Cheryl Fountain

Concept Mapping Strategies: Content, Tools and Assessment for Human Geography

Abstract This article examines the use of concept mapping for formative and summative assessment of northeast Florida middle school students’ knowledge of human geography. The students were participants in an afterschool, academic, college reach-out program that provided opportunities to test concept mapping strategies that support spatial thinking and stimulate interest in human geography. The study documents the use of concept mapping for assessment of seventh graders’ achievement of a specific lesson and for students’ human geography achievement across all implementation grades. Concept mapping results provided insight into aspects of the curriculum and instruction where appropriate modifications could better facilitate meaningful learning.

Florida Early Literacy and Learning Model: A Systematic Approach to Improve Learning at All Levels

The University of North Florida, in partnership with educational, business, and community agencies, has established the Florida Early Literacy and Learning Model (ELLM) to improve literacy among over 1,000 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds in the region. The ELLM initiative is founded on the concepts of collaborative restructuring, reading research, high-performance learning environments, and family involvement. It has been found to be effective in increasing literacy and reading achievement of young children who have come to school underprepared.

Using Concept Mapping to Assess 4- and 5-Year Old Children’s Knowledge in the Robotics and Programming for Prekindergarten Project

The purpose of this paper is to report on the concept map evaluation of an innovative STEM project for 4- and 5-year-old children. An American university research team developed and implemented a 3-month pilot program using engineering and robotics as the platform for teaching programming and problem solving. The engineering-focused lessons used a developmentally, age appropriate robot (KIBO) to teach simple programming skills while practicing a problem solving process designed to transfer to other settings. Researchers delivered the twice weekly lessons, integrated into the adopted prekindergarten curriculum, and implemented as part of the established center rotations. Researchers used child interviews and concept mapping as a measure of children’s knowledge of robotics and problem solving to estimate growth in their knowledge over time. Results indicated that the children exhibited increased knowledge of robotics, 93 %, and problem solving, 42 %, mostly resulting from the increased use of propositions and cross-links.

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM): Simply a Rotated Concept Map

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the connections between the uses of concept mapping and structural equation modeling (SEM). Concept maps can also be used to help authors organize and structure reviewed literature in a manner that may help them find their voice when adding to the existing conversation on a particular topic. A discussion of the process recently utilized for a doctoral dissertation is presented to provide an example of this organizational process by presenting a summary of the literature review with a concept map of the review and the supporting documents attached to the appropriate concepts as re-sources. Dissertation examples are then used to further demonstrate how the connections between concept mapping the review of literature and using a concept map to visualize the analyses can help students demystify research methodology, especially, the use of SEM.