Scientist-Educator Collaborative Workshop Workshop Evaluation: Concept Mapping

Held at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, ME Friday, November 22, 2008 through Saturday, November 23, 2008

Concept maps are designed to help teachers and their students understand connections and complex relationships. At COSEE-OS workshops, this tool is used to build understanding about climate and oceanography content. For scientists, concept mapping helps them share their understanding of connections in the earth system. For educators, concept maps can be powerful tools for exposing and clarifying topics in the classroom. For more information about concept mapping, visit this page.

The feedback about concept mapping from the informal educators has been very positive. In their post-workshop evaluations, when educators were asked, "Do you think the process of concept mapping helped you think through the topics you learned during this workshop?" 86% of them said "yes" (n=14). 93% of participants also responded in the affirmative when asked if concept mapping was a helpful way to "share ideas and build a bridge for communication with scientists." Educator responses also showed that they considered concept mapping to be a highly effective tool in helping them to present ocean-climate science topics, as shown on the scale above.

Quotes from Workshop Participants

"[Concept mapping] organized my thinking and added new perspectives."

"[Concept mapping] connected ideas in a pattern that reveals their meaning and significance."

"A great way to help visualize what is most important."

"[The concept mapping process - the creative process] was difficult at first! I wanted to make sure each and every post-it note (concept) was connected to the other concepts where it should be, but I realized later on that I could go back and do this later on- I didn't have to show every little detail initially. I could start broadly and work down to the details. I think this was a very enjoyable experience, and I hope it was for the educators too."