Educators continually strive for better ways to engage students in course content and reflect on learning. Process maps originate from the business field while concept maps are used across disciplines. We adapted the process map to demonstrate its use as an effective assessment tool. This article describes the process of implementing Group Process…

What tools are available to foster independent and critical thought in the music classroom? We propose that visual mapping--a method of representing relationships and associations between a main concept and other ideas, subtopics, or examples--is an ideal tool for doing exactly this. After examining the principles and usefulness of mapping in a…

Prior research on the significance of roles in collaborative learning has explored their impact when they are pre-assigned to group members. In this article, it is argued that focusing on assigned roles downplays the spontaneous, emergent, and interactional nature of roles in small task groups and that this focus has limited the development of…

The concept map tool set forth by Novak and colleagues is underutilized in education. A meta-analysis has encouraged teachers to make extensive use of concept mapping, and researchers have advocated computer-based concept mapping applications that exploit hyperlink technology. Through an NSF sponsored geosciences education grant, middle and…

Self-regulated learners are expected to plan their own learning. Because planning is a complex task, it is not self-evident that all learners can perform this task successfully. In this study, we examined the effects of two planning support tools on the quality of created plans, planning behavior, task load, and acquired knowledge. Sixty-five…

In this paper, the authors examine an algebra-based physics course designed for preservice teachers and explore how the course integrated two pedagogical strategies to bridge the gap between inquiry-learning experiences and the teachers' nature of science (NOS) understandings. The results of this research show that the explicit, reflective process…

The authors describe their design for an Internet-based learning environment called BeyondShare in which students are encouraged to gain a deep understanding of the learning material, reflect on the quality of individual constructions through sharing and peer evaluation, and synthesize cross-unit knowledge by integrating self- and peer-produced…

Our role as teachers in universities should not be to simply keep up-to-date with new technologies; rather, we should be leaders in the use of new and emerging technologies to effectively meet the changing needs of learners. (Contains 1 figure.)

Student-centered approach of scoring the concept maps consisted of three elements namely symbol system, individual portfolio and scoring scheme. We scored student-constructed concept maps based on 5 concept map criteria: validity of concepts, adequacy of propositions, significance of cross-links, relevancy of examples, and interconnectedness. With…