#26 Creating Ideas and Organizing Thinking by Larry Kelly

Background:

Helping students to developing ideas and organizing their thinking is often difficult to achieve in the classroom, but a desirable skill. Being able to develop ideas and organizing thoughts is a higher order thinking skill, a very cognitive learning experience.

Obiectives:

• Students will use the computer program Inspiration, to learn how to organize ideas and information.
• They will create concept maps, idea maps and other graphical organizers.
• Students can structure their work by brainstorming, planning, organizing, outlining, prewriting, diagramming, concept mapping and webbing.

Materials:

Computer lab with the software Inspiration and their subject material, (English, History, Social Studies)

Procedure:

Students will create and modify concept maps using the program Inspiration. They will become familiar with the interface learning to keep their focus on their ideas and not the drawing process. By using the outline view they should become able to prioritize and rearrange ideas to create clear, concise essays and reports.

Evaluation:

Each student will create a concept map and graphic organizers for their own subject area. Each map will be checked for the following:

• Text use
• Use of specific symbols to illustrate ideas and to convey meaning
• Show relationships between ideas with the "Link" tool
• Show relationships between ideas by adding text on the link
• Differentiate among ideas with colors, shapes, patterns, shadows, fonts and styles

Examples of Concept Maps: