Meaningful learning occurs by integrating new information into your prior knowledge. The use of concept maps is a didactic strategy that can be used in evaluation because it is useful for evaluating the student's knowledge.
In other words, concept maps are an excellent basis for self-assessment because they allow the development of critical thinking and autonomous learning skills. The Concept Map is applied in teaching, learning and evaluation.
In teaching it is used to present information in a visual way, offers an overview, highlights important ideas, provides sequencing of content and can be used as a preliminary organizer.
In learning, as it is a process of development, it allows teamwork, requires intellectual effort, awakens affective involvement, promotes responsibility, favors the organization of ideas and stimulates creativity.
And in the evaluation, it is used for the assessment of knowledge, showing the degree of initial knowledge and the degree of learning; it reveals understanding and misconceptions and enables awareness of meanings. All of this favors making sense of the programmatic contents necessary to achieve meaningful learning. The course is designed in a very simple way where the teacher will carry out activities and guided examples that will allow them to exercise and internalize the process.
The teacher through Concept Maps can provide feedback to the student about the successes and failures that they have (relationships of the scheme that each of the students has made with respect to the content), it also allows them to see some aspects that serve as a basis for eliminate possible misunderstandings.
If we recognize that some of the main aspects of the use of concept maps in teaching are the detection of misconceptions and the recognition of a certain level of learning, then there may be a reasonable expectation that the concept maps are considered a reliable method, for teachers, when integrating the assessment and instruction of our students. Concept Maps allow diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses of students.
It can also be used at the time of formative assessment: when the student makes significant learning and returns to develop a new map, it is very easy to assess the improvements in the degree of significance of the ideas.
On the other hand, the structure of the mental map tries to be an expression of the functioning of the global brain with its associative mechanisms that favor irradiating thinking in the specific field of information reception, retention, analysis, evocation and control. The stimulation of this thought is enhanced with the use of color, images and symbols.
Creativity and imagination contribute to all this. The mind map, then, enhances the capacity for memorization, organization, analysis and synthesis. It is useful for any activity in which thought is involved, and that requires proposing alternatives and making decisions.
We can synthesize the meaning of mind maps stating that they are a graphic representation of an integral and global learning process that facilitates the unification, diversification and integration of concepts or thoughts to analyze and synthesize them in a growing and organized structure, made with images, colors., words and symbols ».
Elements of Concept Maps
The elements of Concept Maps are fundamental aspects that must be taken into account when preparing Concept Maps are the following:
- The concepts: That word that is used to designate a certain image of an object or an event that occurs in the mind of an individual, through a term: they are examples of concepts. Prepositions: They consist of two or more conceptual terms joined by linking words to form meaningful sentences, are examples of propositions. Link words: They are used to unite the concepts and to indicate the type of relationship that is established between them: where, for, how, with, by, among others; are examples of linking words.
Importance of concept maps
1. They promote the student's meta-knowledge
The visualization of the relationships between concepts in the form of a concept map and the need to specify these relationships allow the student to more easily become aware of their own ideas and their inconsistencies.
2. Extracting the meaning from textbooks
Concept maps help the learner to make the key concepts or propositions to be learned more evident, while suggesting connections between new knowledge and what the student already knows. It is necessary to work with the students to draw together an outline of a map with the key ideas of a section or chapter.
3. Instruments to negotiate meanings
Cognitive meanings cannot be transferred to the student as a blood transfusion is given. To learn the meaning of any knowledge it is necessary to dialogue, exchange, share and, sometimes, reach a compromise.
Students always bring something of themselves to the negotiation; they are not an empty tank to be filled. Just as a labor consultant can help approximate the labor and business side of a negotiation, concept maps are useful to help students negotiate meanings with their teachers and with their peers.
4. Tool to illustrate conceptual development
Once students have acquired the basic skills necessary to construct concept maps, they can select six or eight key concepts that are fundamental to understanding the topic or area to be covered, and require students to construct a map that relates these concepts, then adding other relevant additional concepts that connect to the previous ones to form propositions that make sense. After three weeks, students may be surprised to find the extent to which they have elaborated, clarified and related concepts in their own cognitive structures. There is nothing that has a greater motivational impact in stimulating meaningful learning than the demonstrated success of a student making substantial gains in her own meaningful learning.
5. They promote cooperative learning
They help students understand their leading role in the learning process. They foster cooperation between the student and the teacher, focusing the effort on building shared knowledge, and creating a climate of mutual respect and cooperation.
6. Assessment instrument
The development of concept maps makes it possible to design tests that assess whether the students have analyzed, synthesized, related and assimilated the new knowledge.
Illustrative Table No. 1 exemplifies the most important characteristics that must be considered when building, using and / or evaluating a concept map.
