Organizadores graficos, mapas conceptuales y mapas mentales educacion fe Pe bilingiie egIndex 1. Objectives. 2. Graphic organizers to improve reading. 3. Types of graphic organizers. Descriptive or thematic map. Problem and Solution map. ‘Comparative and contrastive maps. ‘Compare ~ contrast matrix. Continuum scale. Series of events chain. Cycle map. Coherence. Creativity. Consistency. 4. Differences between graphic organizers, concept maps and mind maps. Graphic Organizers Mind Maps. Mind Map. 5. Concept maps and reading. 6. Conclusion. 7. References.tech OBJECTIVES + Analyze the differences between graphic organizers, concept maps and mind maps. + Know and reflect about the possibilities of graphic organizers as a tool to improve reading comprehension. + Know different types of graphic organizers. + Know and analyze benefits of concept maps and mind maps for reading comprehension. GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS TO IMPROVE READING ‘According Hall & Strangman (2002) “A graphic organizer is, a visual and graphic display that depicts the relationships between facts, terms, and/or ideas within a leaming task’ Graphic organizers are also sometimes referred to as knowledge maps, concept maps, story maps, cognitive organizers, advance organizers, or concept diagrams. Graphic organizers, as visual cues, can help students build links between verbal and non-verbal representations of information, making the abstract knowledge concrete within the conceptual range of the students, and thus enhance understanding. Graphic organizers present the relationships between ideas within a larger concept and make them more organized, so students can understand and retain them easier. Graphic organizers, as virtual cues, can “show at a glance the key parts of a whole and their relations, thereby allowing a holistic understanding that words alone cannot convey’ (Jones, Pierce, & Hunter, 1989, P.21) and therefore, facilitate comprehension and leaning, Following Nation (2004, p.20), language teaching wolves the detailed reading of texts with the two goals of understanding the text and leaming language features’. On the other hand, according to Meyer (1975, 11985) understanding a reading text often goes through two levels of comprehension: the local understanding of every single detail of the text in a bottom-up manner, and the global understanding, related to get ‘an overall idea about the gist of the text’ . Therefore, effective reading instruction should foster both reading levels. In this sense, graphic organizers highlight the organization of text information and raise readers’ awareness of this organization. In order to guarantee their quality, teachers can take into account some aspects: + The teacher can illustrate through graphic organizers how the ideas in a text are structured to help students ‘to understand them, + Graphic organizers may be used before reading to activate background knowledge, or as post organizers, after finishing the reading material to strengthen comprehension. + It seems that Graphic organizers developed by the students themselves are normally more effective and provide opportunities for students to deeply Organizadores gréficos, mapas conceptuales y mapas mentales | 3 + Teacher instruction on how to use graphic organizers is also important for their effectiveness. Graphic organizers can produce greater positive effects when, the instructional context includes Explicit instruction, teacher modeling with independent construction, as, well as teacher feedback are also important. + To help students create good graphic organizers, teachers can work with them about how to make use of linguistic clues and to practice certain skills, like summarization. TYPES OF GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS There are several types of graphic organizers. Some of them are attribute chart, story map, main idea and detail chart, cause and effect diagram, Venn diagram, flow diagram, sequence chart, concept map, big question map, circle organizer, and discussion map. Each graphic organizer best suited to organizing a particular type of information DESCRIPTIVE OR THEMATIC MAP Works well for mapping generic information, and for ‘mapping hierarchical relationships. + Network tree can be used to organize hierarchical information, reflecting superordinate or subordinate elements, + Spider Map is useful when the information is related to a main idea or theme and doesn fit into ahierarchy (Figure 1-2) Newoork tree Figure 1. Nowoork vee Spider map Tope concept Figure 2. Spider maptech PROBLEM AND SOLUTION MAP Can be useful for organizing information contains cause and effect problems and solutions. + Problem-Solution Outline helps students to compare different solutions to a problem. + Sequential Episodic Map is useful for mapping cause and effect. + Fishbone Map is useful for complex and non redundant cause-effect relationships (Figure 3) Fishbone map. Figure 3. Fishone wap COMPARATIVE AND CONTRASTIVE MAPS Can help students to compare and contrast two concepts according to their features. COMPARE-CONTRAST MATRIX ls another way to compare concepts’ attributes Comparative and