Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities

1. Identify and describe 3 interesting/innovative ways blogs and/or wikis are being used in K-12 classrooms.

I found that there are seven concept maps, which there are four major categories of concept maps. This includes Spider Concept Map, Hierarchy Concept Map, Flowchart Concept Map and Systems Concept Map. They are distinguished by their different formats to represent the information. The other three are special concept maps, which include picture landscape concept map, multidimensional / 3-D concept maps and mandala concept map. The first great idea I found on Concept mapping is that it allows the students to brainstorm. This allows the students to generate ideas, which will help them if they are stuck trying to think of different things.


Another great idea is designing a complex structure when working with Concept Maps. Because of this, I found the different uses of concept maps, which makes it very helpful when using this in the classroom. The first one is assessing pre-knowledge, which is a great way for a teacher to find out what their students know. The second is assessing post-knowledge (checking learning, identifying misconceptions), which can help after learning something new in a lesson. The third is consolidation of the learner’s knowledge base, which summarize to reinforce understanding and learning (apply both to individual topics or overviers among topics). The fourth is helping text study, which can help a student when they are working on a chapter. The fifth is lesson planning, which can clarify concepts, decide teaching sequence, etc. The sixth and final is curriculum planning, which can help the teacher.

Another important idea I found on using Concept Mapping is how to make Concept Mapping a fruitful exercise. The first one is that people need practice in producing maps. The second is beginning with a simple topic, using a small number of concepts. The third is work through example(s) with the whole class, modifying the map when necessary. The fourth is emphasizing importance of thinking about all possible links. The fifth is emphasizing importance of writing down the nature of the links. The sixth is emphasizing that there is no single ‘correct’ answer, often more than on appropriate link. The seventh is emphasizing importance of using arrows and their direction in describing the proposition. The eighth and last one is the prestructured maps, the initial choice of words that could have a profound effect on people’s performance and can restrict levels of attainment.

2. Discuss what you see as the impact of the use of Concept mapping within your classroom might have on student learning? Give some details to support your statements.

I think that Concept mapping is a great idea to use in the classroom. The impact that it will have on students will be allowing the students to have multiple ways of using different concept maps in the classroom. It also allows the students to brainstorm when working on the concept map.

3. Discuss some criteria that you would use to decide whether or not Concept Mapping ac activities would be part of a lesson for your students.

Some criteria I would use to decide whether or not Concept Mapping activities would be part of a lesson for my students would be making sure that there isn’t just one main concept, but several concepts. I would also make sure that it is beneficial to the students learning and that they fully understand Concept Mapping before I incorporated it into a lesson.

Here is an example of Concept Map about Harry Potter created using Kidspiration.