There are several issues involved in learning to play the pedals. First you have to learn how to sit on and organ bench and keep your balance while you move your feet around on the pedals, so the first thing I do with a new student is just have them play single notes to get used to the feeling. (I try not to laugh when they look like they're going to fall off the bench!)
I teach my students both early and modern technique, so they have to learn two different ways of playing the notes--one, by pivoting at the ankle so you can play with both heels and toes, and the other with the bench a little higher and playing with the toes, both sides of the foot, and allowing the knees to move. These motions are strange at first and take some getting used to, so I have them use exercises using both heels and toes to loosen up the ankles (I still do them, at 45 years old, to warm up) and learn how to use the feet to play just one note at a time (at first it's difficult not to play several notes when you put your foot down!) The most difficult thing to do as a teacher is to break down the motions into easily digestible steps, but this is how it has to be done.
As far as looking goes, there are two approaches to this. I learned from the John Stainer method, which teaches you to feel for the spaces between the groups of black notes to orient yourself. I still do this on a strange pedalboard, and I find it very useful, though I have had teachers who criticized the extra motion. Some people learn to instinctively find the notes, and this works fine unless you're playing a historic, non-standard pedalboard. In that case, my "feeling around" method serves me exceptionally well. For instance, the 1800 Tannenberg in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has a two octave pedalboard spread out into about the space of a modern pedalboard that goes up to f or g. This means that at the top of the pedalboard, the notes feel like their displaced by as much as a fourth or so. However, I can quickly adjust to this if I feel for the spaces, particularly the space between tenor d# and f#.