contrastive map conesst2 Concept? é (lsh Figure 4. Comparative and conirasive map, Compare - contrast matrix Atribute 7 Atribute 2 Atribute 3 Figure . Compare contrast matrix Organizadores gréficos, mapas conceptuales y mapas mentales | 4 CONTINUUM SCALE Is effective for organizing information along a dimension such as less to more, low to high, and few to many (Figure 6). Continuum scale ——_——_ Tow High Figure 6. Contuurn scale SERIES OF EVENTS CHAIN Can help students organize information according to various steps or stages. CYCLE MAP Is useful for organizing information that is circular or cyclical, with no absolute beginning or ending (Figure 7- 8). Series of events chain Initiating event Event 1 J Event 2 TV even Event 3 Final Figure 7. Series of events chain cycle s x Figure 8. Cycletech In order to construct any kind of graphic organizer it is important to consider some factors (Baxendell, 2003): + Coherence: in order to avoid distractions, the connections the graphic organizer makes have to be clearly labeled and the information covered should be minimal. + Creativity: graphic organizers should be innovatively constructed to inspire learners’ interest. They have to include enough space for illustrations. + Consistency: to achieve reliability and dependability, graphic organizers should be standard and regularly Introduced into the classroom, DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS, CONCEPT MAPS AND MIND MAPS Mind maps and graphic organizers are NOT the same thing. According to their names: Graphic = picture; organizer= to arrange or order. Graphic organizers are a visual way to put things into categories or order. Mind (related to thinking) - a critical and creative activity of the mind; maps = provide guidance and direction. Mind Maps provide people with guidance and direction for their critical and creative thinking Graphic organizers are generally blackline masters with blank spaces for students to fill n. A graphic organizer is a visual display that demonstrates relationships between facts, concepts or ideas. A graphic organizer guides the leamer’s thinking as they fill in and build upon a visual map ot diagram. Graphic organizers are some of the most effective visual learning strategies for students. Mind Maps should be drawn by the student to represent whatever kind of thinking the student is doing. Each map, like each student's thoughts, should be unique and individualized, Mind mapping is a visual form to offer an overview of a topic and its complex information, allowing students to comprehend, create new ideas and build connections. Through the use of colors, images and words, mind mapping encourages students to begin, with a central idea and expand outward to more in-depth sub-topics. A mind map is a visual representation of hierarchical information that includes a central idea surrounded by connected branches of associated topics. Mind Maps are diagrams that are primarily used for generating and exploring ideas, brainstorming, creative thinking and organizing information. Mind maps revolve around one main focus topic which branches out in nodes Ina center-out hierarchical structure. Each different node represents a specific subtopic described with symbols and images, which can be further elaborated and branched. When mind mapping, aside from branching Organizadores gréficos, mapas conceptuales y mapas mentales | 5 out the subtopics, it is possible to randomly add words or sentences as independent clouds. This characteristic makes mind maps more personal than concept maps. Mind maps diagrams can be flexible, but they are always radial. Concept maps can include more key topics that are branched out separately and at the same time interlinked with other topics, mind maps represent a central topic that expands in a few subtopics that are also branched ut separately but not interlinked with other topics. Concept mapping and mind mapping seem very similar, but they differ from each other as they are represented by distinct structures and serve for different purposes. ‘A concept map is a type of graphic organizer used to help students organize and represent knowledge of a subject. Concept maps begin with a main idea (or concept) and then branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics. Concept mapping visually illustrates the relationships between concepts and ideas. Often represented in circles or boxes, concepts are linked by words and phrases that explain the connection between the ideas, helping students organize and structure their thoughts to further understand information and discover new relationships. Most concept maps represent a hierarchical structure, with the overall, broad concept first with connected sub- topics, more specific concepts, following ‘An important difference between mind mapping and concept mapping is that concept maps include cross- connections between concepts that ate described with ‘action verbs’ such as, contributes to, causes, requires, leads to, etc. They are organized in a top-down hierarchical structure and are used to show multiple complex concepts and the relationships and cross-connections between them. CONCEPT MAPS AND