Applications of concept mapping to undergraduate general education science courses

Constructivism and meaningful learning undergird the use of concept maps. Concept mapping was applied in undergraduate science courses in a small liberal arts college in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Beginning with the first semester, the instructor used concept maps as advance organizers for lectures and handouts, and students created concept maps as culminating events for the course. In subsequent semesters, student individuals and teams also used concept maps as representations of their thinking about sections of the course; ways to view conceptual structure before and after research; and organizers for a student-created web site. While all applications were useful to some degree, the use of small-group concept mapping was found to particularly enhance use of concept mapping as a tool among the class as a whole and to balance concept mapping with other teaching/learning methods. A student-generated map to organize a class web site linking student research and projects was particularly innovative. While Inspiration software was often used in these applications to generate clear and creative concept maps, the new CmapTools web site should be valuable in furthering integration of instruction and learning and in enhancing collaborative sharing of concept maps among the educational community.