Teaching Thinking Skills

CMaps

A concept map is a diagram showing the relationships between concepts. Concepts, like "tree" or "plant", are connected with labelled arrows, for example ("is-a", "related-to" or "part of"). The addition of labeled and flexible links (attached during or after construction) has been found to significantly improve the level of meaningful learning and communication of the concept mapper.

Concept maps are widely used in education for

  • brainstorming
  • Increasing meaningful learning
  • Communicating complex ideas and arguments
  • Enhancing metacognition (learning to learn)
  • Enhancing memory
  • Improving language ability

Indeed, empirical research has verified the efficacy of concept maps for these tasks.

Novak concluded that "Meaningful learning involves the assimilation of new concepts and propositions into existing cognitive structures".

(From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_map )

While it is tempting to allow students to not use labels on the links between concepts, the labelling plays a significant role in the construction of knowledge and thus is a vital step in learning. 

Game Creation

As students begin to use the software for creating their games they will face many difficulties, challenges and problems.  Students should be strongly encouraged to tackle simple games first, otherwise there is a danger that their problems may become insurmountable and they will give up.  It is vital to discuss with students a range of strategies for going about solving their problems.

eg refer back to the instructions, look for an example of where a similar problem has been solved in another game, try looking at it a different way, talk about the problem with a partner, ask other class members or a mentor, post the problem on an online forum, find another way to do the same thing....

Students should be encouraged to write about their problems and how they solved them in their journal.

Change that Game!

This activity is an opportunity for students to show higher levels of critical analysis and thinking.