Concept map

When I asked my subject to come up with a concept map for the causes of seasons, her first reaction was to jokingly ask who needs a map for that. So I had to explain to her what a concept map is all about. Still, she keeps throwing me all kinds of questions, such as what do you mean by "the hierarchical structure of a concept." I then decided to show her a sample concept map so that she could have a concrete idea about what a real concept map should look like. Before this, I had no idea that the concept of a concept map itself takes extra time and effort to be delivered. It appears that an "anchor concept maps" is much needed when we try to engage people to complete this task for the first time.

Before reading the materials about this topic, the subject was asked to draw a concept map based on her pre-existed understanding. The map was pretty simple, with a single causal relationship between the "orbiting of the earth" and "seasons". This is a seemingly right answer, since the seasons are in some ways related to the orbiting. However, when I asked her to explain the connection between these two factors, she responded that the when earth is shielded from the sun by the moon, that part of the earth is winter. This is a blatantly incorrect response. Then I showed her the reading and suggested her to pay close attention to the earth's relationship with the sun, rather than with the moon.

I also encouraged her to put down more nodes before she started. This time the relationship between the factors that are involved in the formation of the seasons are organized with much greater detail and logical sequence. She also succeeded in labeling the connections between those factors when I asked her to.

A comparison between the pre and post concept map shows that for one thing, a concept map that requires more detailed description of the knowledge can reveal the problematic conception. For another, the understanding of a certain concept can be changed and enriched and might be able to indicate learning. But before such learning takes place, erroneous prior knowledge should to be identified and corresponding instructions is needs to be implemented.