COGNITIVE MAPPING

 INTRODUCTION

Concept mapping is a great way to build upon previous knowledge by connecting new information back to it. Concept maps work very well for classes or content that have visual elements or in times when it is important to see and understand relationships between different things. They can also be used to analyze information and compare and contrast. You create a concept map by writing key words (sometimes enclosed in shapes such as circles, boxes, triangles, etc.) and then drawing arrows between the ideas that are related. Then you add a short explanation by the arrow to explain how the concepts are related. Concept maps may be used by instructional designers, engineers, technical writers, and others to organize and structure knowledge

Concept maps are used to stimulate the generation of ideas, and are believed to aid creativity. Concept mapping is also sometimes used for brain-storming. Although they are often personalized and idiosyncratic, concept maps can be used to communicate complex ideas. Concept mapping was developed by Joseph D. Novak and his research team at Cornell University in the 1970s as a means of representing the emerging science knowledge of students. It has subsequently been used as a way to increase meaningful learning in the sciences and other subjects as well as to represent the expert knowledge of individuals and teams in education, government and business. Concept maps have their origin in the learning movement called constructivism. In particular, constructivists hold that learners actively construct knowledge.

 

BENEFITS OF CONCEPT MAPPING

 Concept maps are widely used in education because

• It facilitates note taking and summarizing gleaning key concepts, their relationships and hierarchy from documents and source materials

• New knowledge creation: like transforming tacit knowledge into an organizational resource, mapping           team knowledge

• Collaborative knowledge modeling and the transfer of expert knowledge

 • Facilitating the creation of shared vision and shared understanding within a team or organization

• Instructional design: concept maps used as Ausubelian “advance organizers” that provide an initial conceptual frame for subsequent information and learning.

• Training: concept maps used as Ausubelian “advanced organizers” to represent the training context and its relationship to their jobs, to the organization’s strategic objectives, to training goals.

 • Communicating complex ideas and arguments

• Enhancing metacognition (learning to learn, and thinking about knowledge).

 

PREPARATION

Before preparing a cognitive map we should be familiar with the unit and the concept related to it. We have to prepare a single unit into a map format and thus, every small details of the unit is important. There is main ideas, broad ideas and specific ideas in a cognitive map. So the detailed analysis of the unit is appropriate before preparing a cognitive map. A few open source mapping softwares are, Compendium, Freeplane, Wisemapping, Xmind, CMAP, VUE, and FREEMIND. Other concept mapping softwares includes, MindMeister, Ayoa, MindGenius, Milanote, Miro, Microsoft Visio, SmartDraw, Lucidchart, Coggle and Visme.

 I used mindomo app for concept mapping. Mindomo comes with many features to make your mind mapping journey as easy and pleasant as possible.  My first cognitive map is from plus two chemistry text book, Eighth unit "The d- and f- block elements". And the second cognitive map is from plus two physics text book fourteenth unit “Semiconductor Electronics: Materials, Devices and simple circuits”.

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