Sinatra suggests that concept maps can have a very positive
effect on student comprehension if modeled in a supportive manner. The key aspects to understanding texts are to
be able to identify the text structure (themes and subthemes), transpose the
themes to a visual representation, and have students highly involved with
teacher-led modeling. Involving the
students such that the students are doing most of the work is the critical
component of the lesson. To aid the
student to be able to do this activity, it may be necessary to have students,
as a class, develop ideas and those ideas to be formed into topic
sentences. As the students become
proficient, the work can become more individual.
The key teaching skill elaborated in this article is the
need to have the student do the learning.
In previous readings, I have talked about the level of engagement is an
important factor, but this reading is really emphasizing the value of cognitive
development through personal experience and observing good behaviors. In many ways, this article was saying that students
learn from doing and not from being solely instructed.
In science education, this methodology is quite common. In general, students must learn a large
number of new terms and incorporate those terms in such a way that a logical
conclusion can be made. In order to
achieve this outcome, the students must receive scaffolding to understand the terminology
and the larger idea must be modeled so that misconceptions are not developed
and frustration does not become overwhelming.
Due to these reasons, concept maps are quite common in textbooks and as
tools for students to learn essential concepts.
I agree that in science there are so many terms that students need to learn that it may even be daunting to them. whetehr it is in chemistry or biology, concept maps are extremelyh useful to science education.
ReplyDeleteConcept mapping and graphic organizers seem like a natural way to teach and learn science to me, however, as you point out, it is important for teachers to explicitly teach their students how to do this. Oftentimes, the information is already provided in this format to students, but it may not be personally useful to them. They need to be taught how to create organizers that will make the information useful to them as a unique learner. I think if I had been explicitly taught these tactics, I would have been more interested in science as a learner because I could have better arranged information in a way that made sense to me.
ReplyDeleteI would have been dead in physics without some concept mapping--dealing with abstract ideas like centripetal force and other terrible things of that nature (sorry, I'm afraid my physics bias is creeping through) was made so much easier by the fact that the lectures I watched first demonstrated a concept in action and then required that I draw up the concept in relation to others I had learned. I thought of English and writing first when I read Sinatra's article (can't escape my disciplines, I suppose), but of course science is the best place I can think of in which to find a useful concept map.
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