The visual nature of bansho facilitates students’ engagement in different ways.
Firstly, speech information is transformed into text information, from teachers’ or pupils’ spoken utterances to writings on the board. The move of transforming audio into visual forms allows ideas that “used to build up in the air” (Lewis, 2014) to be preserved in a tangible space, the board. Ideas sustained on a common artefact allow students to revisit earlier discussions and to follow along easily.
Secondly, ideas on the board can be connected using highlighters such as arrows, circles and lines. The connection can be made by teachers without interrupting the flow of discussion.