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Graphic Organizers
How do you get students to see what you mean? How can you teach visualization? Why are some students better readers than others? I believe it stems from the ability to visualize what you are reading. Students that can visualize what they read enjoy having a large imagination. Students who engage their imagination are more likely to be interested in school and are well on their way to becoming a life long learner. We need to help our students visualize our content. We need to help them to see what's in our minds and then be able to help others visualize what they are trying to express. I would like to take a look at the value of graphic organizers in the classroom and how students today, more than ever, need to visualize concepts. This "tuesdays" is dedicated to graphic organizers that come in all kinds and shapes.
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What is a graphic organizer? Teachers are using them to relieve learner boredom, clarify information, create interest, enhance recall, assistance for organizing thoughts and promoting understanding. I normally embrace one website, but this week I found so many great and FREE resources with hundreds of concept maps, graphic organizers and flow charts to help you present visualization strategies to your students that I thought I'd list them for It is so important in these busy days that we help each other share resources. Why reinvent the wheel when others have already made graphic organizers available on the Internet. How did we ever teach years ago without all the amazing resources made freely available to us today?
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Don't be overwhelmed by the vastness of organizers out there. The key is to find a few that you can embrace and make personal. Experiment with enough so that your students begin to prefer specific concept maps. The barometer of effectiveness is how you measure their understanding. I have seen students fill in organizers as busy work or space fillers, but I have also watched students own what they learned. If they are able to explain the content with only the map in front of them, the barometer of success has been reached. If they just read facts and make no links in their understanding of the concepts, they just filled in the blanks and did no more than a fill in the blank worksheet. Graphic organizers are much more powerful than that. How are you using graphic organizers in your classroom?
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How do you know what the right graphic organizer is for the content you are teaching? Believe it or not, it's not that easy. One of my teachers was telling a story about a science teacher who chose the "fishbone" graphic organizer because it looked like science. It became her favorite and everything they discussed somehow fit into the "fishbone." Beware of overuse and always test it out on someone before you use it with your students. If you are unable to get your point across in the "testing" stage, you can conclude that you chose the wrong graphic organizer. For the first few times, always start simple. Get your students accustom to the fact that visualizing a concept is beneficial for both the teacher and the learner. You will know that they know when they can verbalize what they have visualized.
Graphic organizers to share
Houghton Mifflin
Teacher Vision
Education Place
Graphic.org
Freeology
Cornell Notes
Enchanted Learning
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| What is "tuesdays with Karen"?
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"tuesdays with Karen" is a weekly newsletter/blog designed to encourage, equip and empower teachers to be creative with educational technology. Please add your technology comments to my "tuesdays with Karen" blog. |
