Concept Maps Support Research and Reading

In this blog post, Miguel Guhlin provides examples of the kinds of concept maps or graphic organizers that facilitate different steps of an information inquiry process (such as Big 6, FINDS, etc.) using the Big 6 as an example.

There are a variety of tools people can use for creating concept maps. The old favorites -- Kidspiration and Inspiration -- are being replaced in schools by the free CMAP Tools from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, as well as Web 2.0 Gliffy.com and, to a lesser extent, Visual Thesaurus.com.

Robert Eiffert's excellent blog, Librarian in the Middle, also provides links to some ready to print organizers and some of the research on the impact of graphic organizers.

On a related note, if you haven't already found and used them by taking the Florida Online Reading Professional Development Course, FOR-PD offers a reading strategy of the month, many of which are accompanied by downloadable concept maps and visual organizers.

All of these offer opportunities to collaborate with and support classroom teachers and, of course, to facilitate students' learning and higher order thinking skills.