Engaging Students with Concept Mapping

An Example of a Concept Map

1) Post a 3-5 paragraph summary of the 3-5 ideas you explored for how you could use Concept Mapping within your future classroom. Give your specific examples.

Concept Mapping is another tool a teacher can use when teaching their students about many different subjects. Concept Mapping is a way of organizing ideas; a way to start with a main idea and literally branch-out to other ideas that connect with the main idea. Some of the content areas I would use concept mapping with would include the Solar System, marine life, and use it with a civilizations unit.

As you can see, using one in a Solar System unit would help students see how our Solar System is connected. I would like to use a concept map before the actual content is taught, to see where the students are in their knowledge about the "place in space" we live. I would want to do something akin to what I did above: start with "Solar System" in the middle and write out ideas that the students come up with. If they are having trouble coming up with some connecting ideas, I would guide them along. Once we got some of the connecting ideas down, such as planets and the Sun, I would then see if they could go farther by listing the planets, or even grouping the planets by type (rocky and gas giants). Then, at the end of the Solar System unit, an assessment idea could come from building your own concept map.

The second idea I would like to use concept mapping for would be a "Marine Life" unit. This time, since the students would know what a concept map would be, I would use it as some form of formative assessment. One day in class, once we have gone through some of the material on marine life, I could have the students fill out a marine life concept map on the ideas, concepts, and more that we would have covered. I could have them work alone, in pairs, or in groups, depending on how the students are doing with the material.

The third idea I would like to use with concept mapping would be with a unit on civilizations. At the end of the unit, I would have a major project where students, in groups, will take what they have learned about civilizations and create their own civilization. How they would start this project would be with a concept map. By utilizing the concept map, they can get all the major elements that make up a civilization, and from there create their own. They could then further the concept map by adding in their own unique additions and explaining why the additions fit in with the concept of a civilization.

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

I can see concept mapping having a huge impact on student learning! Using a Concept Map can help us as educators see what our students know about a particular topic and can help us see how they think and connect the main topic with other topics. We can then use this information to modify lesson plans, to create lessons, or to ditch future lessons, depending on where most of the class falls in their knowledge of the topic. Also, using Concept Mapping can help students see how two topics they thought weren't connected are connected in some way. I can see myself using Concept Mapping in the future!

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

There are some criteria I would use to decide whether or not Concept Mapping activities would be a part of a lesson or not. Firstly, I would look at the content area. Is it English-related? Is it math-related? Is it science-related? Some content areas don't necessarily require the use of Concept Mapping, such as math (however, you can in some circumstances). Then, I would see what topic I would be teaching. Can it fit into the lesson? Do I already have enough activities? Lastly, I would look to see if I've done a concept map already. Is it too soon? Did students "get" the concept map? I would ask myself questions like this.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

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

One of the ways a blog/wiki can be used in the K-12 classroom is as a general information hub for class information, much like we did in our Teacher Web projects. In this way, when students are outside of class, they can access class materials, check out what work will be coming in the next week, and families can keep tabs on the homework and class-work their children are doing.

Another way a blog or wiki can be used in the K-12 classroom is as a jumping point to a higher grade. One blog I saw was “The First Year of College” and was an actual blog of a freshman college student, blogging their first year in college for everyone to read. This can be used in 12^th grade classrooms for students wanting to get a feel for how college life will be. It can be used to ask questions about that specific university/college, college life in general, the application process, and more.

One last way a blog or wiki can be used in the K-12 classroom is for collaborative projects with other classrooms around the country, or even the world. Two, three, or more teachers can get together with their classrooms and collaborate on projects together. Students could work with one another on these projects, even though they may live in different parts of the country/world. However, this would take an awful lot of planning and coordination to do well!

2) Describe how you might use RSS readers/aggregators within a classroom setting.

I would want to use the RSS readers/aggregators on websites that pertain to the subjects that we would go over in class. For example, if we were to go over the Solar System, Marin Life, and Civilizations of the World as some of our major subjects, I would want to find sites that pertained to those, with RSS feeds, and have them sent to a class e-mail system. The class would choose the top two sites for each subject and they would have access to these articles when doing research.

3) Describe at least 2 pros and 2 cons of using blogs and wikis in education.

One pro of using blogs and wikis in education is that it allows students access to new types of technology that they may not be used to or have never seen before. As our world goes forth into more and more technology, allowing students to experience these things that are new to us, or may be new, will help them be better prepared when newer and more efficient technologies come out. They will also be able to utilize these blogs and wikis for when they grow older, when they are out in the workforce, etc.

Another pro of using blogs and wikis in education is that it expands the number of tools we as teachers can use to educate our students! We can use them for projects, class-work, homework, and more. We can also use them for the general classroom use, as stated above in the first question. If we can utilize these tools correctly, it can complement our teaching rather nicely.

A con of using blogs and wikis in education is the time it takes to set up and maintain the blog and wiki. Setting up a blog or wiki takes no time at all. However, maintaining both while you may have other things going on in life outside of the classroom can become a huge hassle. I would not want to start a wiki or blog within the first few years of my teaching career until I figured my teaching style out first. However, that is a personal observation and others may feel differently.

Another con of using blogs and wikis is the fact that students may not have access to this information outside of class. Depending on where you end up teaching, some, most, or nearly all of your class may not have access to the Web outside of class and would not be able to get to your blog or wiki. This could pose problems for parents who won’t have access to important info they are suppose to read on the wiki/blog and pose problems for students who need to work on a project you may have posted on your wiki.

Teacher Web Project Critique

1) Describe and discuss the impacts your use of a class web site like the one we crated on Teacher Web might have on student learning, on student engagement, and communications with students and parents.

A class website, much like the one I created on Teacher Web, can have a huge impact on student learning, engagement, and communications with students and parents. A class website can help students learn and solidify information that they may have had trouble with in the past. By providing study quizzes, exams, and project reflections, a student can see what they are missing and what they are "getting". This can also be seen as student engagement. By posting a "Wish List", students can see what their classroom needs and volunteer to bring in those materials. Likewise, students can also suggest material that they may deem necessary for their classroom. A teacher web can also be used as a communication tool with students' families. Allowing parents/guardians a chance to see what is due for their child can help them keep their children on task, getting their homework done. Also, if they need to contact the teacher for any reason, an e-mail link is available on the teacher's website.



2) Identify and discuss what you see as the two biggest advantages of designing and using a classroom website within your teaching activities. Also, identify what you see as the biggest disadvantage of using a class website for instructional activities and why.

Two of the biggest advantages of designing and using a classroom website within my teaching activities are that I am helping students learn and use technology as well as providing a way for students to get connected with the world around them. By having a class website, I can allow students a way of getting on to a computer, and on to the Internet, and showing them some of the basic functions of computing, such as viewing and downloading files, moving from site to site, and more. Also, I am allowing students to branch out to the world around them by providing fun links for them to check out, to learn what they want to learn, to experience something new.

I believe the biggest disadvantage in using a class website for instructional activities is keeping the website up to date. Along with all of the teaching duties during the day, and the time a teacher has out of school for his/herself, family, and other school-related activities, keeping a website up-to-date can be another task that may be left on the back-burner to allow teachers to get done what they need to get done. Adding on another responsibility such as this can lead to a teacher burning out, or ditching the Teacher Web altogether.