Engaging Students with Concept Mapping

Here is an example of a concept map.

1. Concept mapping is a great place start with writing. Whether it is a research paper or a creative free write, concept mapping allows the students to come focus what they want to write about, but also gives them the chance to brain storm ideas and explore options they may have not come up with on their own. For example your class is doing a report on an animal. In the concept map you do as a class you could come up with different reptiles, mammals, and all other sorts of things. Maybe the students will come up with things such as different habitats, or diets, and allow to students to come up ideas and that are more organized because as a class they got a chance to decided how to put their report on an animal together.

Another way a concept map could be used is to come up with different types of things in one category and help those thoughts be organized. An example of this would be a recipe project. Each student would have to write out a recipe but it would be helpful as a class to come up with different types a food and then go over the steps necessary to make a recipe. The ingredient list then giving clear and concise steps that allow for a successful ending product when cooking.

Concept maps are also excellent for checking what children already know. If you are beginning a geometry unit it would be good to test the class’s knowledge of shapes. For example do they know that a square and rectangle are both quadrilaterals and parallelograms? And how they relate each shape to each other, do they understand there are categories of shapes. From there you could then teach students how shapes are organized and what constitutes any specific shapes.

2. Using a concept maps allows the students to teach each other and give other ideas to each other in the correct way. It also gives the teacher a formative assessment to figure of what needs to be addressed or reintroduced to the students. If students completely miss an important topic then the teacher is aware of what needs to be taught. Students also teach each other through concept maps. Students are more likely to remember information shared by other students.

3. Concept mapping should only be used on assignments and projects that a lot time should be spent on, and require a lot of planning and before thought to the topic. Concepts maps are also good for organizing and sorting ideas for papers and stories. If a project does not require these things a concept would probably not be the best a good use of time.