visual tools in practice - educational impact

Visual Toolsin Practice

Educational Impact • www.educationalimpact.comDesigns for Thinking • www.designsforthinking.com

“The act of mapping was as profound as the invention of a number system…. The combination of the reduction of reality and the construction of an analogical space is an attainment in abstract thinking of a very high order indeed, for it enables one to discover structures that would remain unknown if not mapped. “A.H. Robinson

Visual Tools and Graphic Organizers Module 2 - Visual Tools in Practice

©2012 Educational Impact • www.educationalimpact.com ©2012 David Hyerle Ed.D. • Designs for Thinking • www.designsforthinking.com

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Visual Tools for LearningVisual tools offer a bird’s-eye view of patterns, interrelationships, and interdependencies. They provide guides for making our way in books full of text or among downloaded materials from the Information Superhighway. Unlike geographic maps, which show explicit physical models of the world, visual tools generate and unveil mental models of interrelationships developed by learners, along with the unique patterning capacity of each learner’s mind. The significant difference between geographic and mental maps is that geographic maps represent relatively static, physical entities, whereas the maps we are investigating represent internal, mental, flexible, often quickly changing, and highly generative patterns.

Visual tools as evolving maps reflect our capacities to pattern and reorganize relationships. The similarity of purpose between geographic and mental maps, moreover, is clear: Each is based on the visual representation of a region, a mental space (Fauconnier 1985) that may be heretofore unknown. Each simultaneously displays a view of both the holistic “forest” and the detailed “trees.”

Additionally, maps are much like paintings: They are drawn from a certain perspective and thus have limitations. This means that each map is made in the eye of the beholder, with the instruments at hand, and within the intellectual/philosophical paradigm of its maker. This is best illustrated by the continuum in our belief system about our own planet, from the “flat earth” map made by our ancestors to the astronauts’ perspective from a valley on the moon.

The unique representations derived from making are best expressed through the history of cartography, which reveals that this invention was a turning point for human understanding:

The act of mapping was as profound as the invention of a number system…. The combination of the reduction of reality and the construction of an analogical space is an attainment in abstract thinking of a very high order indeed, for it enables one to discover structures that would remain unknown if not mapped (Robinson I982, p. I).

This quotation is borrowed from H. Wandersee's insightful analysis of the connection between cartography and cognition (1990) He suggests that cartography links perception, interpretation, cognitive transformations, creativity. Wandersee believes that map making serves four basic purposes:

• to challenge one’s assumptions,• to recognize new patterns,• to make new connections, and• to visualize the unknown.

The metaphorical relationship between cartography and mental maps of human cognition is useful, though certainly incomplete. Seeing should not be construed as believing or knowing. Seeing is one modality for perceiving, though for most of us it is our primary modality. Visual perceptions balance with auditory and kinesthetic access to knowing.



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HABITS OF MIND

SELF REGULATION

Persisting

managing

impulsivity

metacognition

gathering data from all

senses

taking responsible

risks

CREATIVE THINKING

imagining, innovating

flexible

responding with awe

finding humor

thinking

interdependently

remaining open

CRITICAL THINKING

listening:

understanding, empathy

striving for accuracy

thinking

with clarity

problem posing

applying

knowledge



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Learning and the “Marzano 9”Researchers at the Mid-continent Research for Educational Learning, led by Dr. Robert Marzano, have identified nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement. As you read the description of a classroom assignment and assessment on the following two pages, consider how the nine strategies are integrated into practical use by a teacher and students using Thinking Maps.1. Identifying similarities and differences: Students systematically compare Native American tribes using the Tree Map and, later, the Double Bubble Map.

2. Summarizing and note taking: Students are note-making, abstracting and summarizing the information from the text using the Tree Map.

3. Reinforcing Effort: Students experience the direct linkage between effort and achievement because the Thinking Maps are used as the center of assessment developed by the teacher.

4. Homework and practice: Students have become fluent with Thinking Maps (over multiple years using whole school implementation) through practice so there is automaticity in the use of the tools for school and home.

5. Nonlinguistic representations: Students are using Thinking Maps as visual tools for transforming linguistic information into conceptual form for deeper understandings and for explicitly showing performance.

6. Cooperative learning: Unlike isolated and static graphic organizers, students are using a common language of thinking and maps for effectively and efficiently working together to construct knowledge.

7. Setting objectives and providing feedback: Students have clear objectives and feedback based on thinking skills/maps questions given by teacher.

8. Generating and testing hypotheses: Students answer higher order synthesis questions about the different tribes because they have created the patterned information using maps, from which they can make generalizations.

9. Cues, questions, and advance organizers: Students already have eight interrelated maps, each reflecting both essential questions and immediately useable tools for thinking... all “advanced” well before the assignment is given.



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English Language Arts Assessment: Reading and Writing

Choose one character in the story who is interesting to you

• Write the name of that character in the circle. • What does the character say or do that tells you what kind of person he or she is? Write one example in each large box. • What do these actions tell you about the person? In each small box, write one word to describe the person, based on the actions you chose for the large boxes.

says or does Word to describe the

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Figure 4.8

Name of Character

One thing the person says or does

One thing the person says or does

Word to describe the person

Word to describe the person

Source: CTB/McGraw-Hill. (1996). English Language Arts Assessment. New York: Author. Reproduced by permission.



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Chapter 2 Overview

Systems Thinking Multiple Intelligences

Habits of Mind

Mind Schemas

Brain Patterning

Natural Networks

David Hyerle, Ed.D. © Designs for Thinking ww.designsforthinking.com



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"Because I've already said all I can say in this particular medium



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visual tools in practice - educational impact

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