Summery of My Concept Map Lesson:
I had talked to my cooperative teacher the day before about having the last 40 minutes of his class time to teach a lesson over concept mapping. Even though, I had my lesson prepared and was ready to teach it, I was a little nervous that night. The next morning, I was much better; calm and ready to teach my lesson. I started the lesson by introducing my self to the classroom: "Good morning class. I am Mrs. Khalandi, you guys can call me Mrs. K if you want. As you all have noticed, I usually come in early in the morning on Mondays and Wednesdays and quietly observe your classroom. Today, I will be teaching a lesson and next semester I will take over the classroom." As I paused for a couple of seconds, I noticed 24 students staring at me and waiting patiently for what I had to say next. "Today, we will be working in groups," I continued. "You mean a group activity?", one of the students shouted. "Yes, a group activity", I replied as I was starting to get nervous and worried, wondering if they didn't like group activities. I was in my own thoughts, as the students shouted, "Yey, we like group activities." I must admit, hearing that made me feel so much better and gave me a boost to start my lesson.
I put the students in four groups of six first, then I asked if any of them knew what concept mapping was and if they had made one before. I got a couple of yes answers, but most of them were confused and didn't know where I was going with my questions. I had brought a sample concept map that I had done over the cell and showed it to the students. By pointing at my own map, I explained what concept words and linking words words were and how they are important in every concept map.
I made a list of words on the board; restaurant, fast food, ethnic, formal, informal, cheap, fancy, expensive, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I explained that these words are concept words and they somehow needed to be connected to each other with linking words. As a group, they were to work together and draw a concept map. Then, they were to come up to the front of the class and explain their map and how these concept words were connected to each other. While they were working on their concept maps, I would walk around the classroom and answer any questions they had.
As they were presenting their concept map, I would point out the problems they were having with the map. For example, one of the groups had used sentence length linking words. I explained that linking words can't be any longer than 2-3 words. Another group had their linking words crossed all over the map and the connections were hard to understand, therefore, I explained that the map needs to be organized and easy to follow. I also pointed out the different hierarchy levels each group had on their map and explained how it was important. After the group activity, I assigned the homework and gave them some time to work on it in class.
Overall, the lesson went pretty well and the students loved the restaurant concept map activity. The results of the homework was also pretty good. Some students did do poorly, but most did well. I did however struggle a little with the grading part of this lesson. I found it difficult to grade some of the connections some of the students had made between the concept words. Overall, it was a great experience and I would definitely try concept mapping in my own classroom.