from one line

About Slides Creator

Say what the lesson is about. Chalk plans the deck with you, finds the pictures and writes a script for every slide, with retrieval to open, checks as you go and an exit ticket.

Evidence

Mayer's Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning gives slide design its empirical base: integrate words and pictures, cut extraneous detail (the 'coherence' principle), signal structure, and avoid redundant on-screen text being read aloud. Slides built on these principles consistently outperform decorated, text-heavy decks.

Evidence supports the design principles; the act of generating slides itself is not an instructional intervention.

Examples:

Slide Deck Example

Knowledge Organiser

One page per unit

About Knowledge Organiser

Make a one-page knowledge organiser for any unit: a big question, a map of how the ideas connect, vocabulary with meanings, numbered facts and the misconceptions to watch for. Every organiser comes with a quiz twin for self-testing.

Evidence

A knowledge organiser sets out what a class must know for a unit on one page. The evidence is for what the page enables rather than the page itself: advance organisers that bridge to prior knowledge improve retention, with the effect growing over weeks; instructor-provided graphic organisers help memory more than lists; and cover-and-recall self-quizzing from the page is retrieval practice. Overcrowded organisers and ones pupils merely copy out show no benefit.

Works best when
  • The page holds only knowledge the class will actually be tested on
  • Pupils self-quiz from it weekly: cover the meanings, pick a fact number
  • The "before" strip is checked against what the class really met last year
  • The map is read aloud as sentences, not scanned as a picture
There is no trial of knowledge organisers as such. The page works when it is curated hard and used for self-quizzing, "why" questions and re-organising, not when it is handed out and highlighted.

Graphic Organiser

Helps connect knowledge

About Graphic Organiser

Find ways to visualise your content. Creates custom layouts, colours, and connections based on your topic. Perfect for when you want maximum creative freedom.

Evidence

Graphic organisers externalise the structure of an idea (sequence, hierarchy, comparison) and reduce the working-memory cost of holding it all in mind. Meta-analyses across reading and content-area learning show consistent positive effects, particularly for lower-attaining students and for comprehension of expository text.

Examples:

Adaptive Layout

Timeline Creator

Helps develop chronology

About Timeline Creator

Create interactive timelines from any chronological content. Perfect for history lessons, project planning, scientific processes, and understanding sequences of events.

Evidence

Timelines externalise temporal sequence, freeing working memory and making cause-and-effect chains visible. In history education research, "thinking historically" depends on building chronological frameworks that new events can be hung on. The benefit comes from learners actively placing and justifying events, not from reading a finished timeline.

Examples:

Historical Timeline
Process Timeline

Visual Word Building

Helps build vocabulary

About Visual Word Building

Create visual word building activities that help students understand word structure through morpheme analysis. Split words into meaningful parts and build engaging learning materials.

Evidence

Morphological instruction (teaching prefixes, roots and suffixes as meaning-bearing units) has positive effects on decoding, spelling and vocabulary, with the largest gains for less able readers. A 22-study meta-analysis found benefits across age groups and stronger effects when morphology is integrated with broader literacy instruction.

  • Bowers, Kirby & Deacon (2010) - The effects of morphological instruction on literacy skills: A systematic review
  • Goodwin & Ahn (2013) - A meta-analysis of morphological interventions in English: Effects on literacy outcomes for school-age children

Examples:

Word Parts Activity
Sentence Building

Concrete Examples

Helps build conceptual understanding

About Concrete Examples

Create printable worksheets using the NPPPN sequence to teach categorical concepts. Help students distinguish between examples and non-examples with research-backed design principles.

Evidence

The NPPPN sequence (Negative, Positive, Positive, Positive, Negative) comes from Engelmann and Carnine's Theory of Instruction. By controlling what varies between examples, it isolates the critical features of a concept and prevents over-generalisation. Direct Instruction programmes built on these principles have one of the largest meta-analytic effect sizes in education research.

Examples:

Democracy Worksheet
Mammal Classification

Diagram Creator

Experimental

Helps explain how things work

About Diagram Creator

Generate a labelled diagram of a system, structure or process from a short description, then edit the labels and download it for your lesson.

Evidence

Diagrams that show how something works (a circuit, the water cycle, a cell) had the largest effect of any visual type in a 2026 meta-analysis of 56 randomised classroom studies, and text plus diagrams was also the most consistent effect across Mayer's multimedia research. Labels placed on the diagram itself, next to the part they name, do the linking that helps pupils connect the words to the picture.

  • Banks, Curran, Hall, Sims & Meliss (2026) - When and how to use visuals effectively: a meta-analysis of dual coding in the classroom (Ambition Institute, data on OSF)
  • Cromley & Chen (2025) - A meta-analysis of Richard Mayer's multimedia learning research: searching for boundary conditions of design principles across multiple media types
  • Mayer (1989) - Models for understanding (early evidence on labelled diagrams)
Works best when
  • Explaining a mechanism, structure or process, especially in science and technology
  • Talked through by the teacher, pointing to each labelled part as it is named
  • Secondary classes, where the classroom evidence is strongest

Map Generator

Experimental

Helps build spatial understanding

About Map Generator

Create interactive maps with custom themes and data visualisations. Perfect for geography, history, or any subject requiring spatial understanding.

Evidence

Maps support spatial reasoning and provide a stable visual anchor for events, ecosystems, or data. The pedagogical value depends on what students do with the map (interpretation, overlay, comparison), not on its existence. Interactive maps have been shown to help when they expose structure that static maps hide.

  • Hegarty (2011) - The cognitive science of visual-spatial displays: Implications for design
There is no large research base specific to AI-generated classroom maps. The supporting evidence is on map use and spatial cognition more broadly.

Examples:

Historical Map

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