Concept mapping helps teachers assess what each student understands, where knowledge is lacking, and diagnoses areas of misconception. Concept maps, used as a brainstorming exercise, help students generate ideas. As a teaching tool, they illustrate the links between the complex ideas being taught, make connections with real-life applications or to other subjects being learned, and relate the new knowledge to the students' existing knowledge. In short, they provide students a way to organize their thinking so that learning becomes more tangible or meaningful, rather than memorization of a bunch of bits and pieces.
The learning process requires students to use new information to draw inferences, make observations, combine pieces of information, generate ideas, absorb new ideas, and make assumptions about the information being taught. In order to do this, three things need to happen. First, the new information must be made relevant to existing knowledge, or the student must consciously form relationships so retaining the new information becomes easier. Second, the concepts' presentation should use language and physical or visual examples that tangibly relate the new and pre-existing knowledge. Finally, the student must make a conscious effort to concentrate on and incorporate the new knowledge in a meaningful manner.
Teachers use conceptual mapping in four major ways. First, they use conceptual maps as a diagnostic pre-assessment of each student's knowledge base. Second, they incorporate this information into effectively planning the curriculum for each class. Third, they provide a visual representation of how the new information connects together and how it links with previous knowledge. Fourth, by teaching conceptual mapping to students, they provide a tool for visualizing what information the students need to gain a better understanding of the subject matter, thereby making students responsible for their own learning process.
Concept maps appear similar to, and associate concepts in the same manner as, brainstorming maps. Concept maps graphically organize material (either categorized or as associations) using nodes, or vertices, and links. The nodes/vertices contain concepts in boxes or circles and are arranged top to bottom, or beginning in the middle and radiating outward. The links consist of arrows connecting the concept nodes and directing the eye to follow the flow of information. A single word or brief phrase labels each arrow, defining the relationship between nodes. To create a concept map, first brainstorm the information to be applied. Next, organize the information in a logical manner. Then, arrange and lay out the map, including links and labels to represent the information in a meaningful manner. Upon completion of the concept map, modify it to a format that can be viewed by others.