Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities!

I think it is important to include the various intelligences in one’s classroom. Students can learn visually by drawing out their ideas. These ideas can be expressed on computer programs. For example, a program like Paint would work quite well. It is easy, and it would give students the opportunity to draw out their ideas and add text.
When students create their maps, they need some form of organization. Students can create shapes to correlate with a concept. The students can connect these symbols with various lines and arrows. This gives students the opportunity to have visual organization. Other things include flow proofs, which are just bubbles moving in a horizontal fashion. Third, one can have the family tree approach, where the ideas are presented in a sort of hierarchy. The leaders, or older people are on top, then it shows where the rest of ideas relate with respect to the leaders.
After the students have created the visual representation, they need to express what they are visually writing. Many students will do this in essay for, so one must simply follow the steps on the concept map.

When students create their maps, they need some form of organization. Students can create symbols to correlate with a concept. The symbol will have some kind of direct relationship to the concept. In addition to the symbol, the student will briefly write what the symbol represents. The students can connect these symbols with various lines and arrows. This gives students the opportunity to have visual organization. This concept is often called the spider web approach.
Another way of using concept mapping is drawing a sort of flow proof. To connect ideas more linearly, a student may want to draw bubbles that go in one direction. At times, there may be several bubbles for the concept; in this case, the related ideas will be presented vertically. All of the ideas will move in a horizontal fashion, from left to right.
Concept mapping changes how students may view situations. Concept mapping can give students the opportunity to view a situation in a more abstract fashion. Instead of going through a list, a student will be able to see the many connections that are present within a concept. These broad connections can be more difficult to show if one is strictly writing.