Concept Maps Exercise

[klbarnes20]

Have we ever considered asking learners to look at the Instructor Training curriculum and create a concept map based on that? What I like is that its still practice creating and applying concept maps, but it also provides a visual of the material being covered in the workshop. This exercise would help organize and reinforce what we are learning about teaching and how it all fits together.

This would likely require more time. Perhaps make this an individual exercise followed by whole group discussion rather than a breakout room activity? This might also work as homework either before day 1 or before day 2.

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[amyehodge]

I have several times now created a concept map of the lesson that includes concept maps as I teach it on a white board. I stumbled on this when preparing to teach this section once and creating a concept map for myself in order to better understand the connections between all the pieces of this lesson. I think it has worked really well.

I also like using the concept map as a closing exercise (I haven't taught in a few months -- I assume that option is still there) as a way for them to synthesize everything we've talked about, but for those learners for whom that seems a bit overwhelming, having them do this for one of the lessons would be good as well, I think.

[LuSantof]

I recently participated in a Carpentries Instructor Training and one of the closing activities was to generate a concept map based on a non-exhaustive list of the topics covered. I thought it was very useful because it allowed us to 1) practice concept mapping and 2) organize and fix the knowledge gained during the training.

A suggestion I have, at least for online trainings, is to encourage the use of https://excalidraw.com/ to create the concept map. This tool was mentioned to us by the trainers, but it was also said we could do it on paper. Going for what I knew better, I created my map on paper. But I was curious, so I immediately transferred it to excalidraw: it was much easier and faster than expected. The reasons why I suggest encouraging the use of this (or a similar) tool is that now 1) I have a digital copy of my map that I can easily refer to and 2) I discovered a resource that I can use for online teaching, mentoring and office hours! This tool works much better than others I tried before (e.g. Zoom whiteboard). This is one of the several tips that I learned in the training which will be useful not only for instructing Carpentries workshops, but for teaching in general.