READING According to Kommers (2004, p. 242) “Concept mapping constitutes a technique for the visualization of a certain knowledge structure in a graphical-diagrammatic form, Thus, concept mapping consists of nodes, representing concepts, and links representing relationships between concepts" Berry (2008, p. 90) also states “a concept map is a way for students to represent their understanding of the connections between and among the important concepts that they encounter in their learning” ‘A concept map is a diagram used to visually organized information. A concept map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and Parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those,tech Organizadores gréficos, mapas conceptuales y mapas mentales | 6 Concept maps help students organize and understand more clearly new information to be learned, and they can link their prior and new knowledge. This makes concept maps a good tool for teaching and learning reading comprehension. Concept mapping is a kind of graphic organizer for teaching students about the meaning of key concepts in their reading (Schwart, 1988) Concept mapping helps students understand the main attributes, qualities, and characteristics of a concept or of word meanings. It can be used before, during, and even after reading to enhance students” comprehension of a text (Urquhart & Frazee, 2012). Concept maps have other benefits related to learning and reading comprehension: + Helping students brainstorm and generate new ideas. + Encouraging students to discover new concepts and the propositions that connect them. + Allowing students to more clearly communicate ideas, thoughts and information. + Helping students integrate new concepts with older concepts, + Enabling students to gain enhanced knowledge of any topic and evaluate the information. According to Pannen (2001, p. 121), in language teaching, especially in teaching reading comprehension there are some procedures that can be used for building concept maps: 1. Start with the main idea, topic, or issue to focus on. AA focus questions can be useful in order to set the context of the concept map. It can be something to 2. Determine the key concepts. Find the key concepts that connect and relate to the main idea and order them, the most general, mostinclusive concept comes first, then link to smaller, more specific concepts. 3. Finish by connecting concepts. Creating, linking phrases and words. Once the basic links between the concepts are created, add crossed links, which connect concepts in different areas of the map, to further illustrate the relationships and strengthen the understanding and knowledge of the students, about the topic. On the other hand, Mind Mapping technique is one of the techniques that can improve the English ability of the students. Mind mapping itself is popularized by Buzan in 1964. Buzan (200719) states, “Mind-map is the chosen instrument that could help a person to sharp the memory”. It is useful to help students learn more effectively, improves the way they record information. This can be useful for both scanning and skimming There are two reading techniques commonly used: scanning and skimming. Nuttal (1982:34) describes “scanning as” glancing rapidly through a text either to search for a specific piece of information (a name, a date) or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a give purpose. Scanning is the ability to locate specific information as rapidly as possible. Scanning also is used to find out the detail’s information from the passage. He also defines skimming as glancing rapidly through a text to determine its gist, for example in order to decide whether a research paper is relevant ‘to our own work (not just to determine its field which we can find out by scanning), in order to keep our selves superficially informed about matters there are not greattech According to Buzan (2007:116), mind mapping gives many advantages as follows: Memorize everything permanently. Master the fact, number and the formula easily. Increase the concentration and motivation. Pepe Memorize the names, the events in history, and the drama text. Rememorize again the information easily. 6. Decrease a half of the studying time. Teachers can use mind mapping technique because it can help the students to comprehend content of the text, and ability in reading comprehension can be improved by Using of mind mapping technique. CONCLUSION Graphic organizers, concept maps and mind maps are useful tool for learning, and for improving reading comprehension. They can be used in the English as second language classroom. They allow students to make connections between meanings, to organize them and to connect prior and new knowledge in order better understand a text. Although they are similar techniques, they have some differences, as they are represented by distinct structures and serve for different purposes. Organizadores gréficos, mapas conceptuales y mapas mentales | 7 REFERENCES 4. 10. " Bellanca, J. A. (2007). A guide to graphic organizers: Helping students organize and process content for deeper learning (2 ed.). 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