About
the Cover
From the Editor
Using Concept Maps
Supervision: Vision and Leadership
If We Provide It,
Will They Come?
Training Cooperating Teachers
Beyond
A Non-Directive
Approach to Clinical Application
Using Marzano’s Nine Strategies to Guide the Supervision Process
Submission Guidelines
Using Concept Maps to Promote Student Teachers' Growth and Success
Raymond W. Francis and Elizabeth Knepper-Muller
Concept maps provide an outstanding avenue to promote the growth and success of student teachers. These visual maps provide a unique pictorial representation of an individual's understanding of concepts and ideas, and promote communication and success throughout the entire student teaching process. They serve as a direct measure of an individual's understanding of a problem or idea. Concept maps provide an avenue for student teachers to demonstrate proficiency in their performance as well as areas for improvement in all facets of being a teacher. In addition, concept maps can be effectively incorporated into the conferencing and goal setting areas of the student teaching experience. They provide an outstanding avenue to promote effective communication and to resolve contested areas between student teachers and cooperating teachers.
Literature Review
The use of concept maps is not new. Concept maps have been used for many years, with published research on the topic including studies from the 1980s. Toms-Boronowski's (1983) study linked the improvement of student performance to the use of concept mapping. Margosian, Pascaralle, & Pflaum (1982) demonstrated that students using graphic organizers retained and used vocabulary terms more frequently than students not involved with graphic organizers, and Pittleman, Levin, & Johnson (1985) demonstrated that significant differences in learning and application of major concepts existed between students using graphic organizers and those who did not use a form of graphic organizer in their studies.
Research and applications from these early works has grown in many directions. Recent research in the use of concept maps includes Health (Tortora, 2002), Business (Novak, 2003), Philosophy (Steup & Sosa, 2005), Teacher Education (Haenisch, 2005; Schön, 1984), Geography (Strahler, 2005), School Administration (McEwan, 2003), Biology (Crowther & Cannon, 1998), Political Science (Johnson & Reynolds, 2005), Communication (Pehler, 2005), and many others.
However, a review of published literature reveals that concept maps have been overlooked as effective communication tools in the supervision of student teachers. In addition, concept maps have been neglected as strategies in the examination of knowledge and understanding by teacher education candidates. Recent research indicates the growth and development of novice teacher is readily evidenced through the analysis of terms and ideas represented in concept maps (Francis, 2006).
Understanding Concept Maps
Concept maps fit into one of the many classes of visual organizers.
Visual organizers include such forms as flow charts, cluster webs,
T-charts, attribute maps, sequence charts, story maps, and many others.
Each of these particular visual organizers can play an important
role in the classroom. However,
concept maps provide a particularly meaningful set of uses in the student
teaching experience.
Concept maps are typically constructed by students to represent an
idea or concept. Normally,
there is a central idea or prompt being used as a focal point of the
concept map, for example classroom management.
Student teachers then generate terms connected to the central idea
for the expanding levels of the concept map. Each succeeding level away
from the central topic becomes more factual and less general.
Chart 1 is a sample concept map for a student teacher prior to starting the student teaching experience.
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Chart 1:
Sample 1 concept map on classroom management (pre-student teaching) |
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Concept maps can reveal several things about a student teacher. A "breadth of understanding" can be demonstrated by the number of entries attached to a particular term. In Chart 1 there are seven topics connected to the main topic (Classroom Management). These Level 1 entries demonstrate an above average number of entries in a pre-student teaching concept map (Francis, 2006). However, there are few entries connected to each of the Level 1 entries. This indicates the student teacher is not demonstrating a "depth on knowledge" on the topic.
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Chart 2: Sample 2 of a concept map (pre-student teaching) |
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By comparison, Chart 2 is a concept map from a different student teacher that demonstrates a different level of understanding. This map also shows seven entries at Level 1. However, there are many more Level 2 and Level 3 entries throughout the artifact. In addition, this map demonstrates at least two connections between separate Level 1 and Level 2 entries. This map indicates a student teacher with a good "breadth of understanding" of the topic, as well as a sufficient "depth of knowledge" to enable the student teacher to understand and grow in their management of their classroom.
