Concept Map

(Joel G)

Rationale

     Activities that help students in nonlinguistic processing include creating graphic representations and generating metal pictures (Marzano, p.35).  Furthermore, research shows that student use of nonlinguistic representations such as graphic organizers and concept maps produces significant percentile gains for students (p.37).  Therefore, the use of concept maps within the classroom will increase content area literacy in students.

Procedure

A.  The teacher chooses a concept that students will focus on for that day.  He/she will write the concept in the middle of the white board and circle it.  Students will do the same in their notes.

a. An example of this in a social studies classroom would be the concept of "Types of Crime" in a criminal justice unit.

B.  The teacher asks students to produce subcategories for the concept written on the white board.  Those subcategories that are agreed upon by the class are placed on the white board as links to the original concept, but stand alone as their own subcategory.

b.  Three subcategories for "Types of Crime" would be: Crimes Against People, Crimes Against Property, and Victimless Crimes.

C.  The subcategories are discussed as a class to check student understanding.

D.  Students are assigned a partner and asked to produce as many links to each subcategory as they can.  As students think of links to subcategories, they will add them to thier concept maps.

d.  For instance, the subcategory of Crimes Against Property should now be linked with examples of the subcategory.  Some examples of Crimes Against Property that could be linked to it on the concept map would be burglary, arson, and vandalism. 

E. The class will come back together as a large group and share links to the subcategories, creating a full, class concept map on the white board.  Students can add to their concept map as students share their ideas.

References 

 Marzano, R. J. (2007). The Art and Science of Teaching. Alexardria: Association for Supervision

and Curriculum Development.

Other Procedures

...to do by others...Concept Maps can be a little intimidating for middle schoolers when it comes to figuring out what is appropriate to put down.  Therefore a modeilng