Give students a thought and they'll learn for a day.
Teach them to think, and they'll learn for a lifetime.
Motto from Thinking Maps, Inc.
Thinking Maps provide a common language for teachers and students to use to discuss metacognition--thinking about your thinking. When students create a Thinking Map, other students and the teacher can clearly and explicity see what was going on in the student's brain.
Regarding research behind the maps, Thinking Maps, Inc., explains why the maps work on their website. Here's a summary from their website:
"Thinking Maps® have assisted many educators and students with the learning process. By linking a visual pattern to specific thought processes, Thinking Maps® enable students to develop neural networks for thinking that the brain recognizes and builds on continuously. Thinking Maps® enhance the student's ability to independently transfer thinking skills to content learning across disciplines and to lifelong learning. Through repetition, consistency and extension, the use of Thinking Maps® strengthens networks for thinking which in turn enhance the brain's natural ability as a pattern detector."
Thinking Map, Inc.'s website also includes data from schools across the country who have improved standardized test scores since implementing Thinking Maps.
David Hyerle developed Thinking Maps using the brain research of Art Costa, Al Upton and Robert Marzano. Hyerle summarizes research into the successes of Thinking Maps that is found in his book Student Successes with Thinking Maps. For more information explore Hyerle's website, mapthemind.com.
Even more research on student successes with Thinking Maps can be found at Thinking Foundation's website.
One question that students always ask is: Do bubble, double bubble, and circle maps really need to be circles?
The answer is YES. Since the Thinking Maps are a common language and since the brain is a pattern detector, students and teachers need to keep seeing the same shapes and format for the maps. Some students may believe that strict adherence to these shapes and forms is ridiculous and make circle and bubble maps with squares. However, to use the maps to their optimum benefit, the brain needs to detect these common language patterns. Consistency is the key!
bubble map from thinkingmaps.com
5 comments:
I really like the quote above about teaching students to think. I completely agree with it and feel that it's similar to the saying why give a man a fish when you can teach him how to catch fish.
i thought this was really interesting because i love doing thinking maps, i use them for everything, school realted or not. i never knew that consistancy was key to making the maps, but the reasoning makes sense. example the dubble bubble map you must always use circles.
I would disagree with the assertion that thinking maps need to be a certain shape. (well, beyond the fact that they seem to have been trademarked.) I can't imagine anyone having trouble reading words on a map just because they're in a square rather than a circle. If there is indeed a problem with that, it means that far more emphasis is being put on the format of the thinking maps than on the thinking itself. And that's bad.
Thinking Maps Inc. also seems to think that their product is some kind of mind-reading device that's capable of taking direct snapshots of a student's brain. I would argue that many students have to actually change their thinking just to comply with the thinking map. For example, the bubble map forces you to reduce everything to one-word adjectives, which really limits what you can say (and spawns such words as "sonly" and "studentish").
Maybe I was unclear. It's not that you can't read the information in a square over a circle, the reasoning behind using consistent shapes is that "the brain is a pattern detector." And if you use the same patterns and shapes, then your brain, your co-workers' brains and your teacher's brain will also be seeing the same pattern and more easily know what you are thinking. It's similar to seeing a stop sign in any country; even if you don't speak the language, you know by the shape that you should stop.
When you are confronted with a bubble map again and are forced to use adjectives and adjective phrases (e.g. I could have written "green about organic cooking") and you are having trouble capturing the adjective qualities of "son," for example. Make a circle map of "son" and define it. Your thinking will actually be extended to many more ideas instead of limited to the adjective "sonly."
I do apologize for the criticism. I just feel that there's room for some healthy debate about thinking maps, rather than having them paraded as a Magic Bullet (tm) for everything. My reasoning is that thinking maps tend to standardize thinking a bit too much, which kind of quashes creativity. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but I do believe that many thoughts are too intangible to really fit into such a concrete, pre-defined outline. I understand thinking maps being helpful for reviewing information, but they seem useless for expanding knowledge. If computers are indeed going to outperform humans someday, we can't be thinking the same way they "think," or we'll go obselete.
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