I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading about maps and how they can be used to assist understanding. Predominantly my recent interest has been in cognitive maps, but I have been interested in maps of a more general nature for some time. I like maps; I find them interesting and I find that the more time you spend looking at a map, the more you learn about what the map-maker was thinking when it was under construction.
I love other people’s maps – I wish I could draw great maps myself – maps reveal and hide so much at the same time, they are a study as much in what is left out as much as what is included.
I am currently reading Mapping Strategic Knowledge by Huff & Jenkins (2002) (Amazon link) and I was struck by some of their observations in their introduction to the volume. Although predominantly a book about strategic knowledge and organisations and how cognitive mapping (in its various forms) can assist in surfacing ‘hidden knowledge’ I was struck about how the various techniques could be used in an educational setting. It’s this that I wish to write about today.
The book is arranged around the following six themes:
- Maps can connect and organize dispersed organizational knowledge
- Knowledge maps can facilitate organizational activities by simplifying inevitably complex domains
- Maps also have the capacity to represent knowledge at various levels of abstraction
- Maps can surface and organize concepts and relationships that are normally taken for granted
- Maps also have the ability to facilitate communication in group settings and help aggregate opinions within a group
- Maps have the capacity not only to catalogue but also generate knowledge
Maps can connect and organize dispersed organizational knowledge
Within any class of students, there is always a wide range of knowledges and experiences that the students could draw upon to deepen their learning of a topic or concept. Getting students to gather around a large piece of paper to map their understanding of the concept under consideration is a good way to begin to surface this collective knowledge. Initial discussions often seem to revolve around how the group are going to represent their collective knowledge on the map – and this is where I believe some of the best learning can begin. Students have to decide which information is relevant, and which can be safely left out. They only have a certain amount of paper to play with, so it becomes important for them to begin thinking about the form of their map and what they are going to include. Whilst it is true that there are digital alternatives to a sheet of paper that offer the ability to have a (seemingly) endless canvas to utilise that also allow such things as zooming (representations at different scales!) e.g. Prezi (www.prezi.com) the restrictions of space afforded by the sheet of paper being used encourages careful choices about what gets re-presented and at what scale. As groups discuss the what and how of what they are going to include, discussion will tend to involve individuals voicing their different interpretations of the concepts. It is here that the various life-world experiences of the students can become voiced, shared and considered. Knowledge and information that once resided in the heads of individuals is now available for examination and consideration by everybody.
Knowledge maps can facilitate organizational learning activities by simplifying inevitably complex domains
Developing a shared language and understanding of complex issues can help students to draw conclusions about what to do next with their knowledge. Descriptions of complex ideas needs to be kept relatively simple in order to allow for re-presentation, for that is what maps do, they facilitate the re-presentation of knowledge into a format that can bee accessed by multiple users. Decisions need to be made as to how detailed the map needs to be in order for it to communicate its central message. Dennis Wood and John Fels in their wonderful book The Natures of Maps (Amazon link) argue that all maps are propositional, that they are constructed in such a manner as to promote one particular point of view at the expense of others. Decisions of ‘scale’ determine which information is included and at what depth. If, at the completion of the map the students feel that they need to go and learn more about a particular concept or idea that they have been trying to re-present, this can lead to further learning activities/opportunities.
Maps also have the capacity to represent knowledge at various levels of abstraction
Have you seen those wonderful maps that are often included in the National Geographic? Often they will have call-out boxes and other text-based mechanisms in order to expand on interesting or crucial points. It is the ability for maps to be able to link conceptually very different pieces of knowledge that makes them so powerful. An overview sketch (such as the one in the image above) may be enough to ensure understanding between members of a student group, but, on the other hand, more detail may be required in one part of the map to explain a particularly important concept or idea. A well designed map can facilitate the accommodation of detail and still provide an overall context within which the knowledge is located by utilising a coherent structure.
Importantly, mappers’ ability to be able to represent information changes with age and experience. Downs* and Stea (1977) talk about cognitive mapping as “an abstraction covering those cognitive or mental abilities that enable us to collect, organize, store, recall, and manipulate information about the spatial environment. … Above all, cognitive mapping refers to a process of doing: it is an activity that we engage in rather than an object that we have. It is the way in which we come to grips with and comprehend the world around us.” – (emphasis is theirs)
Depending on the diversity of the student group working on the map(s) and their ability to be able to mentally manipulate and re-configure information in order to make sense of it, it is feasible that multiple maps could be produced around any complex set of issues or concepts. By providing differeing levels of abstraction, students can demonstrate various levels of engagement and learning – the metaphor of an atlas is strong here.
Maps can surface and organize concepts and relationships that are normally taken for granted
Generally maps are thought of as representing spatial information, and often of a geographic nature, however mapping of ideas and concepts is also common and various types of (online) tools are being used to help students to understand complex relationships. Using different tools will, result in different results and as W. Martin Davies has shown (forthcoming) using the right tool for the job is crucial. The ‘rules’ of mapping can mean that students are required to make explicit that which they know, and with a map they can begin to show relationships between internalised sets of information. Of course, blanks on a map are also instructive. With a little probing from an instructor, students can be asked to ‘explain the blanks’ and with the use of open-ended questioning students may be able to arrive at insights about their thinking that were previously unsurfaced.
Maps also have the ability to facilitate communication in group settings and help aggregate opinions within a group
Within a group setting the task of representing knowledge on a map becomes one of negotiation (if properly facilitated). More than just aggregate opinions, map-makers are required to negotiate and choose the types of representations that they make. Research suggests that using multi-modalities when teaching can help students access deep learning and that when students are focussed on a task and meaningfully engaged that their ability to store information in their long-term memory is improved. However, it is not just the storage and retrieval of information that good teachers should be concerned with, but the way in which students meaningfully construct their understanding of the concepts under investigation. This sharing of information and opinions helps activate both hemispheres of the brain which cognitive research would suggest can deepen learning, understanding and facilitate creativity.
Maps have the capacity not only to catalogue but also generate knowledge
Maybe the biggest benefit to come from engaging students with mapping techniques as a means of facilitating learning is that the finished product is a static re-presentation of their knowledge at the time of creation. Upon reflection, if students had to re-draw their maps (perhaps for a different audience) often they would be unable to produce a faithful reproduction of the original map as they have the benefit of time to consider what they have produced and build these considerations into the next version of their map. In this way, maps can become living documents, possessed of the quality that they can be updated, changed, disputed, argued over and totally re-drawn as knowledge and assertions are tested and updated.
Searching for ways to engage students in the classroom can be time-consuming and frustrating. The advantage of using mapping techniques is that most students will have a working knowledge of maps and how they ‘work’. What most students won’t have, though, is experience in drawing maps, of being map-makers. The challenge of making meaningful visual representations of knowledge in map form activates many different types of student literacy – students need to be able to work with visual information, analyse and argue over data/information, explain relationships between concepts (spatial awareness), be able to explain their maps to others and last but not least, draw.
Notes:
* No relation – although I have become to think of him fondly as “Uncle Roger”.
References:
Davies, W.M (forthcoming) Concept Mapping, Mind Mapping and Argument Mapping: What are the Differences and Do They Matter?, Higher Education
Downs, R & Stea, D 1977, Maps in Minds, Harper and Rowe, New York.
Huff, A & Jenkins, M (eds) 2002, Mapping Strategic Knowledge, Sage, London.
Wood, D. & Fels, J 2008 The Natures of Maps, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Weick, K 2009, Making Sense of the Organization, vol. 2, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, Chichester.
(Today’s image courtesy of : http://www.flickr.com/photos/pelisipia/377830503/sizes/o/in/photostream/)
