Questions

By teachers:

-- probe students on how much the student knows about the topic

-- help the student improve, refine, or expand the concept map

Questions

By teachers:

-- little research on question asking during concept mapping

-- See work presented at cmc2006 on preschool and elementary school concept mapping, reporting question-answer dialogues (among them, Mancinelli; Cassata; Beirute…)

-- few opportunities at the university level

Questions

Chacon (2006): The Pedagogical Question as a mediating instrument during Cmap construction

Three moments during construction of Cmap:

-- defining the context (why are we addressing this problem? why use Cmaps? where do we find information?…)

-- development of the Cmap (focus question, inquiry questions - where? what? who?… verification/validation questions)

-- review (through questions student takes cognizance over how he/she build the Cmap)

Focus Question

-- Clearly specifies the problem or issue the Cmap should help to resolve

-- Good focus question leads to a better Cmap

-- Students (cmappers) deviate from the focus question

-- Other ‘focus questions’ are usually generated during Cmap construction, leading to research/search that result in refinement and other Cmaps

Questions by Students

-- Among students:

Collaboration

synchronous, asynchronous

annotations, discussion threads, knowledge soups

--Students as interviewers / knowledge engineers

-- learn how to ask questions

Dynamic vs Static Knowledge

-- Dynamic thinking is required to build Cmaps showing explanations: Cmaps that deal with events as opposed to objects

-- In a huge collection of Cmaps less that 4% of propositions were ‘dynamic’ (Safayeni, Derbentseva & Cañas, 2005)

e.g.

Concept Mapping is a useful tool for Effective Learning

Improvement in the Quality of Concept Mapping may lead to more Effective Learning

Dynamic vs Static Knowledge

-- In a series of experiments (reported in cmc2004, cmc2006) we have evaluated the effect of:

-- Enforcing a Cyclic concept map structure

-- Focus Question

-- Quantifier in the root concept of the Cmap

Looking effects on:

-- Number of dynamic propositions

-- Number of quantified concepts

Cyclic structure < focus question < quantified root concept