Table No. 1
Structure of the conceptual map
On the other hand, concept maps are a synthesis of the most important points of a topic, starting with the most general ideas. If this idea can be separated into two or more concepts, these concepts must be placed on the same line. It should continue in this way until all the concepts have been accommodated. Subsequently, lines should be used to join the concepts. Lowercase linking words must be written on the line indicating the relationship between these concepts.
In the illustrative figure No. 2, the synthesis of the information handled in this report is illustrated in the form of a concept map, in it, it can be observed, in a concept map like a spider's web, how can be linked through prepositions concepts and elements that you want to highlight on a specific topic.
Table No. 2
Utility and function of concept maps
Dr. Tony Buzan (creator of the method of "mind maps", as a learning tool) began to warn in the 1960s when he gave his lectures on the psychology of learning and memory, since he observed that he himself had discrepancies between the theory he was teaching and what he was actually doing, motivated by the fact that his "class notes were the traditional linear notes, which ensure the traditional amount of forgetting and the no less traditional amount of frustrated communication."
In this case, Dr. Buzan was using such notes for his lectures and lectures on memory and was pointing out to his students that the two main factors in evocation were association and emphasis. In this sense, Dr. Buzan raised the question that his notes could help him to highlight and associate themes, allowing him to formulate an embryonic concept of mental mapping. His subsequent studies on the nature of information processing and on the structure and functioning of the brain cell, among other studies related to the subject, confirmed his original theory, being the birth of mind maps.
The Mind Mapping method
The mind map is a technique that allows organization and the way of representing information in an easy, spontaneous, creative way, in the sense that it is assimilated and remembered by the brain. Likewise, this method allows ideas to generate other ideas and to see how they connect, relate and expand, free from the demands of any form of linear organization.
It is an expression of radiant thought and a natural function of the human mind. It is a powerful graphic technique that offers the means to access the potential of the brain, allowing it to be applied to all aspects of life since an improvement in learning and a greater clarity of thoughts reinforce the work of man.
The mind map has four essential characteristics, namely:
- The subject or motive of attention, crystallizes in a central image. The main subjects of the subject radiate from the central image in a branching form. The branches comprise an image or a keyword printed on an associated line. The minor points are also represented as branches attached to the higher level branches. The branches form a connected nodal structure.
In addition to these characteristics, mind maps can be improved and enriched with colors, images, codes and dimensions that add interest, beauty and individuality, promoting creativity, memory and the evocation of information.
When a person works with mind maps, he can relax and let his thoughts arise spontaneously, using any tool that allows him to remember without having to limit them to the techniques of linear, monotonous and boring structures.
For the elaboration of a mental map and taking into consideration the essential characteristics, the matter or motive for attention must be defined by identifying one or several Basic Organizing Ideas (IOB), which are key concepts (words, images or both) from which it is possible starting to organize other concepts, in this sense, a mind map will have as many IOBs as required by the «mental cartographer».
They are the key concepts, those that congregate around them the largest number of associations, being an easy way to discover the main IOB in a given situation.
In the illustrative figure No. 3, the synthesis of the information handled in this report is illustrated in the form of a concept map, in it, it can be observed, in a spider web-like concept map, how can be linked through prepositions concepts and elements that you want to highlight on a specific topic.
Conclusions
A concept map is a schematic resource to represent a set of conceptual meanings included in a structure of propositions that aims to represent the significant relationships between the concepts of content (external) and knowledge of the subject.
Different authors affirm that, from the studies carried out, it appears that concept maps can be used for the teaching of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics at any level, from Primary Education to University, and their use is It has been shown to be effective in organizing information on a topic in a way that facilitates understanding and remembering the concepts and the relationships established between them.
They are also useful as a guide to generate discussion about the content studied, to reinforce important ideas and to provide information to the teacher about the quality of learning that is being generated in the classroom context.
Another area of knowledge, this author continues, in which some experiences applying concept maps have also been carried out in recent years is that of social sciences, in which their use has a relevant value since it allows to discuss and negotiate meanings and their relationships, and also plan learning with the objective of understanding, not based on simple repetition.
Finally, it points out that, regarding the different educational levels, the experiences carried out show concept maps as an appropriate and valuable procedure for teaching and learning conceptual content at all levels of compulsory and post-compulsory education.
For its part, a mental map, origins, precursors, concept and technique, a series of conclusions can be mentioned:
- Both hemispheres of the brain are used, stimulating the balanced development of the same It stimulates the brain in all its areas, motivated to actively participate with all its methods of perception, associating ideas, images, phrases, memories, etc. It stimulates the creativity of the being human because it has no limits in its design. It is an effective and dynamic tool in the learning and information acquisition process. It breaks paradigms with respect to structured and linear learning methods. They can be used in all aspects of daily life., both personally, as well as family, social and professional.