Promoting Professional Growth in the Classroom
Concept maps provide a clear view of student teachers' understanding of ideas and concepts related to a career as a teacher. Some areas where concept maps are particularly useful are in planning for instruction, assessment of students, and in the understanding of content.
In planning for instruction, there are many decisions to be made by the teacher. These include, but are not limited to, decisions about what content to teach, which instructional strategies to use, how to break down the content into manageable segments, and how to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners. Concept maps can provide guidance in all these areas.
By completing a concept map on a particular lesson the student teacher can come to visualize the lesson and all the important aspects that need to be addressed for instruction and learning to be meaningful. Content can be segmented into manageable parts and the appropriate instructional and assessment strategies identified early in the planning process. The mapping process can also be used to encourage student teachers to explore alternatives to their own preferred strategies and experiment with new ideas and methods in the classroom.
Promoting Professional Relationships
One of the biggest problem areas in the supervision of student teachers is the area of effective communication between cooperating teachers, student teachers, and university supervisors. The effective use of concept maps can enhance communication between individuals, and clarify the expectations for specific lessons, assignments, and tasks. Through the use of concept maps all participants use similar language and develop a common understanding of ideas and concepts.
Effective Uses of Concept Maps in the Supervision Process
Concept maps have another particular use in the context of student teaching. That is in the area of conferencing with cooperating teachers, student teachers, and university supervisors. From time to time difficult topics need to be discussed in the supervision triad (student teacher, cooperating teacher, and university supervisor), and concept maps provide a framework and workspace for the discussion to take place. The concept map can be used as a conference template developed by any member of the triad, and shared during the conference. The initial map can then be added to and revised through discussion and conversation.
Alternately, the concept map can be developed during the conference
by selecting a topic or idea. All
participants then share ideas and provide input to develop a common, and
accepted, framework for understanding an idea, problem, or situation.
It is the responsibility of the university supervisor to facilitate
the discussion and ensure that everyone participates in the development of
the concept map.
In both instances, all members of the triad participate throughout
the conference process and develop a better and deeper understanding of
the problem, and possible solutions. In
this way, concept maps provide the avenue to help student teachers,
cooperating teachers, and university supervisors to better work together
and positively impact learning in the classroom and by the student
teacher.
Conclusions
Concept maps have the potential to have a meaningful and positive impact on the supervision process. The process of developing concept maps can help student teachers to demonstrate understanding of a topic or idea, and to eventually extend their understanding through the student teaching experience. Concept maps can assist in clarifying assignments, content, expectations, schedules, and many other items within the student teaching experience. However, the most important use of concept maps may be in the conferencing process engaged in by the supervision triad and in the understandings and common expectations developed by effectively communicating problems and solutions between the cooperating teacher, university supervisor, and student teacher.
References
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Using concept maps as assessment tools: defining understanding. Published in July 2006 Issue of College
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Hyerle, D. (1995). Thinking maps. Innovative Learning Group.
Johnson, J.B., & Reynolds, H.T. (2004). Political Science Research Methods. CQ Press (5th Ed.).
Margosein, C.M., Pascarella, E.T., and Pflaum, S.W.(1982). The effects of
instruction using semantic mapping on vocabulary and comprehension.
Paper presented at the annual Meeting of the American Educational
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McEwan, E.K. (2003). Ten traits of highly effective principals. Corwin Press.
Novak, J.D. (2003).The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How To Construct Them, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, University of West Florida.http://cmap.coginst.uwf.edu/info
Pehler, S.R. (2005). Concept maps as a tool for learning standardized languages.International Journal of Nursing Terminologies and Classifications. 14(4), S39(3).
Pittleman, D.D., Levin, K.M.,
& Johnson, D.D. (1985)) An investigation of two instructional settings in the use of semantic mapping with poor
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Schon, D.A. (1984). The reflective
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Steup, M. and Sosa, E. (eds.
2005). Contemporary Debates in Epistemology.
Strahler, A. (2005). Physical Geography. John Wiley & Sons, 4th Ed.
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Tortora, S.R. (2002). Principles of Anatomy and Physiology. John Wiley & Sons Inc.