Posts Tagged 'Concept Map'

Graphic Organizer and Student Writing

Published March 31, 2008 Accountability , Achievement , Assessment , assessment for learning , Concept Map , Formative , Formative assessment , Graphic Organizer 5 Comments
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This semester has reaffirmed that students who complete a graphic organizer are better essay writers. They have pre-organized their ideas and many even do a quick check to verify that everything fits where it should and there are no duplicates of the same idea. They are not “winging” it. When students write down random ideas and call it an outline, their writing gets very random.
Next semester, I am going to go even heavier on the graphic organizer. I will only accept their essays if they have completed their thesis statement, three pieces of evidence and the supporting details on their graphic organizer. For some writing assignments, I have elongated a graphic organizer to cover two pages so that they do not run out of writing space. Most of the students who had learning gaps this semester had thinking learning gaps; they did not have enough evidence or they did not have details to support their thesis. Some students had grammar learning gaps but even then I could understand their ideas or lack of ideas.

I want to reduce their revisions or rather make their revisions to change from being proficient to above proficient instead of going from below proficient to barely proficient. I hope to raise the bar for them.

Student Checkpoints: Great for Diagnosis and Feedback

Published March 7, 2008 Accountability , Achievement , Assessment , assessment for learning , Checklist , Checkpoint , Concept Map , Formative , Formative assessment , formative feedback , Graphic Organizer , Research , Research paper , write , Writing 1 Comment
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My college students are starting the research paper phase of the writing course. I have built in many checkpoints for the first few classes. They are to show me their thesis that they could select from a page and a half listing or make up their own. I helped about 25% complete or modify their thesis. Many selected the questions such as “Should the government provide child day care centers for working parents?” but they did not put in their position such as “The government should provide child day care centers for working parents”.

Next I asked them to complete a graphic organizer of what they think the possible supporting topics are and to show it to me. About 20% have put down topics that do not support the thesis but are a variation on the topic. In fact, they modify their thesis after re-examining their topics. One student has “Gays should be admitted into the military” but for his topics he has “distinguished military record”, “daily duties”, “friendships”, and “advancement”. He modifies his thesis to “Gays deserve equal treatment in the military”

The more times we build in checkpoints, the more we can diagnose and give formative feedback to our students.

How many checkpoints do you have in the unit you are presently teaching?

Concept Maps Create Focus

Published February 7, 2008 Academic , Achievement , Assessment , assessment for learning , Concept Map , write , Writing Leave a Comment
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Many of my Composition students have said that they have the most problems in deciding on a topic.  I think that they cannot get a handle on a topic.  I had them use a technique last night that I call “Try it for three minutes.”  We were doing cause and effect writing. I gave them a list of topics and asked them to pick any topic that seemed somewhat interesting to them. Then I asked them to spend three minutes to complete a graphic organizer for either causes or effects. There was a bubble for the topic and then three big rectangles (one for each category) and then three smaller rectangles for each category (for the examples).  If they did not like the results, they could pick another topic. Almost every student had the topic, categories and many of the examples in three minutes.  They could see what they had and what they needed. They could see the connection among their ideas.  They all said that they would write about the topic for which they had just completed the concept map.  Sometimes students think aimlessly; a concept map focuses their thinking.

How do you use concept maps to focus your students’ learning

Where are Multiple Concept Maps For Paragraph Writing?

Published January 6, 2008 Academic , Achievement , Assess , Assessment , Compare and contrast , Comparison , Concept Map , ELA , English , narrative , write , Writing Leave a Comment
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Maybe I am forgetting my good web research skills but I cannot find a website that lists the various types of writing and the concept maps that support each type of writing. I can find general concept map sites and I can find a lesson plan for a particular concept map for a specific type of writing. I’m trying to give my students two different concept maps for each type of writing. For example, for narrative writing I have a time line concept map and a  downward sequencing concept map.   For compare and contrast  I have similarities/differences boxes and  a point by point /topic analysis chart. My hope is that one of these two will appeal to my students so that they will be better able to organize their ideas and, therefore, write better.

What sites do you know that offering various concept maps for each type of paragraph writing?

Concept Maps – Yours or the Students’ Learning

Published November 28, 2007 Academic , Accountability , Achievement , Concept Map , Constructivism , Student , Teacher , Web Leave a Comment
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Some high school teachers were sharing the success of using concept maps in their classes. These teachers had created their concept maps in Inspiration. They were proud that their students could complete the concept maps.

I wonder if they had their students create their own concept map from scratch. Do they allow students to select which type concept map they will use to display their learning? Do they allow their students the growth opportunity to decide what to include on the map? Do they allow students to work through the creation of the concept map as they learn information or concepts over time? Do they allow students to own their own learning instead of doing a “fill-in-the-blank” type of teacher given concept map?

What experiences have you had with your students creating their own concept maps?

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