ORGANİZİNG THINKING THROUGH VİSUAL DIAGRAMSAND GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

HAYRİYE SAKARYA

“The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought.”

A. Einstein

According to the University of Maryland, critical thinking is "skillful and responsible thinking in which you study the problem from all angles, and then exercise your best judgment to draw conclusions.“

With the help of visual aids that show all the connections.

GRAPHİC ORGANIZERS AND DIAGRAMS

Visual representation of knowledge that structures information by arranging important aspects of a concept or topic into a pattern using labels.

Basic categories are; Cyclical organizers, Conceptual organizers, Sequential organizers, Hierarchical organizers.

WHY TO USE GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS?

Thinking Skills and Graphic

Organizers

To make connecti

ons among

pieces of informati

on

To break information into

manageable

chunks

To provide a means

to observe and

assess the students’ thought

processes.

THİNKİNG SKİLLS AND GRAPHİC ORGANİZERS

TYPES OF GRAPHIC

ORGANIZERS

KWHL CHARTTo make students identify their prior knowledge and let them set theirown targets and means of learning.

Students are required to write down what they have learned to show the newknowledge they have obtained.

BİG QUESTION MAP

To help students improve their research and problem-solving skills.

Students are trained to plan their research and investigation of a topic and thus promote their ability to learn and think independently.

BIG

QU

ES

TIO

N M

AP

HIERARCHY DIAGRAM

To help students see superordinate and subordinate categories of a concept or topic.

It clarifies relationships between and among concepts/topics in different levels.

HIE

RA

RC

HY

D

IAG

RA

M

Raise Thinking What is the strongest power for each section?

1 2

3 4

HIERARCHY DIAGRAM

MULTIPLE MEANING MAP

To help students explore concepts with more than one meaning, definitions, examples and categories.

It is an excellent tool to develop students’ skill in creating associations and conceptual links.

MU

LTIP

LE M

EA

NIN

G

MA

P

ONE AND ALL ORGANIZER

To help students uncover similarities and differences among several items.

It is designed to facilitate the development of students’ comparing and contrasting skills.

ON

E A

ND

ALL O

RG

AN

IZER

VENN DIAGRAM To help students

develop skill in comparing and contrasting similar and/or different information.

A Venn diagram may consist of two or more circles.

VEN

N D

IAG

RA

M

CHARACTERİSTICS MAP

To promote students’ critical and analytical thinking about key concepts and their characteristics.

Students are expected to list the major characteristics of a concept and illustrate with examples.

CH

AR

AC

TER

ISTIC

S

MA

P

DATA GRIDTo help students organizeinformation into different categories.

It allows students compareand contrast information according to various criteria.

Students are thus trained to see patterns of information and are able to generate hypotheses.

DA

TA

GR

ID

CIRCLE ORGANIZER

To help students understand the sequence of events in a process.

On a sequence circle there is a consecutive flow of events with the last cycling back to the first event.

Sequence circles are appropriate to represent the relationship of events that are continuous.

CIR

CLE O

RG

AN

IZER

SEQUENCE LADDER

To help students understand the sequence of events.

COMPARE MAP

To help students compare two concepts according to a set of criteria.

Students can make use of it to record a discussion between two concepts/subjects and as an organizing tool for comparison.

DISCUSSION MAP

To help students consider both sides of an issue before drawing conclusion.

Students are trained to develop skills in comparing and contrasting points of view from different people.

PERSUASION MAP

To help students get familiar with the process of persuasive writing.

Students are required not only to identify evidence in support of their argument, but also to acknowledge opposing opinions.

PROBLEM-SOLVİNG ORGANIZER To help students

develop the problem-solving skills that they need throughout their lives.

Students are trained to pose and evaluate possible solutions to problems.

DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER LEVEL OF THOUGHT

DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER LEVEL OF THOUGHT Higher-level thinking prompts more use of

language.

Students have more exposure to the language of thought.

New content vocabulary is clearly presented on the organizer.

Students must incorporate their own words when summarizing the information presented on an organizer.

ACTIVITY1: MAKING CONNECTIONS

1. Break a subject up into smaller topics

2. Split your learners into groups and give them each a topic

3. Have each group build a mindmap around their topic

4. Post all the mindmaps up on a wall so everyone can see them

5. Have your students discuss where their mindmap overlaps or correlates with the other mindmaps

ACTIVITY 2: CAUSALITY Learners will begin to see how factors impact a

subsequent event, enabling them to think about causality.

1. Choose a specific event (i.e. 2008 economic crisis)

2. Make the event the center of a circle

3. Build out circles from the center that will correlate to degrees of impact

4. Have learners share factors that contributed to the event

5. Add these factors to the circles – primary factors on the closest circle and lesser factors extending out

REFERENCESBromley, K., DeVitis, L. I. and

Modlo, M.(1999). 50 Graphic Organizers for

Reading,Writing & More. New York: ScholasticProfessional Books.

The Use of Graphic Organizers to Enhance Thinking Skills in Learning of Economics