Learn at a Distance

“A map is the greatest of all epic poems. Its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.” – Gilbert H. Grosvenor

Concept Mapping – a technique for graphically organizing and representing information that includes core concepts, relationships between and among concepts and explanations of those relationships.

Concept mapping is a method of brainstorming but can also be used as an assessment tool. The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them by Novack & Canas (2008) describes concept maps in the following way:

Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. They include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships between concepts indicated by a connecting line linking two concepts. Words on the line, referred to as linking words or linking phrases, specify the relationship between the two concepts. We define concept as a perceived regularity in events or objects, or records of events or objects, designated by a label. The label for most concepts is a word, although sometimes we use symbols such as + or %, and sometimes more than one word is used. Propositions are statements about some object or event in the universe, either naturally occurring or constructed. Propositions contain two or more concepts connected using linking words or phrases to form a meaningful statement. Sometimes these are called semantic units, or units of meaning. Figure 1 shows an example of a concept map that describes the structure of concept maps and illustrates the above characteristics.

Further Reading

Novak, J.D. (2009). Learning, creating, and using knowledge: concept maps as facilitative tools in schools and corporations (2nd ed.). Routledge.