Scientist-Educator Collaborative Workshop Workshop Evaluation: Concept Mapping

Held at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye New Hampshire Monday, June 1, 2009 through Wednesday, June 3, 2009

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?" 92% of them said "yes" (n=15). 83% 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 an effective tool in helping them to present ocean-climate science topics, as shown on the scale above.

Watch a video of visiting researcher Jeff Beaudry discussing the reasons that concept mapping is a good tool for scientists.

Quotes from Workshop Participants

"I like it better now that I am not using [concept mapping] as an "assessment" tool and more of a learning/thinking tool."