GRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS: CAN A PICTURE CLARIFY WORDS? “A GOOD GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION CAN SHOW AT A GLANCE THE KEY PARTS OF A WHOLE AND THEIR RELATIONS, THEREBY ALLOWING A HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING THAT WORDS ALONE CANNOT CONVEY” (JONES, PIERCE & HUNTER, 1988) Kristi Roberson-Scott

Is a picture worth a thousand words?  Graphic organizers form powerful visual pictures of information and allow one to “see” undiscovered patterns and/or relationships.  Between 80% and 90% of information we receive from our environments is visual. Our brains process 36,000 images every hour.  Our brains likes to “chunk information- graphic organizers complement the way the brain naturally works.  Memory for visual images-  In one study, subjects shown 10,000 pictures were then later shown the same images again mixed with new ones. The subjects identified the previous pictures with 90% accuracy.

What are graphic representations or organizers?  Pictorial or graphical ways to organize information and thoughts for understanding, remembering or for writing  A way to organize newly acquired and existing concepts into a hierarchical network and depict relationships  Visual illustrations of verbal statements  Graphic forms with corresponding text frames

Constructing Graphic Representations: Concept Map

What are the potential benefits of using a graphic representation?  Valuable instructional/teaching tool to help:  Construct meaning/increase understanding, recall, & higher- order thinking Determine what is important How key concepts/ideas relate What points are unclear  Create interest and help motivate  Organize thoughts/concepts for writing and/or difficult content  Can facilitate meaningful student learning  Accommodates different learning styles  Encourages active classroom discussion

Why Graphic Representations Can Help Our Students  64% of students taking the Learning Styles Assessment at Freshman Experience identified as visual learners; less than 6% identified as textual learners.

Why Graphic Representations Can Help Our Students  When asked “what types of things help you learn best in your classes?” many students gave responses such as:  “I am a visual learner so anything I can see helps me.”  “It is easier for me to learn when a teacher uses visual learning strategies.”  “Graphs, pictures, demonstrations”  “Visual aids, reference, and projects”

Why Graphic Representations Can Help Our Students  When asked “my students learn the most when they…” a number of faculty said:  “See pictures”  “Read actively”  “Use critical thinking methods when reading”  “Do well-organized, step-by-step activities”  “Do activities that present a challenge but not so challenging that they can’t complete the task.”

Why should we use graphic respresentations as a learning strategy (LS)?  Graphic organizers have been applied across a range of curriculum subject areas  Reading is by far the most well studied application for this LS. Science, social studies, language arts and math are additional content areas that are represented on the research base for using this LS.

New Instructional Approach: Return on Investment?  What aspect of learning/achievement can this LS improve? By far the most investigated learning measure in the literature is the sizeable return on investment is improved comprehension of a subject matter. However, numerous studies indicative of gains in vocabulary knowledge following the use of a graphic organizer may be even greater than the gains in comprehension Helps students make connections between existing knowledge and new knowledge

Graphic Representations and College- level learning  Largest effects on learning have been observed for college/university populations  What factors influence the effectiveness of this LS?  Teacher instruction on how to use GRs Can successfully improve learning when there is explicit instruction incorporating teacher modeling and independent practice with instructor feedback  Point of implementation

Graphic Organizers  Help with the following academic tasks (handout):  Describe  Compare/Contrast  Classify  Make decisions  Sequence events  Understand hierarchical relationships

Types of Graphic Organizers  Concept maps  Web or spider maps  Fishbone Maps  Network trees  Matrices  Flow Charts

Types of Representations Major types of representations:  Hierarchy – shows levels and groups  Sequencing- shows steps, events, stages or phases  Matrices – shows comparative relationships – topics, repeatable categories and details  Diagrams – displays or illustrates the parts/components of different objects

Graphic Representation Learning Strategy Session  Graphic Representations as an Effective Instructional Approach  Learn about resources for creating graphic organizers  Graphic Organizer Examples  Create course-specific graphic organizers  Applying the rubric

Questions/Discussions

Breakout Session Part 2: Constructing Graphic Representations  Structure of graphic should reflect the structure of the material/text it represents.  Steps: (See QEP handout in notebook)  1) Discuss graphic representations (can be used as a reading strategy) with students.  2) Explain why and how the strategy could be useful to students.  3) Model the strategy.  4) Select a reading passage (could be a subsection of the textbook).

Constructing Graphic Representations  5) Instructor completes a graphic representation.  6) Ask students to read the passage/text.  7) Ask students to survey the text title(s), subheadings, illustrations, captions, abstract (if available or pertinent), and objectives.  8) Provide a blank graphic representation that you, as the instructor, prepared. Discuss why you selected that type.  9) Questioning: Concepts- hierarchy, timeline, compare/contrast, explanation of something, apparent signal words

Constructing Graphic Representations  10) Complete the graphic representation with the students. Explain why you selected the information you did.  11) Assign a passage and ask students to complete a blank representation form that follows the same organizational structure that you modeled.  12) Group work/individual assignment  13) Provide a copy of your graphic representation.  14) Provide feedback to students. (QEP Rubric Handout)  15) Should be a required assignment with credit. Learners, with practice in using graphic representations, will be able to construct a mental model of his/her fundamental knowledge of the material (what is important and how ideas/concepts are related).

Graphic Organizer: Spider Map  Resembles spider web, with the main idea at the center of the web and all other ideas flow out from the center to create the threads.  Used to describe a central idea: a thing (geographic region), process (mitosis), concept (stroke volume & exercise), or proposition.  Key frame questions: What is the central idea? What are the attributes? What are the functions?

Spider Maps  Resembles a spider web, with the main idea as the center of the web and other ideas flow from the center to create the threads.  Graphic representation to describe:  Thing  Process  Concept  Proposition

Spider Map  Possible applications:  Helpful in reading for understanding and writing papers (using it to generate ideas)  Describing a thing (geographic region), process (meiosis), concepts, propositions with support (experimental drugs for cancer patients), etc.

Fishbone Maps  Interaction of a complex event (war, election, nuclear explosion), phenomenon (learning disabilities). This graphic representation is like the spider map but can be used for complex topics with more details.

Fishbone Map Continued  What are the factors that cause X?  How are these interrelated?  Are the factors that cause X the same as those that cause X to persist?

Sequential graphic organizers: Continuum or Chain of Event Maps  Types: Timelines (temporal order), flowcharts (discrete steps completed in order), cyclical organizer (connected steps with last step connected to first), hierarchy  How events or consequences flow in sequence or a continuum.  Progression of time  Steps of a process

Continuum or Chain of Event Maps  Flowchart  Timeline

RESOURCES FOR CREATING GRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS Mike Hill

Word 2007  Word 2007 contains many templates that you and your students can use to map readings  Click on the Insert tab, and then on Smart Art  Smart Art provides templates for lists, processes, cycles, hierarchical relationships, matrices, and pyramids  You also have the ability to modify size and color

Examples of Smart Art

Other Resources  – free mind mapping website  -- free diagramming website perfect for creating flowcharts  Printable templates for fishbone and spider maps are available at several education clearinghouse sites:

ASSESSMENT: USING THE RUBRIC

Applying the Rubric  Domains  Assessment  Data entry  Feedback??

Questions/Discussions