Engaging Students with Concept Mapping

1. Some ideas for concept mapping:
· Plant life
· Animal Kingdoms
· Solar System
· Family Tree
· Reflection on assigned book
2. Concept mapping software will impact a class because it allows students to be active with their learning. It also allows students to be creative with new media tool. It is a way to organize and arrange their thoughts and ideas. You are able to take a large lesson unit and break it down into smaller pieces to help identify main parts. You could place students in groups and have each of them compare and contrast their maps that are on the same topic. You could also use concept mapping to do a jigsaw activity, and have students create one on their own on a reading and then have them create new groups to discuss what the their article was about.
3.I feel that concept mapping could be very useful in the classroom setting. It may take a little while for the students to understand all the components to the program, but once the students have it down the program could be used in various lessons and in many different ways. I totally feel that taking the time to learn the program would be worthwhile for the students. It may also take time for me to feel comfortable to integrate it into the classroom, so on my end I would want to take a few weeks to really get it down and understand so I am able to answer any kind of questions the students may have.

Teacher Web Critiques

Teacher Web Critiques

1.I feel that having a class web site could be a beneficial tool. If any student has any type of questions about an assignment they can easily refer to the website for guidance. If any student were to lose their handouts or homework, all the assignments can be found on the website. They are also able to use the class site to see upcoming events, announcements, and projects so that they can better prepare themselves.


2.Students can use the class web site to see and understand the parts of assignments that they might be struggling in so they can improve. A second way students could use a class web site to enhance their learning and provide some justifications is by tracking their own grades. There is an online database with their grades, by typing in their ID numbers each student is able to see their scores for every assignment.



3.The strongest features of the Teacher Web is the About Me page because it allows students to see their teacher outside of the classroom and get an idea of who they truly are. It can be hard for students to realize that their teachers have a life outside of the classroom. The second strongest feature of the Teacher Web I feel would be the web resources page. Having this page allows the students to have a direct link to helpful sources for projects, and homework.