Change and complexity are creating a need for increasing levels of literacy in science and technology. Presently, we are beginning to provide students with clear contexts in which to learn, including clearly written text, visual displays and maps, and more effective instruction. We are also beginning to give students tools that promote their own…

This article reviews three major uses of the concept-mapping strategies for postsecondary learning: the external representation of concept maps as an external scratch pad to represent major ideas and their organization, the mental construction of concept maps when students are seeking a time-efficient tool, and the electronic construction and…

This article reports the use of concept mapping to reveal patterns of student learning (or non-learning) in the course of master's level teaching for research methods. The work was done with a group of 12 postgraduate students, and the concept maps of four individuals produced "before" and "after" a single teaching intervention…

This paper reports on an aspect of the EC funded Argunaut project which researched and developed awareness tools for moderators of online dialogues. In this study we report on an investigation into the nature of creative thinking in online dialogues and whether or not this creative thinking can be coded for and recognized automatically such that…

Business education requires students to have knowledge about corporations and the relationships between them. Sometimes students, in particular non-traditional ones, may not have either this knowledge or the skills required to obtain it. The Business Web guides students in acquiring information about businesses and understanding their…

This "Focus On" discusses curriculum mapping, a process that allows educators to align the curriculum both within and across grades and to ensure that the curriculum is in line with school, local, and state standards. It outlines the steps of the curriculum mapping process from planning the mapping initiative to creating and editing curriculum…

Purpose: This article reports on a study to identify "building blocks" for quality report cards for geriatric care. Its aim is to present (a) the results of the study and (b) the innovative step-by-step approach that was developed to arrive at these results. Design and Methods: We used Concept Mapping/Structured Conceptualization to…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe a method of teaching that is based on Novak's concept-mapping technique. Design/methodology/approach: The paper shows how concept mapping can be used to measure prior knowledge and how simple mapping exercises can promote the integration of teachers' and students' understandings in ways that are meaningful.…

Beyond acknowledging for spatial--more specifically map--literacy to the intellectual development of lifelong learners, teachers need to know how they might teach these tools. This article describes a collaboration to help teachers integrate spatial literacy in the school. The author suggests excellent web resources that supported an integrated…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present information about a team-teaching course on sustainable development (SD) for educators in an institution of higher education, Monterrey Campus of ITESM in Mexico. Design/methodology/approach - Four faculty members were invited to work together with the Sustainable Campus Programme coordinator in the…

So-called "radical" and "critical"pedagogy seems to be everywhere these days on the landscapes of geographical teaching praxis and theory. Part of the remit of radical/critical pedagogy involves a de-centring of the traditional "banking" method of pedagogical praxis. Yet, how do we challenge this "banking" model of knowledge transmission in both a…

In the 1990s, courses on sustainable development (SD) were introduced in technological universities. After some years of practice, there is increased interest in the evaluation of the most effective ways for teaching SD. This paper introduces the use of conceptual maps as a tool to measure the knowledge acquired by students when taking a…

Three sections of the same distance education class completed a series of Web-based concept map assessments using one of two methods. Open-ended maps applied in section 1 led students to conduct more relational thinking overall, but variance in map items was very high introducing more subjectivity in scoring. Pre-selected term mapping applied in…

The use of design patterns is now well established as an approach within the field of software systems as well as within the field of architecture. An initial effort was made to harness patterns as a tool for elaborating the design of the elements of personal learning environments as part of the University of Bolton's Personal Learning Environment…

Universities are increasingly characterized as businesses, and higher education as an industry. Yet there has been little empirical work to support claims of growing corporatization--and no theoretical basis offered to test them. To motivate research and discussion from a cross-disciplinary perspective, I examine three analogies for the…