Concept Mapping on the Web
PI(s): Brewster, Carlyle C., Fell, Richard D, Cline, Ben E, McKenna, Jim R
Investigators:
Abstract: Evidence suggests that students of agriculture generally do not possess a strong disposition for critical thinking. In addition, instructional goals and assessment in agricultural education are often not aligned. With pressure on educators to integrate science into agricultural education, instructors are being asked to find innovative ways to use computers for the delivery and assessment of instruction, encourage student learning beyond the classroom, and promote cooperative learning and collaboration in the delivery of instructional material between science- and agricultural-based disciplines. An efficient, cost effective, and discipline-independent method to improve students' disposition toward critical thinking is with concept maps. A concept map is a graphical tool that uses concepts and the relationships between and among them to represent an individual's cognitive structure (the way the individual thinks). The primary goal of this project is to develop a web-based concept mapping tool (CMT) that can be used to facilitate instruction, student learning, and collaboration in agricultural science education. The CMT would help to build student competencies for cognitive thinking by allowing them to integrate and synthesize old and new knowledge across science-related disciplines.
Description:
Science programs in agriculture are distinguished from those of other life sciences by their applied nature and by the complexity of the systems they study. As such, modern agricultural scientists are expected to deal with issues that traditionally were considered outside the realm of agriculture. An understanding of problems in agriculture, therefore, requires a depth of knowledge that cuts across disciplinary lines and, an educational approach that considers the complexity of agricultural systems. Because of this, science literacy among many agricultural students has remained low, because students possess only a superficial understanding of science concepts, and an inability to integrate broad ideas and to apply their knowledge in different situations. Also, of the five educative components in any teaching episode (learner, instructor, subject matter, social environment, and assessment) the assessment of shared meaning between instructor and learner is often overlooked in determining the quality and hence the level of science literacy that is achieved. Shared meaning is central to our ability to determine whether understanding by instructor and student of the subject matter is congruent. Shared meaning, however, often cannot be assessed adequately by traditional means because these measures tend only to evaluate factual knowledge and alternative (not science) conceptions, but not conceptual development and change, or integrated understanding.
A solution to the problem of conceptual misconceptions and poor understanding among agriscience students lies in our ability to understand their conceptual ecology and to evaluate the assessment shared meaning. The conceptual ecology of a student reflects his/her knowledge base and the numerous communities of concepts (both old and new) that he/she engages during the learning process. Proper assessment, therefore, would help us understand how knowledge is constructed, help learners learn how to conceptualize to reduce the effects of alternative conceptions, and assist with the construction of adaptive instruction. A student's conceptual ecology and its relationship to the process of learning provide us with a simple means (the concept map) for assessing shared meaning of instruction in agriscience.
The purpose of the project is to develop a web-based concept mapping tool (CMT) that would encourage higher order thinking among students of agricultural science and improve their ability to integrate old and new concepts within and among disciplines (i.e., to develop critical thinking skills). The project has three specific objectives: 1) refine and improve a preexisting web-based concept map tool (CMT), 2) facilitate its use as an instructional and learning tool in traditional classroom and distance education environments, and 3) facilitate the development of a web-accessible concept map library and provide for web-based dissemination.
So far, we have upgraded the old CMT by improving the database and the look and feel of the web site, by adding administration features, improving the drawing applet, and adding an expert system grading program. In addition, a method was implemented to track student usage time for each concept map assignment, and a guide to assist students using the system was developed. Also, in Fall 2004 and Spring 2005 concept mapping teaching/learning strategy was introduced into several courses (Honors Biology, Principles of Biology courses in the Department of Biological Sciences, and in Insect Biology and Bees and Beekeeping (2 in the Department of Entomology). We are currently, developing the concept mapping library system.
Impact
At this juncture, no quantitative (statistical) data are available to show that use of the web-based CMT improves student learning. However, there is some evidence that students had a better understanding of the topics and the complexities of the topics after completing concept map assignments. For instance, when test performance was compared among students in one section of Principles of Biology (Spring 2005, hard copy of a concept map only) to students in the second section (Spring 2005 using the CMT) the mean and median grades of the students using CMT were much higher by the third examination. We also note that students are realizing that construction of concept maps changes how they approach their writing in other classes, at least on how they organized their thoughts.
Commodities:
Resources:
Disciplines: Information Technology
Audiences: Graduate Students, Teachers, Undergraduates
