Zielgruppe: Lehrende der Universität Oldenburg

Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge based on constructivist ideas. The students or teachers can use them alike with different purposes, such as to organize the main ideas of a content topic, to focus on research questions, to collaborate on ideas, to present findings, and so on. For curriculum planning, concept maps can be also quite useful because they present in a highly concise manner, using a hierarchical organization, the key concepts and principles to be taught.
By presenting ideas, findings, questions,… in a concept map, the main information is summarized and meaningful learning as integration of new knowledge with the learners’ previous frameworks is encouraged and enhanced.

In this workshop, and based on the pedagogy behind concept maps and the basis to structure them, the participants will create a concept map that represents graphically the key concepts and principles of their course (or a learning unit). The participants will also become aware of the possibilities of concept maps to enhance different research-based learning processes and they will plan its use for one or more of their phases in their course.

The workshop will be held in English.

Objectives
● Identify and reflect on the educational possibilities of concept maps.
● Plan a research-based learning activity including concept maps in one of its phases.
● Create a concept map that represents the main ideas of a course (or a learning unit) in a hierarchical and connected way.

Methodology
- Hands-on activity in the workshop with computers
- Individual and work group
- Presentations of the work